me thinking about the church. part 2.
I do have a great many thoughts about the church, but when I read my friend Andrea's post on her thoughts about the church, I knew I had to share.
So go read it here.
me thinking about the church. part 1.
I have to admit that though I love being part of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, any just-out-of-the-box naivete that I used to have about the church has lost its sheen. The foundation of the church is Jesus, but the building blocks are people (1 Peter 2:4,5) and those are pretty fallible building blocks.
But it's strange how we want "the church" to be patient with believers, we want "them" to recognize that people aren't instantly perfected when they join our fellowship, but then we expect "the church" to be pretty close to perfect all the time. But isn't the church just people like us? --people struggling to be faithful, trying to find the middle line, pressing on toward the Kingdom but stumbling a bit along the way? If that's not the church, then what is?
The thorn and the gift.
I will not burden you with the full story; you don't have time, and I'm not sure I have the energy. But I couldn't help but share this small bit of the tale.
I have what Paul called a "thorn in the flesh." It afflicts my body, it affects my mind, it hurts. I've been living with it for 10 years and I cannot number for you the times that I have wished/prayed/willed that it go away.
"To keep me from becoming conceited . . . there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. . . . I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." 2Cor 12:7,8
Yet in these last few weeks I have realized as never before that the thorn, though it hurts, is a gift. God has surprised me with profound blessings in the suffering. I recognize now that through the pain Christ has taught me submission and reverence; He has demonstrated His power to heal and to save; He has chipped away at my self-interest; He has caused me to seek after His glory; He has taught me to trust Him through darkness; He has kept me weak and depending upon Him.
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' There fore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses . . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2Cor 12:9,10
Atonement for an Unsolved Murder
In the heart of a golden barley field
lies a man, staring up at the clear sky.
The sun and the wind wash over him,
but he does not blink. The side of his head
has been beaten in -- now soil and blood
and skull are home to happy ants.
The elders of the nearest town come out
to meet the man. They bring with them
a heifer -- an unworked, unyoked heifer.
They walk her past him and into an untilled valley
beside a flowing stream. With the image
of the dead man's half-head gleaming
in their front minds, the elders hold the cow.
One elder takes the heifer's head
into his elder hands, taking in the feel
of her textured face against his palms.
He pulls his gaze away from her two brown eyes.
For one moment, two moments, there is silence
as the elder takes hold now of the smoothened branch
that has been prepared for this occasion.
With two hands he lifts it high above his head.
The branch stands against the blueness of the sky. Then --
the wood comes down hard on the innocent heifer,
down hard on her virgin neck, down as hard
as it could come, down -- hard enough
to crack the silence and the smoothened branch.
The neck of the heifer breaks. Her head hangs,
her knees buckle and she falls.
But her eyes do not close.
All of the men look away, eyes open
toward the moving stream. They take
the running water into their hands;
they wash their hands over the fallen
heifer whose neck was broken in that valley.
And they pray: "O God! You see. You know.
Our hands did not shed this blood. Our eyes
did not see it. Forgive Your people, O LORD."
And the bloodguiltiness is forgiven.
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A strange post, I know. The section heading in my Bible for this passage in Deuteronomy 21 was crying out to be the title of a poem, a play, a novel, a hardcore rock band... So this piece is what has come of it from my own pen. Feedback?