A Ramble about an Unacceptable Situation

Originally published as a Facebook Note April 20th, 2009

I'm sitting here in my stole about to say Mass before I go to bed tonight.

There is a question which is never far from my mind and usually running in the background somewhere. How do we fix the Church of Jesus Christ?

This assumes that somehow it's broken. Or that it is somehow disordered. Whether or not you agree with me that it is... we can argue rings around each other why it is or isn't, and get nowhere.

But I see symptoms of a much greater problem. I have previously written about the judgmentalism of various professing Christians, when Jesus Christ taught non-judgment. I have previously written about these lost sheep who have run from the Church, and whose faith exists in various states of ruin. The members of the visible Church are often the cause of those who are not a part of the Body to not want to become a part of the Body for the hypocrisy. Why would anyone want to follow Jesus Christ when we don't follow Him ourselves? Why would anyone profess faith when professing Christians often betray their lack of faith by their actions? The One, Holy, Universal, and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ is fractured into a thousand and tens of thousands of bickering political parties each professing that they only have the real "Truth", and this "Truth" which they profess is a theological doctrine or dogma which takes all precedence in terms of importance over what Jesus Christ actually taught, or in some cases even over Jesus Christ Himself. In the more extreme versions, murder is even committed in His Name.

The Tao Te Ching, in one stanza, says something like "when the way is lost, ultimately there remains only the facade of ritual and religion." This is a gross paraphrase--largely because I can't remember the original word for word-- but I think it carries the meaning of the original. The Buddhist would likely agree that when the Truth is lost, there is only ignorance and Self lost in the sea of transient and impermanent experiences. I would argue that when the Life is lost, there remains only the onset of decay to the body, which at first appears as attractive and healthy as it was when the Life was within it, but as each second passes by with no blood flow, it begins to rot and stink and decay as it breaks down, and then it is evident to all that what is present is a dead corpse, and not a living body.

The Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is Jesus Christ. He said what would happen when we didn't remain in Him as a branch remains in the vine. We could do nothing. Much worse, the branch would wither and die and be thrown into a fire where it would be consumed (John 15:4-6, check it out for yourself).

What then is the answer to this problem? I thought at one time another congregation, or another church, but that would only add to the problem, not correct it. Others saw the same problem in the Church's history and responded with new denominations and sects and reform movements. They responded with new theologies, believing that the old theologies were the problem to be corrected. If new teachings or new Bodies were the answer then the problem would have been corrected a long time ago, a thousand thousand times over.

It is like the illustration of Plato's cave, except those who may have been freed from the cave to experience the sunlight have themselves chosen to be shackled again to the cave seeing only the shadows, yet all the while proclaiming that they are free when any fool who can see shadows can tell that they are not.

We have, collectively if not individually, lost far more than the Truth which Jesus Christ taught, we have lost Jesus Christ Himself, and willingly chosen to be blinded again by the god of this world. We need to recover the Way, the Truth, and the Life who is Jesus Christ, and this can't be done through more theology, more division, more Bible Studies, Church meetings, sermons, rallies, tent revivals, books that don't get read except by pastors, or any other tactic which has been tried. We all can see the need unless we're totally blinded. We know something is malfunctioning or disordered somewhere. We can see the evidence for it ourselves, but we can't put our finger on it. It's just out of the range of our perception. And so we shrug our shoulders, and go back to doing what we were doing.

We need Jesus Christ. We, the Church, need Jesus Christ. We need Him. We need to be wrapped in Him. We need to live and breath Him. We need to eat, drink, dream, and live Jesus Christ. St. Paul wrote, "for everyone who has been baptized into Jesus Christ has been baptized into His death," and also "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." We don't need any or more theologies or books about Him. We don't need to discuss about Him. We don't need to do things in His name. We don't need to act for Him in His absence. We need Him. We need Him flowing through us. We need Him flowing through veins, filling our lungs, running up and down our nerves. We need Him within us and pouring out through us. When He is not present, then we decay and become blinded. The Buddha said, "there is Self and there is Truth, where Self is, Truth is not. Where Truth is, Self is not." Jesus Christ is Truth, and where He is, there is no Self to turn inward to. At the same time, where Self is present, Jesus Christ is not.

The Church, collectively, is a decaying corpse. One of the things God is really good at is resurrection, but resurrection only comes through Jesus Christ. Resurrection only comes when one dies to Self and is integrally joined to Jesus Christ in His death. Unless Self dies, Jesus Christ will not come in resurrection.

We have, collectively, lost what it means to be Christian. To follow Jesus Christ in His death, and resurrection. Very few, it seems, have individually found it. This is an unacceptable situation.