Justice

…[Y]our iniquities have separated you from your God…

your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. 

For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. 

Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things. 

No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity…

The way of peace they do not know;  there is no justice in their paths.

They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace. 

So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us.

We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. ” 

-Isaiah 59:2-4, 8-9 (NIV)

When James Meyers rented a videotape in 2001, I doubt he ever imagined that it would spend a couple of days in the news cycle in 2016. Amazingly, though, that’s exactly what happened.

     Late in 2001, Meyers rented a VHS tape of the Tom Green “classic,” Freddy Got Fingered. The movie is, by all accounts, quite forgettable. And James, apparently, forgot. Forgot to return it, that is. 

     Cut to March 22, 2016. Meyers is driving his daughter to school, when he’s pulled over for a traffic violation. When the officers ran his license and registration, they discovered that he had an active warrant out for his arrest. They allowed him to drop his daughter off at school before driving to the police station to turn himself in. James was booked on one count of failure to return rented property. He’ll go to court in April to answer the charge, and is facing a $200 fine. Pretty steep for a Tom Green movie. 

     Comments on some of the websites where the story has been posted question why the police wasted their time running down an inconsequential crime like James'. (The officers in question stopped him for an unrelated offense, and were simply doing their jobs in acting on the warrant.) Some have used the story as a forum for commenting on perceived injustices in society: how the wealthy get away with much more serious crimes than this, for instance. Still others say that justice was done: Meyers committed a crime by not returning the video, in effect stealing it, and a court date and possible fine are the correct punishment. 

      Most of the comments, in some way, reflect a concern that justice needs to be done: At least, some specific version of it. James Meyers needs to pay for his crime. The justice system needs to concern itself with much more pressing problem. The holes in the system by which people get away with horrific offenses need to be closed.

     We think of justice in almost exclusively legal terms. In our way of thinking, justice is about the guilty being punished. Justice is when the courts assign the blame for a murder or a rape or a libelous article or a negligent action to the correct person, and then exact the proper retribution. Justice, in our thinking, is regulated by a criminal code.

     Scripture has a somewhat different view of justice, though, and maybe it’s one we should pay more attention to. In the Bible, justice isn’t only about guilt being assigned and punished. In fact, Scripture seems to think that if there is guilt to be assigned, justice has not been done. Injustice in the biblical world occurred when someone did wrong to another. When the poor were taken advantage of, when a widow was cheated out of her property, when a murder or sexual assault occurred, the Bible called that injustice. 

     Justice in the Bible is closely tied to the idea of peace. And not just absence of conflict: peace in the Bible includes security, prosperity, faithfulness, and fair treatment. So if there isn’t justice, says Isaiah, then no one knows the way of peace. When justice is far away, there is only “darkness.”

     But Isaiah points to One who will come to bring “peace” and “justice.” And when Jesus came, he proclaimed that God’s kingdom had come, too, and that folks who hunger and thirst for justice in the world we live in will be filled. He claimed that he brought good news to the poor and freedom for the prisoners. He fulfilled the prophetic promises of a Spirit-empowered Servant who would proclaim justice to the countries of the world — and not just proclaim it, but also bring it about.

     Ironically, Jesus died as a victim of injustice, but he was vindicated in his resurrection. Into this world of injustice and corruption he brought justice, through his own suffering. And that Spirit he received, the one that brought him from the tomb and vindicated him, he pours out that same Spirit on his followers. That Spirit helps us to live lives characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In other words, the Spirit helps us to be people of justice. People who walk the way of peace, and lead others on it.

     The church hasn’t always seen that, and we certainly haven’t always lived it out. But justice is in our DNA. It’s the atmosphere of the Kingdom that we serve and look forward to. We live in it and breathe it in and breathe it out because of Jesus.

     So among people who are hurting, marginalized, sick, weak, and oppressed, may we be known for justice. Not so much by crying in the streets, or litigation, but by loving people, being faithful to them, and  bearing the suffering of a broken world the way that Jesus did, knowing that God is big enough to vindicate us, and them along with us.

     Jesus proclaimed a kingdom characterized by justice and peace. And his church should do our dead-level best to show our world what that looks like. May that responsibility teach us how to live.

Sing

     Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord… 

-Ephesians 5:19-20 (NiV)

So I’ve been singing songs in church all my life. 

     I have a huge repertoire of hymns, gospel songs, devotional songs, spirituals, and contemporary Christian music in my head. (If I had more musical ability, I could vocalize it more accurately, but that’s another story.) I know Charles Wesley and Fannie J. Crosby and Chris Tomlin and Thomas Dorsey (and I know he’s a different person from Tommy Dorsey, the musician more people know).

     I say all that so maybe you’ll hear me when I say this: singing songs in church is weird. It is. It’s weird.

     If you don’t believe me, bring someone to church who’s never been. And when the music starts, tell that person to sing along. Nine times out of town, that person will look at you like you’ve just suggested that he or she strip naked and juggle kittens while standing on a pew. Five times out of ten, he or she might be more willing to do just that, in fact.

     Quick, name another setting where you get together with a lot of people and sing. The National Anthem at a ball game doesn’t count — you aren’t there for that. (Though, listen to the National Anthem sung at a Harding University basketball game…) You can’t, can you?

     Singing in church is weird because, in the world we inhabit, when you want music you download it. Or you stream it. Or you turn on a radio (if you’re some kind of Luddite). Music, for us, is a product. We’re music consumers, and those who produce it are trained and wardrobed and auto-tuned and mixed. They’re professionals, and they’re part of an industry. And our involvement in the process is to buy it and listen to it. Music is made by other people for us to pass the time when we’re driving or working out or relaxing. And live music: well, that’s a concert, where we listen while the professionals play.

     And that explains as well as anything why church leaders and musicians from many different traditions and denominations have noted over the last two decades that the church has forgotten how to sing.

     In a lot of places, the church is more likely today to reflect our cultural assumption that music is a commodity, a product to be consumed. Worship services have in many places taken on the feel of concerts, at least until the sermon starts. The professionals, the musicians, play or sing on stage at the front of the room. Lighting sets a mood. And the job of the assembled church is to serve as audience. “Sing along if you want,” someone up front might suggest into a mic. But it isn’t strictly necessary that anyone take him up on it. The amplified voices and instruments of the worship leaders usually drown out the church anyway. And so the church doesn’t sing. “Aren’t the songs beautiful, aren’t the musicians talented?”

     Am I overstating the case? Maybe, but not by much. 

     The Bible says sing. Not listen, not hum along, not sway in place with your hands raised. It doesn’t say have an emotional response to the ambience set by the lights and music. It says sing. It says be filled by the Spirit, and by the Word of Christ, and express what’s filling you with singing. Doesn’t matter if you can carry a tune in a bucket. Doesn’t matter if you know the difference between a G string and, well, a g-string. Doesn’t matter if the singing sounds good, or impresses visitors, or gives me goose bumps. Sing, for heavens’ sake. Sing, church.

     When the church sings, we speak the gospel to each other. When I hear someone who’s lost a spouse or child sing, You give and take away…my heart will choose to say, “Lord, blessed be your name,” I’ve heard a sermon. When I hear a man who struggles with chronic illness and depression sing Just as I Am, I’ve heard a sermon. When I hear the words of former slaver John Newton’s song Amazing Grace sung, I’m drawn into his experience of the gospel. He has something to say to me, two centuries later. When I sing It Is Well With My Soul, Horatio Spafford is there with me singing the lyrics that he wrote on a transatlantic voyage, near the place where his daughters had died a few days before. When the church sings we speak the gospel to each other, across rooms and across centuries. 

     And of course when the church sings, we speak to the Lord. We express to him what’s in our heart. The psalmist knew that there are some days so full of joy or pain that the only way to express what you’re feeling to God is to sing. Sitting quietly, reflecting on even a beautifully-sung and played ballad won’t do it. Even standing with arms and faces upraised doesn’t quite cover it. When we’re filled with the Spirit, the only thing that will do is that we lift our voices to God.

     Worship music has become a sticky issue in most churches because it’s become about little more than personal preference. Singing in church was never supposed to be about that. It’s about proclaiming the gospel to each other, and expressing gratitude, repentance, and obedience to God. Singing in church is weird, but it’s supposed to be, the way anything that challenges our world’s focus on self will seem weird.     

     So sing in church. Don’t just listen, or meditate, or hum along. Open your mouth and sing. Sing from your heart. And if a song doesn’t quite capture what’s in your heart, sing it anyway, enthusiastically and from your heart, because maybe it was there and you just didn’t know it. Or maybe someone close to you needs to hear exactly those words from your mouth.     

     Sing. Church isn’t supposed to be just an opportunity to hear some great music about Jesus and walk away feeling better. It’s a time to speak to one another and to God. 

Shepherds, Part 5

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. 

-1 Peter 4:10, (NIV)

My college roommate's father, David May, is a member of a small church in Minnesota. His church doesn't have a minister – or a preacher, or a pastor, or whatever appellation for clergy you can think of. They don't have anyone on staff to do “church work” like preaching, evangelizing, hospital visitation, and so on. It doesn't seem like this is a temporary condition from which they're hoping and praying to be soon delivered, either: They don't seem to be looking for anyone, or trying to find funding for the position. They seem to have chosen, at least for the foreseeable future, to get along without “a minister.”

     I’m not exactly objective about this, but I was surprised. “How are they surviving?” I asked myself. “How are they getting by without someone to write bulletin articles or preach on Sundays or answer the office phone?” Believe me, I'm as astonished as you are, but...

     Well, they seem to be doing just fine, thank you.

     I guess that's because when I say they don't have a minister, I mean that they don't have someone who they pay to be The Minister. It turns out that they actually have a whole bunch of ministers, a whole church full of them, in fact. Mr. May wrote an article in The Christian Chronicle  several years ago about this very thing. “People step up and do what is necessary when the responsibility is theirs,” he wrote. “When there is a located preacher the temptation in our busy world is to hope the preacher will get it done.” He goes on:

“[Without a minister], if someone is going to give a devotional talk on Sunday morning, it will be a member. If anyone is to sit with a woman while her husband has surgery, it will be a member. If a visitor is to be invited to lunch and offered an ear and a prayer, it will come from a member. If we are going to reach out to the community around us, the leadership will come from the members.” 

     To be fair, Mr. May doesn’t say that churches who have ministers should get rid of them. I do think, as non-objective as I am about the matter, that a paid minister who loves the Lord and the church and works hard can be a blessing. Paul seemed to think so, too. I do wonder, though, whether the whole idea of a professional clergy as we know it today might just be pretty far from the biblical understanding of who the church is and what it is we're supposed to be doing.

     In the Bible, God's grace isn't all about forgiveness of sins. That's part of it, of course, but God gives us much more than just mercy for when we mess up. The Bible speaks of God's grace in terms of the abilities he gives to people, as well. As recipients of God's grace we have received not only pardon for our sins, but also abilities and opportunities to share God's love and blessings with the people around us. Some can preach, and Peter reminds the church he writes to that they should do so with words God gives them. Some can provide service and assistance, and he tells them that they should do it with the strength God blesses them with. And some have business acumen, or skill in trades, or culinary skill, or medical knowledge, or IT expertise. These are all expressions of God's grace given in the form of talent, interest, education, and so on. And the health of the church  requires that every part does what it's there to do.

     That's the very thing, of course, that the professionalization of ministry can prevent. The minister, or whatever you call him in your tradition, can too easily become the paid ministerial proxy for the rest of the congregation. He does the ministry; the rest of the church just shows up to pay for it. Sometimes church members like it that way. Sometimes, truth be told, so do the professional ministers. 

     If there’s a leadership crisis in the church, then don’t the current leaders in the church have to bear some of the responsibility? Don’t professional ministers like me have to answer for thinking that our agendas, our perspectives, and our emphases are the only ones that should drive the church? Don’t we have to answer for deifying our education and experience, promoting the God-denying philosophy that the church runs on our expertise and hard work? Don’t we have to answer for dismissing the ideas of lay leaders like elders and deacons and Sunday School teachers and VBS organizers as uninformed?

     Church leaders, we have to recapture the awe and expectation that the marvelously multi-faceted grace of God is supposed to generate. God’s grace, and the gifts that come with it, isn’t doled out in seminary. It isn’t passed down from some denominational office, and it doesn’t suddenly descend from the heavens in the form of a dove after 10 years of experience. 

     Neither are the myriad forms of God’s grace given only to those who are like us: who have the same shade of skin, or speak English like it’s their first language, or have attained a particular income level, or agree with me on all my pet doctrines. God’s grace has always been poured out in unusual ways on unexpected people. 

     It isn’t our job as church leaders to create new leaders. It’s our job to recognize them: to see a new generation of leaders being chosen by God, and to encourage them and guide them and lead them until they can take their positions. 

     If there’s a leadership crisis in the church, then just maybe we aren’t doing our jobs.

     So who is God raising up in your church? If you say “No one,” then you’re mistaken. You’re just not seeing it. Adjust your expectations, sharpen your vision. In whose life do you see the unmistakable marks of the varied grace of God? Who do you see faithfully using their gifts of grace to serve the church? 

     Those are the new generation of leaders God is raising up. Encourage them. Provide them resources. Help them. And then get out of the way and watch God turn them loose.

Shepherds, Part 4

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

-1 Peter 5:1-4 (NIV)

I didn’t become a Pastor until about two years ago. I’ve been a minister, though, a lot longer than that.

     That’s because in Churches of Christ, the paid staff person who preaches on Sundays, or prays with hospital patients, or leads youth activities, or what have you, isn’t called Pastor. At least, not by virtue of their position in the church. Pastor, in our churches, is another word for the word we usually use: elder. And it’s these elders, or pastors, who are the leaders in our churches. There are always at least two of them, if there are any. They work closely with any ministers and church staff. But they are the “top level”, so to speak, of leadership in Churches of Christ.

     Folks from other Christian groups would refer to the elders in our churches as lay leaders. That means they don’t necessarily have formal education or ordination. They lead by acclamation, rather than by appointment to a position. They tend to be older, long-time members of the church they serve, long-time Christians, who by virtue of walking with the Lord over the years know something about spiritual leadership. They are chosen, usually, on the basis of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, texts that describe the character needed for such leaders. 

     There’s no question that I’m biased, but I like the leadership structure of Churches of Christ. When we need leaders, our first impulse isn’t necessarily to hire someone from outside. It’s to find someone from inside who has the character necessary to “shepherd the flock.”  

      There’s pretty clearly a leadership crisis in the church. Most churches don’t have a lot of people who aspire to leadership. People are busy with their jobs, their families, their friends, their hobbies, and they just don’t see themselves in leadership positions in their churches. We move often too, and so sometimes we aren’t in one place long enough to grow into a place of leadership.

     I think, though, in a lot of cases the explanation for this crisis comes down to the way we see the church. 

     When we need to acquire something in our world, we go shopping. That seems so obvious as to not require comment, but keep in mind that many of us are only 4 or 5 generations removed (at most) from people who largely produced what they needed themselves. The idea of shopping — for food, clothes, whatever — has not always been the norm.

     But we go shopping. We look for price, selection, shopping experience, parking, store location: we have all sorts of criteria running through our minds. And ultimately, we do business with the producers that check the right boxes in our heads. What we never do is think about who opens the store, orders the inventory, pays the bills, or organizes the stockroom. We’re not supposed to know about that. We’re shoppers.

     So let me get to where I’m going. We tend to see church in the same way. Most of us shop for a church. When we’re moving to a new place, or visiting, or when our current church doesn’t meet our needs in some way, we go shopping. We all do it. Shopping is what we know. And churches reinforce this mindset by marketing themselves to us.   

     To see ourselves in a leadership role in a church requires a perspective shift. It requires that we give up the role of consumer and start thinking about how to manage the store. Leadership in the church calls us to stop looking at the church primarily with a view toward the spiritual experience that it provides us, and instead with a view toward how we can best serve the people who make it up.

     Which brings us back to the metaphor of shepherds. Shepherds care for sheep. They watch out for them. Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep makes shepherding sound difficult, strenuous, nerve-wracking. It’s the kind of job that gets you dirty and covered with wool and the stuff that comes out of sheep, that exhausts you, that requires you to fight and serve.     

     A shepherd can build himself a throne out in the middle of the pasture if he wants to, the better to rule the sheep, but the sheep won’t pay any attention. Sheep won’t be ruled, but they can be led. So in the church, leadership is about minding the way you walk, knowing that others are following you. We don’t drive God’s people. We don’t manipulate them or batter them or command them. We walk as Jesus wants us to walk, knowing that if the church trusts us they’ll follow. 

   To aspire to leadership in a church — and the church desperately needs people who will aspire to leadership — is to recognize that the church doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to the Chief Shepherd, and the glory of leading in his church doesn't come from recognition or affirmation or comfort or honor or security. It doesn’t come from getting our way. It doesn’t come from being catered to. It’s a glory that will never fade away that we’re working for, and it will be given by the One to whom the church really does belong when he returns.

     So, wherever you are, start thinking about managing the store. Begin to see the church not so much as the place to get you spiritual tank filled, but as a place where you can serve the Lord by serving his people. Start thinking about where you can lead now, and what you need to develop as a leader. Talk to the pastors or elders at your church, and ask them to mentor you and help you to grow into leadership.  

     The leadership crisis in the church won’t be solved by ordaining more ministers or enrolling more seminary students. It will be solved only when people who have been saved by the Chief Shepherd decide to give themselves to save others. 

Shepherds, Part 3

Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full  respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) He must not be a recent convert…He must also have a good reputation with outsiders,  so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

-1 Timothy 3:2-7 (NIV)

If character is competence for a church leader, then those who aspire to be church leaders should be developing character. Education is good, Bible knowledge is important, but the essential qualifications for those who want to lead in the kingdom of God all revolve around character formed by the Holy Spirit.

     I know some folks think that no one should aspire to being a shepherd, elder, or pastor, that to want that position is self-aggrandizement. Paul didn’t seem to think that way. What happens to the church if the only ones leading her are the reluctant, the resistant, and the renumerated? Nothing good, that’s for sure. 

     I think there’s a leadership crisis in the church, and it seems to come from a couple of directions. On the one hand, there isn’t a surplus of people in most churches who aspire to leadership. I don’t have statistics for that, except for the demonstrable decline of ordained leaders (pastors, ministers, priests, and so forth) in most denominations. But the sense I get is that there is a corresponding decline of people who want to be lay leaders — non-ordained leaders like elders, deacons, and so forth — in most churches. Simply put, many believers, perhaps most, aspire to leadership in corporations, in politics, in civic and social organizations, but don’t see themselves as one day taking on leadership responsibilities in their churches. 

     To some degree, maybe this is the inevitable result of an ultra-mobile, ultra-transient society in which people come and go from most churches with regularity. Maybe the outcome of changing churches every few years is that we don’t have the time to invest ourselves in the life of the church, get to know and love the people there, be shaped by influential leaders in that church, be and then grow into our own places of leadership. Surely this has an impact, but I think there’s more to it than that.

     Ultimately, to be an elder or shepherd or overseer, to lead a ministry, to teach a class, requires a commitment. In marketplace terms, it requires that we sort of give up the role of consumer and take on the role of producer. And we like the role of consumer. We like to be shoppers, because we’re free to evaluate the religious goods and services on display, to compare them with other churches, and to decide if maybe we want to shop somewhere else. That’s a comfortable role for most of us, one we’re used to living in. We like that producers have to compete for our loyalty. That places us in a position of strength. 

     What’s harder is to go from shopping to managing the store. Leadership in the church calls us to commit to a local community of faith, to bring our best to the place where we are, to sacrifice ourselves in service to those who we would lead. It’s hard, and it’s thankless, and sometimes it’s not even very satisfying personally. It demands that we stop looking at the church primarily with a view toward the spiritual experience that it provides us, and instead with a view toward how we can best serve the people who make it up. In some ways, it’s analogous to the shift that happens in most of us when we become parents for the first time: the focus is off ourselves, and on this child that needs us. (Maybe that’s why Paul sometimes thought of himself as a “father” to the churches he served.)

     But the blame for this leadership crisis in the church can also be placed on its current generation of leaders.

     Church leaders, by and large, tend to be a conservative group. We want to stick with what we know until we’re sure something better has come along. So we stick with the same schedule we’ve had for decades, even if that schedule isn’t working for most of the church anymore. We keep the same style and form of worship, the same songs, the same order, even when a change might serve us better. Conservatism among church leaders can be a good thing — except when it isn’t. And it’s tricky sometimes to know the difference.

     Here’s how conservatism, though, can contribute to a leadership crisis. For one thing, the people church leaders usually want to appoint to leadership positions are the people who they think best exemplify their own conservative spirit. Who shows up at the worship services? Who teaches the classes? Who serves in the existing ministries? In short, who are the people who will best ensure that we keep doing the same things in the same ways for another generation? 

     That might sound right. But it serves to eliminate those who have the character that the Bible wants in church leaders, but who for whatever reason haven’t been well-served by the status quo. It denies dissenting voices a place of leadership, when those dissenting voices are important to hear.

     Again: for church leaders, character is competence. 

     That’s why, for instance, that I don't think the text that says an elder should be “faithful to his wife,” eliminates an unmarried man from consideration. Or that the statement about children eliminates someone who has no children. Those aren’t requirements of status. In the church, competence comes not from status, but from character. The kind of person who leads in the church should be the kind who is faithful to his wife, if he has one, or who would be faithful to his wife, if he had one. This view keeps us from excluding as leaders people of character who, by accident or intention, have never started families.

     To address the crisis of leadership that exists in the church as a whole, we have to start addressing the failings from both directions: failure of the church in developing an aspiration to lead, and failure of current leaders to create a culture in which character is intentionally developed and people are encouraged and supported in growing into leadership roles.