Organized Religion

I did a funeral today for a guy named Neal. Neal lived to be 90 years old, was a World War II vet, who enlisted early and came home late. He participated in five different beach landings in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France. At one point when the allied army was stretched thin and unable to land replacements, this guy saw combat for nearly 400 straight days. By all accounts he was a respected father, member of the community, loving husband and all, but he never attended church. Said he believed in Jesus, knew God had to be real after all he'd been through in WW2, yet he didn't have a place for 'organized religion'. His wife attended church though, and put the kids through confirmation etc with his blessing.

By the way, a funny story, this guy was a little rough around the edges. The family had a parakeet, named Petey, who Neal was not fond of, so Neal would always say this one vulgar sentence to Petey.

Well Petey was a parakeet

And parakeets know how to talk after a while

So, the pastor of the church that Neal's family attended back in the day would over the course of the year make a visit to all his parishoners. And he and Neal had a fun relationship. I've got some guys in my church like this - their wives come to church, the husbands rarely do, but they're such fun guys you can't help but like them. So anyways one time this pastor is over to visit and its just him and Neal and Neal puts on a pot of coffee and they're talking when loudly from his corner of the room, Petey busts out and says:

"Petey is a beady-eyed son of a *****!"

The pastor turned around and looked and said, "Did he just say what I think he did?"

And Neal says, "Yes sir . . . And he certainly is for saying it while the pastor's in the house."

So anyways, this guy had no place for organized religion. And neither do I. And actually - neither did Jesus. There's this picture of Christianity out there that casts it as a bunch of hypocrites or holier than thous who are trying to control other people and their behavior by playing the God card. How did this picture come to be? Well, because in every age, people have used their position in churches to try to control other people and their behavior by playing the God card.

This is not a new phenomenon. In Mark 2, we read about Jesus healing a paralytic. Jesus says to him, "Your sins are forgiven." The teachers of the law reason in theri hearts (2:6) "who can forgives sins but God alone?"

Correct.

But they don't get it. They let their preconceived notion of what their religion is supposed to look like blind them from the truth. This happens day in and day out without fail in the Christian church. Why is it that we get so blind to these things? Maybe because we live such a pampered sheltered existence.

I mean, why is it that someone who has seen what Neal has seen can so easily cut through the smokescreen and find so little fulfillment in affiliation with a church? Probably because he was seen at the core of who he is what it means to live and to die and to place yourself fully at the mercy of your creator and know that whether you live or die tomorrow is in His hands.

But Jesus calls us to find out what it it like to be truly human, the way God intended, by following Jesus and learning to think, speak, and act like our teacher. In the mean time, we are called to love unconditionally and accept people and encourage them as they encourage us as we all grow to be more like Jesus. This is the picture of the community of faith that Jesus envisioned - a picture of the first believers.

I wonder if Neal had been able to find a church that had authentic interaction between people where people learned and grew in faith while being who they really were as they grew, I wonder if he would have made a better connection. I wonder if he could have found time and a place for that. That is what Jesus calls us to. Not organized religion full of pious people who all pretend they have it all together for a couple hours each week on a Sunday morning. Authentic community where we bear each other's burdens (Galatians 6), Jesus himself says he came to call sinners, not the (self) righteous (Mark 2:17).

Jesus loved hanging out with fun guys who were rough around the edges. Like Neal.