|
The
Paradox of Reality
by
john o'keefe
Any
culture, or group, which spends time defending and
demanding their traditions, is dying.
They believe, even in their subconscious, that
what lies ahead is not as great as what was part of their
past.
This is true of all cultures, all civilization, and
all instructions.
If we look at the institutional church, which is
neither true nor sacred, we see how it is holding fast to
traditions, and refusing to look to the future, we see an
instruction on the verge of collapse.
The
current instructional church has become totally irrelevant
to human life; that is not to say that God, spirituality,
Jesus and his teachings are irrelevant, because they are
not.
While the instructional church holds less and less
value in the human heart and mind.
People are seeking a deeper relationship with God
– more God, less institutional church.
It’s funny how that relationship works.
What is even funnier, to me, is this fear of
change.
Let’s examine this “fear” in light of two
very important realities:
Realization
One:
God never changes.
Now, our perception of God may change, and often
does, but God never changes.
In the case of our understanding of God changing it
is not God that changes, but our views, of how God is
relating with us as His people.
Jesus never changes, he is the same today as he was
yesterday and will be tomorrow.
As with God, our perceptions may change and grow,
but Jesus is always Jesus.
Realization
Two:
Everything Changes.
Every aspect of our life is centered on change –
every aspect of our life; there is nothing in our lives
that is outside the reality of change.
No part of who we are and how we live does not
change; none of us live in the same body we did 10 years
ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, yesterday.
We have moved for oil lamps to electric lights,
from horse and buggies to cars, from steam ships to jet
planes, from the 19th to the 21st
century.
The
Paradox of the Two Realities:
I love the paradox that everything changes, but God
never changes.
It’s just cool to think in a mind-blowing reality
of God.
While some see this paradox as a problem, I see it
as refreshing and enlightening.
When we say, “God never changes, everything
changes” moderns hear, “God (and all things related to
God like doctrine, church, traditions and liturgy) never
change, all things (except those things related to God)
change.”
You
see, in our paradox the operative word is “change” but
moderns see the operative word as “God.”
Many people connect God and the institutional
church, and because “God never changes” that includes
the institutional church.
Some believe the two are not to be separate, but in
reality the institutional church has nothing to do with
God, and I believe that God has very little to do with the
institutional church.
But because of that misunderstanding of the paradox
people say, “The church never changes, while everything
else changes.”
The idea of a non-changing church is foreign to me.
Traditions, I have found, have little to do with my
relationship with God. Most,
traditions are meaningless today; while they may have had
great meaning to those who started them.
They lost their meaning to the most people outside
the “inner circle.”
I remember talking with a member of a the church
and I asked they “why they did what they did” and the
only answer I got was – “I’m not sure why, it just
has a lost of meaning to us all.”
How can anything have a “lot of meaning” if you
have no idea what it is and why you do it?
A
Traditional Christmas:
Before
you get all righteous let me ask you, how do you define a
“traditional Christmas?” I was speaking to a friend a
while back concerning church traditions and he likened
them to “Christmas Traditions” and how they hold great
memories for him.
He was telling me, as a way of proving traditions
are important, that one Christmas he was visiting with his
wife’s family and they served ham for Christmas dinner
(one of their traditions) and he said that it did just not
“feel” like Christmas (his family had fresh pork roast
for Christmas dinner).
He felt that his Christmas was ruined because his
traditions were not kept.
This is why he no longer goes to his in-laws for
Christmas dinner.
His traditional understanding of Christmas was lost
because of the experience.
This
got me thinking, our family always had turkey and all the
fixings – we love turkey.
But we spent a few years in New Jersey as I was
working on my MDiv at Drew and we spent holidays with
family.
Each Christmas we would spend time at Aunt Gail’s
and we would have all the fixings, and even one extra
thing “lasagna.”
Over time my daughter’s tradition became
“Christmas Lasagna with all the fixings.”
This got me thinking deeper – the tradition we
enjoyed over at Aunt Gail’s was not food, but family and
good times.
We made the mistake so many people make – we
replaced the function (food) of the tradition with
tradition of function (family).
What should be seen as friends and family, became
food and football.
We
do this a great deal in the church when it comes to
traditions.
We forget why we do them, and we just keep the
mechanics of the event going.
The “doing” of the tradition out lives the
“reason” for the tradition.
Most Institutional Churches keep the traditions
alive to the point of where the tradition becomes absurd.
We move traditions to the point where what we do is
more important then why we do it.
Because the intuitional church spends time striving
to maintain the past and they miss the opportunity to
connect to the future.
They miss the ability to travel in a new direction.
New
directions vs. old traditions:
I
believe most of the debates concerning traditions centers
on the way we see things.
Most Christians see our faith as “the faith of
our ancestors.”
We see ourselves standing looking back at those
from our past and believe we need to keep “what they
did” alive for our faith to have value.
I do not see Christianity as “only of our
ancestors.”
In fact, for me looking back is only a reference
point and not a distention as it is for many in the
church.
I believe we can respect out past, but we must not
live there.
If Christianity if “the faith of our ancestors”
what value does it hold to my future and me?
Scripture
teaches that we cannot put new wine on old skins.
It does not explain why, because people living in
the first century knew why.
By putting new wine in old skins you run the very
real reality of causing the old skin to split wide open,
not only ruining the skin, also wasting the wine.
Too many churches are striving to do just that –
put new wines in old skins.
There is no way a church can minister to a
postmodern people if it is steeped in so much tradition it
can even turn around to see who’s in front of them.
I remember “talking” with Brad Cecil, the Lead
Pastor at Axxess, on the Postmodern Theology e-group about
the coming of the “New Amish.”
It seems that the church is birthing a “New
Amish” style group based on the 1950’s and 1960’s
(the “good” and “true” years of the church) –
they will split and form “closed” churches where
everything, doctrine, preaching, style, wording, clothing
and all will tend to the 1950’s and 1960’s.
You can see it happening, if you look closely.
Closing:
Traditions
are fine, if they are done for a true reason and everyone
knows the reason.
To simply do something because it was done before
is just wrong.
I love churches that claim they want to “increase
the church attendance” and yet they refuse to change to
accomplish the goal.
Remember, the definition of insanity is “doing
the same things over and over again and expecting
different results.”
|
