John B. Hays writes in his book Sub-merge, “This younger generation seems to be increasingly disenchanted with a faith life that peaks on Sunday and wrestles the remainder of the week in a spiritual crawl space.” Have you ever felt that kind of claustrophobia? Like all the promises of God, the glory of the Scriptures, the heart palpitating exaltation of grace is only there as some backdrop to a future-after-you-die hope or – worse – some cruel tease in the face of a 9-5 grind strung together by periods of mind-numbing busyness.
I think about it a lot. I pray about it a lot. Even after selling the building and moving into the warehouse, serving the teachers at Cary Reynolds, working with the kids at Pearl Lane, and all the other blessings we’re encountering. I think about spritual vitality and quality of life together in all the transitions that we are still involved with like getting the space up to speed, small groups, and the all decisions about ministry and music and worship. It really hits me when I read Hays’ comment, “As I have listened to young disciples, I sense that they do not want to attend church services that confuse worship and entertainment, joy and enjoy.” (italics in orginal) Many of the Open Table folks have shared the same or similar thoughts.
So what do we do? Is there any hope?
John Hays has a remarkable story of coming alive to God’s call for the poor. It’s one of those stories that really speaks to longings in my own heart. Longings that I sometimes despair will never happen. But then I went on a walk today.
I went to Pearl Lane to talk with one of the kids I work with in the after-school program. Actually, to talk with his mom and get to know her in order to see if there were ways to work better with her son. As it turns out Virginia was at the ministry center talking Chin Te Li, one of the Cambodian grandmothers. We started walking to the apartment down the hot, packed clay paths (there are no sidewalks) strewn with broken glass and debris. As we passed toddlers and moms and grandmothers sitting outside their duplexes Virginia waved and talked with them. There was a group of younger kids from the after-school program who saw me and yelled, “Pastor!” I found my friend playing the equivalent of half-court soccer between some of the units. Seven or eight sweaty kids laughing and knocking each other down over a ratty old soccer ball with a make-shift goal. I talked with my friend until his mom came home, and then Virginia and I had the privilege of talking with her. We learned how to bless her and her son by praying and talking about things going on in their lives.
On the walk back Virginia talked about a couple of kids about to graduate from high school who had been involved with the ministry center at the beginning. I realized that I while I have so much more to learn, that I was actually happy. Aside from the fact that I want to be like Virginia and Sandee when I grow up, I find myself chewing on a more obvious fact – what mattered was being there in time and space.
Life isn’t shared in the abstract. Love is not a principle. A relationship requires time together talking about important things. While none of this is rocket science, it does strike at the heart of many people’s fears (my fears). Christine D. Pohl in her book “Making Room” asks the question, “Why are we sometimes more willing to help people than to share our lives with them? Why do we often prefer to serve homeless, elderly, and disabled people rather than to visit or share a meal with them?”
I don’t have an answer to the question, but I am praying and asking the Lord to show me my heart. I am talking with my wife and my friends about it. In our discussion group on Hospitality on Sunday morning we all committed to take this question before the Lord. I think that this is one of the key answers to getting out of the “spiritual crawlspace” and into the wide-open, terrifyingly wonderful presence of the untamed God.
It’s not a matter of technique. It is about letting his hilarious, beautiful grace redefine everything so that fears fall away and we can take hearts full of love to others where they are. Let’s all talk to God together and ask him to mature us into a people who long to share our lives with other people and not to settle for merely serving them from a distance (geographically, economically, or emotionally).
I hear and see this in so many of the folks that start working with Cary Reynolds and Pearl Lane. They (we) fall in love. In that love people start asking the most amazing question, “How do I move in or closer to be with these people?” Love is cool. It’s upclose, personal, and highly addictive. It makes the Great Commandment to love Him and to love people less a command of obligation and more of a invitation to joy and life. Peace Sources:
John B. Hays, “Sub-merge: Living Deep In A Shallow World – Service, Justice, and Contemplation Among the World’s Poor”
Christine D. Pohl, “Making Room – Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition”
