Faith Works 10-26-19

Faith Works 10-26-19

Jeff Gill

 

Treasure in jars of clay

___

 

Let me share some shocking news here. I am unapologetically a pastor of a Christian congregation, what's sometimes inaccurately called "organized religion." Jesus is amazing, but his church has made mistakes. Big ones. Over millennia. We've signed off on slavery and misogyny, oppression and exclusion, Crusades and witch burnings. We're still arguing over what the Boss actually meant when he said "Love one another," which really shouldn't be that hard to interpret.

 

But I'm still a Christian, a preacher, and a minister of a local congregation. Because the core values and central mission of Christian faith still speak to me of eternal things, of lasting value, of enduring hope . . . and are worth handing along to others.

 

It's the time of year when a number of organizations, sometimes called "parachurch" groups, are doing their fundraising or mobilization activities, and there's one in particular involving shoeboxes and Christmas gifts that always attracts a great deal of social media furor about the rightness of working with that group and its current executive director (spoiler alert: he's not the first leader of that organization, nor will he be its last). And we're getting ready for the Christmas season, with kettles and bell ringing and Angel Tree efforts already under way, and there are people with concerns about those groups and their policies, past or present, as well.

 

I am, at heart, a historian as much as a preacher, and I'm aware of the sins of the past perhaps to a detail even beyond what the detractors are focused on. My own congregation and regional church body has some doozies back a century or even less than half a century ago. To do good we've allowed ourselves to be bad, let alone wrong. Yet as the old saying goes, if I found the perfect church, I'd ruin it by joining.

 

Yes, by sharing the Good News (in Old English, "godspell," or Gospel) through any organized church I'm running some risk of passing along some of our more flawed and foolish errors of the past, contaminants of the container, not the contents, and I might not be gifting others with the purest possible word of life -- but without those clay jars and woven baskets of churchly construction, I would have less of the outpouring to offer up to those without. Without hope, without grace, without peace.

 

So I use some bruised reeds and cracked pots to carry the water of life -- Samaritan's Purse, The Salvation Army, the Christian Church in Ohio, even (good Lord help us) Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) right here in Newark. We have much to repent for, many reasons to seek redemption, but these broken buckets and flawed vessels are what we have at hand to work with. The house of this world is burning, on fire my friends, and you might tell me "there are more fitting containers further away!" but I'm working with the tools I have at hand to quench the flames. I know the lineage of this equipment, I'm aware of the compromised history, but I'm still going to take them to the river, wash them in the water, dip them deep in the flow, and pass along what refreshment and restoration I can.

 

Anyone who wants to stand off to one side and criticize the bucket brigade as flawed and foolish and failing may do so. I'm going to step in line, pass along what I'm handed, and do the best I can with what I've got . . . and will upgrade as I'm able. But to say this isn't the best that can be done, so stop all work and stand around talking about how we could do it all better -- you can have that conversation on the sidelines, but I'm going to work while we have light, with the tools at hand. Work, while night is falling. [John 9:4]

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's entirely in favor of repentance and redemption, even for organizations. Tell him what you'd renew from the past at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.