Have you ever seen a dachshund getting ready for a slumber? He (or she) circles, and digs and digs and circles as if the bed being prepared is some long ago earthen one. When the field is finally prepped (though nothing whatsoever has changed), he lays down with a sigh as deep as the core of the earth from Mount Hood. Fixed that thing, the dog apparently thinks.
This morning, prepping for another Wednesday after a long, long Tuesday, it occurred to me just how old I am. When I was young, milk came in bottles and water from a sink. I'm so old that when I was a kid watermelon had seeds and catfish came with the bones it was born with, and we never bragged about that on a sign outside a restaurant.
It occurs, that those of us in the daily work of the church have been doing some pondering about where all the folks went for a while now. In the past 20 years, give or take a year or a decade or some such, folks have gone elsewhere or, really, no where.
All but the rare few denominations or in fact those who call themselves non-denominational (which in itself is a denomination but we won't cause heads to explode here) have suffered great and grand losses of people, and the ones who check none what religion are you out-number those who attend churches and affiliate with any denomination whatsoever.
So, what comes next is a viable question.
I strongly suspect that what will work is what has always worked, just packaged differently. What will work is the Gospel preached.
The Gospel is and has always been about the least and the lost. The Gospel simply has moved outside the walls of our fine buildings, or it must.
In Luke's Gospel Jesus gives us his mission statement, formed I might add without the use of a committee. He said, "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost." Showing that on TV screens with modern music and using Power point or Keynote presentations does not change the message. It does not diminish it, and it does not add to it.
The message is the message. We simply need to make sure we're giving the message. Louisiana Annual Conference Bishop (the boss of all United Methodists as it were in the state) says we must hold nothing sacred but the mission.She says that we must be open to the creative movement of God's spirit, not institutional priorities, in order to serve the mission.
Again, and again, a thousand times again, what is the mission? Jesus whispered, "Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do." He shouted, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
Jesus added these words of encouragement and demand as his last on the planet. He said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).t
The key word or phrase, it seems to me, is not baptizing, or Holy Spirit, or commanded or even the fact that he is with us always. No, the key word it seems to me is "GO."
Tuesday I had the privilege of sharing once again the glorious message of the Gospel. I had the opportunity to look deeply into pained and hurting eyes and speaking ancient truths to that heart. I told that person, and reminded my weary mind and soul, that whether or not that person believed in Jesus the important thing it seemed to me was how much Jesus believed in that person. Looking at someone whose heart is breaking even though they won't admit it for fear of showing weakness, and trying to explain the supernatural and the often logically inexplicable Gospel, stumbling for a few incredibly long moments, I finally said this (or something close to it): "I don't know how it works, but I know it does. The Gospel works because when I couldn't save myself, when I couldn't find a way, when I hit bottom, Jesus was there to pick me up, put a loving arm around me and begin our walk together." I mean that with all my heart.
This morning I read David's words: "God, the one and only -- I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not? He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul ..."
Breathing room for my soul.
I believe the answer for the church, all churches, lies somewhere in the midst of understanding the dachshund's behavior, I'm afraid. I suspect that if we keep circling and digging and digging and circling as if the field to be plowed was the same one that existed so long ago, then we're going to lay down with a sigh as deep as the core of the earth from the heavens above thinking we've fixed that thing when all we've done is circle and dig.
I'm so old that there was a time when my family ate bread that had been baked that day at home, and hadn't been sliced and placed in a package. Same good bread. Different look, different feel, different texture, different sizes of slices, different. But bread. Good bread. Turnip juice sopping bread.
That is, as they used to say when I was a kid, "the Gospel truth."
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