Still on the Journey

I have a strong suspicion that being a Christian in this country is probably too easy.

“There’s too much cultural Christianity all about us. It’s rather
innocuous, but it’s often more the problem than the answer. Many
people are no longer on a journey. They have easy Christian answers
before they have struggled with the question. Such Christianity has
not dealt with the folly of the cross.” (Richard Rohr, Job and the
Mystery of Suffering: Spiritual Reflections, New York: Crossroad
Publishing, 1996; 16)

It’s repeated so often that it’s become trite, but I beg your forgiveness as I repeat it: Our culture is no friend to the serious disciple of Jesus.

I hope this strikes a chord and perhaps causes us to look around and see the subtle danger that besets us. It’s not that Christians are being rounded up and imprisoned. It’s not that we are being purposefully targeted and monitored by the police or the CIA or FBI. It’s not that we’re being “persecuted” – at least, not in any traditional biblical sense.

So what is the danger?

Rohr says too many people who call themselves Christian are “no longer on a journey,” and he’s right. Most of us are far too settled. We are too comfortable. Our version of Christianity has devolved into something that’s too easy and that has allowed us to become lazy in following Jesus. Many people who call themselves Christians simply do not want to follow Jesus as he stumbles on his journey up Mt. Calvary, burdened by his cross.

One of the dangers is confusing being a disciple of Jesus with just being a “nice person.” It’s also the danger of speaking out against the government meddling in our health care system but not speaking compassionate and prophetic truth into the lives of individuals around us who need to repent. It’s faithfully watching every football game broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays and Mondays and Thursdays but not cultivating the necessary spiritual discipline to overcome the sinful thoughts and behaviors in our lives. It’s going to a worship service we erroneously call “church” faithfully, but not being the living Body of Jesus faithfully. It’s religion for the masses: innocuous, irrelevant and thoroughly impotent. It’s “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:4)

I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I just reread what I’ve written so far… and it’s at least decent. I can imagine myself in a pulpit somewhere, preaching with focused intensity and zealous passion. After over three years of being out of the pulpit (has it really been that long?) I can still get excited about preaching.

While such excitement may be good, it ultimately has little depth or power. And if I allow myself to remain in that excitement then I’ve missed the point.

You see, the most effective preacher is one who can not only inspire and challenge, but is also one who imagine her or himself sitting in the congregation and listening to his own sermon as one who needs to hear it just as much as anyone else, possibly more than anyone else!

Generalities are anemic, and are just one enemy of authentic spiritual growth. So I must include myself in my criticism.

So here goes…

Truthfully, I get far too excited about watching football, but when it comes to worship I am suddenly emotionally stunted. I spend far more time playing Farmville on Facebook than I do in prayer. And I’m a book junkie: I’ve read 53 books this year alone for a total of 13,222 pages (scary that I keep track of it, isn’t it?) but yet I can’t seem to find more time to study the Scriptures with much passion or depth.

To be perfectly honest, I often feel I’m becoming the “cultural Christian” Father Rohr speaks of in the above quote. As of late, I feel I’ve abandoned the journey of becoming more like Jesus.

And that concerns me.

Just three short years ago I was definitely on a journey. I was led into and through the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a phrase coined by the 16th century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. I walked (and sometimes crawled!) through some dark places in my life. I knew those places had been there for a long time but I simply did not want to face them. The journey led me to confront some serious character flaws, compulsions, false idols and false beliefs about myself that were slowly destroying me from the inside out.

As if to reinforce this was indeed a Dark Night, the only employment I could find at the time was as a graveyard shift security guard at a local factory. Of course, there’s nothing shameful about such work. It was honest and earned enough to just get by. But for me it was as close to “rock bottom” as I want to ever get again.

Surrounded by the stillness of the night, I would silently cry out to God to lead me in the way he wanted me to go. It took time, but I realized God was leading me, though of course I didn’t like the route!

Those were some tough months. I doubted myself. I doubted God. I doubted if I were even called to be in full-time ministry. So I raged against the world and against God. I never crossed the line with open blasphemy and I never completely relinquished my faith, but there were moments when I wanted to.

One night I thought, “Maybe God really is through with me. Perhaps I’ve been given my chance and I’ve failed… Maybe it’s over.” I considered another vocation – teaching perhaps, or something in public service with the government. (Now do you believe me about hitting rock bottom?)

But somewhere in that lonely, cold Night I heard that still small voice who, through the words of the late Gerald May, spoke to me and said…

There’s a sort of freedom when you’ve done what you can do and you
just have to give up and let be. It’s not a matter of trust; it’s
simply that there’s nothing else left to do. Someone said courage is
fear that has said its prayers. I guess my prayers have been said,
said without thinking, back there in the fire’s entrancement before I
saw the dark. Perhaps this thing I feel now as I stand in the night
is the raw nature of courage. I realize I no longer know the
difference between fear and courage. They are made of the same stuff.
Maybe courage just has a little extra choice in it. (Gerald May, The
Wisdom of the Wilderness, 29-30)

“Give up and let be.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was then I realized I had been wrestling with the Stranger in my Dark Night. I was seeking to wrench from God’s hands what he only wanted to freely give.

Perhaps God wasn’t finished with me after all. The mystics say the Dark Night of the Soul is to purify one’s faith of all its cumbersome trivialities and strengthen the soul for the marathon journey ahead.

The journey is indeed long and will require every ounce of strength, resilience and perseverance I can muster. And I know I will be “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

But I’m still on the journey. Thank God for that.