Tress attended a colleague’s baptism in a church on Swanston Street in the city yesterday. Kiddo was playing the keyboard so I had to drop her off by 9am for their pre-service practice. I went to get a coffee after that, at Gloria Jean’s on Kingsway at Glen Waverley. I took the opportunity to scan through the Sunday Herald. It also meant a different kind of start to our usual Sunday morning routine.
The jagged nature of last Sunday continued when I got to church and the band started to play. I thought the volume was way too loud and went outside for a while. After a few minutes I thought it was probably not a good idea to remain outside for the duration of the service so I went back in, but the band remained very loud so I stayed right at the back of the hall.
The singing session tapered off and the chair (Jason) started, saying something to the effect that we ought to proclaim healing. Perfect, I thought. I have been asked to lead the communion and my little piece was going to be on how I believed physical healing wasn’t part of atonement, contrary to what this church believes. I guess I was just trying to make my little statement of what I thought. The only problem was it jarred badly with what Jason had said just a few minutes earlier. However, like Tress often said to me, my little statements often had the effect of an ant peeing because it was a non-issue with most people.
And so it continued. Jason felt it right to let the service flow by having people come up to say their individual pieces instead of having a sermon delivered. I guess it’s good to have members say their piece but I wonder if the worship service is the right place and time for this. I have little doubt it does a world of good for the person who spoke, but it often does little for the listeners, especially if the speaker had no idea where he (or she) was going and went in circles as a result. Or worse, what was said actually trivialised the whole experience of being a Christian.
Not every speaker made me cringe of course – some were marvellous punchy testimonies. I’m afraid however, that even after all these years in this church I still have to wrap my head around to the idea of letting anyone speak, regardless of what that person was saying or the message that was actually being communicated.
Take this one about receiving a message from God about taking sports drink to alleviate a pain in the leg. There was prayer for a problematic leg, and then there was “a word” – about a remedy. It turned out that person has been exercising a lot and was losing mineral salt. Naturally taking a mineral supplement helps in this situation. But the message was that it took prayer and “a word” – which was confirmed because more than 1 person had that same “word” – for God to deliver a healing which has been deprived for years.
Later that arvo I talked about this with Tress and kiddo. I had to stress 2 points. The first was that you could easily have a group of Muslims or Buddhists or Atheists discussing their religion or philosophy and come to the same independent conclusion. Does the confluence of conclusions prove the veracity of God or the message? Does the fact that there was unity of message (conclusion) prove that God is real and that the message or conclusion actually came from God?
The other point is that the very prescription of taking a banana or sports drink to alleviate a mineral depletion condition is a common one. In my past life, fellow runners and gym addicts have got together and spoke about the same thing. An affected runner would get the same advice from a bunch of other runners, all independently. Does that make the prescription a godly one? I don’t know. I think confluence can come from a variety of circumstances. If the remedy is a common one, or if a group has had the same exposure to similar thoughts, ideas or teachings, the chances of common conclusions – “word” – just escalates. It doesn’t prove anything.
I’m not saying the person’s experience wasn’t real or that it wasn’t a thing to be thankful to God for. All good things come from God and we are to be grateful to Him. I am concerned however that we don’t attribute things to God when simple explanations work much better because by carelessly attributing things to specific messages from God, we may actually trivialise what He does for us. God has given us brains to think. It is perfectly kosher for some of us to share a same thought. That thought, just because it is shared, does not become a special “word” from God. Not even after prayer. It is part of the mindset created by a belief that signs and wonders must permeate our lives so we seek them out at every turn, even from car registration plates.
Maybe I was being a proud pain-in-the-neck, I don’t know. Maybe I was simply demonstrating years of being in a conservative church. I thought however that the Sunday pulpit is sacred in that you need to ensure that it is a platform from which God’s word is appropriately and reverently taught. It is not a platform to encourage a feel-good session delivered at the expense of fast and loose theology.
I watched “Burn After Reading” over the weekend. I sometimes wonder if ICC is often like that. I love to be spending time with God’s people but I sometimes wonder also. Life is an even more terrible thing to waste.
Ante 