Tim: Ross talked today. A friend told me as I headed to chapel that it was another reconciliation and I said “ohhh boy.” But I have to hand it to Ross, except for one little part that I didn’t think really fit into the message, I would have to say it was one of the better reconciliation messages I have heard. I will address my issue first and get that out of the way.
In the midst of pointing out that we want the benefits of reconciliation with God, but without the cost, he went on a short spiel about how some people who go to church think “oh I don’t like this music” or “I don’t like this pastor” so they go somewhere else. Some people even come to chapel and then walk away and say things like “that message just didn’t speak to me” so they don’t like that chapel. Such people, he said, are being selfish and individualistic. Naturally, I thought of this blog, which of course is a shining model of that very thing. Now I think I get what he’s getting at, and I agree that church and worship is not all about us.
But, isn’t there some aspect of our relationship to God that relates to us as individuals as well? Further, if I’m in a church that never challenges me or encourages spiritual growth in me because the messages are all terrible, am I just supposed to sit there and suffer because to desire a challenge in my life from my fellow churchgoers would be selfish? A lot of messages in my life “just weren’t for me” at the time. That only reflects selfishness if you already believe it’s all about you. Just because I express that a message didn’t hit me where I may have most needed it, it doesn’t mean I think that it’s a worthless message. Neither church nor chapel should be set up to cater to one particular person. But I hope it should, at one time or another, engage everyone. By expressing the particular times it doesn’t, we don’t have to be being selfish. Perhaps we’re just reacting and maybe even that will stimulate some good discussion about the topic.
Having said all that, I have to say that I loved the rest of his message. He talked about a couple aspects of this issue that I don’t hear about often. One was self-reconciliation. This, I think is huge. Forgiving ourselves. I have said in previous posts how I feel about living in constant guilt. I think we need to forgive ourselves and reconcile with ourselves in a way, as weird as that sounds.
A second thing he mentioned was that we want is the benefits of reconciliation with God, but not the cost. We want our reconciliation with God to be nothing more than a cognitive recognition of what he did for us on the cross. I agree that this is pretty common and I can see it in my own life as well. Jesus doesn’t say “take up your cross and acknowledge me,” he says “take up your cross and FOLLOW me.” We don’t like doing it, but we can’t just cognitively believe in Christ, we have to BE in Christ. “Abide in me” he says.
The third thing he said was something I really liked as well. He talked about our tendency to attack various symptoms of our sin infection (or nature, if you prefer). We attack things like lust and racism. But they keep growing back. He said something I have tried to express many times, which is “if we could defeat the sin nature through the blood of Christ, racism would take care of itself.” Reconciliation is so much deeper than attacking racism. It is attacking the sin engrained in us and our world. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight the symptoms, but that we need to attack the disease if we really want to get anywhere substantial. Of course, that’s not easy to do.
Peter: Today chapel was about ‘the God who reconciles.’ He laid out a three-tiered philosophy of reconciliation including reconciling to ourselves, reconciling to God, and reconciling to others. He spent relatively little time on the first two. Surprise, surprise the emphasis fell on the third aspect of reconciliation: reconciling with others. He made a few intriguing and a few less such points.
First I would hearken back to what Tim mentioned about not always liking all the songs, sermons, or whatever in various worship venues. When he mentioned that Tim and I made eye contact because we both thought immediately of this blog. I agree with Tim, in that just because certain songs or sermons don’t resonate or relate to me in particular doesn’t mean I’m anti-reconciliatory. Enough said.
Second, I almost choked when I heard him talk about sins at the end of the night, not because he aid anything particularly odd. Mostly because he mentioned greed, and how we tend to pass certain sins off while concentrating on others… and he was like ‘greed, meh, we’re Americans, I mean, everyone does it, so it’s not that bad…’ and he went on to the next sin. The reason it stuck out overtly so was because of what he had said not five minutes prior. He had been talking about how the devil uses all categorization to create enmity, and how we use categorization to create labels to in turn control others. Well, if that is true, why does he categorize Americans as ‘greedy’ to make a point to tell us how to think. That being said I somewhat disagree with most of what he said about categorization. Just the idea that categorization isn’t a good thing Is, I think, bogus. It is how humans think. If we didn’t form categories or stereotypes we would function on such a low level. I do agree that they can be abused, which is what Manders was talking about. I don’t think, however, that stereotypes in and of themselves are ‘bad.’
Lastly, I admired greatly his conclusion. He stated that we have an errant tendency to concentrate on individual sins, some over others, instead of focusing on the root problem, that is, ‘the sin nature.’ If you read an earlier post of mine, you will know that I am undecided as to what exactly the sin nature is, however I would agree that the root of sin is deeper than sin itself, and that is where one’s energies should be concentrated, as Ross purports. However that being said, although all sin is equally sin, I would say there is good reason for treating the sins with varying degrees of attention. We should always treat the evil, but like I’ve stated in earlier posts, I don’t know if you can separate the evil from the sin. Maybe you can, but I don’t know how.
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