1 Corinthians
5:9-13, my own translation
“I wrote to you in
the letter not to get mix up together with male whores, but not
at all with the male whores of this world or the greedy and ravenous
or idolaters since you would then be obligated to leave from the
world. But now I wrote to you not to get mixed up together with him
if anyone named 'brother' might be a male whore or greedy or idolater
or verbally abusive or an alcoholic or a robber, neither to eat
together with such as these. Because what is it to me to judge those
on the outside? Don't you judge those on the inside? Yet those on the
outside God will judge. Take out the deranged person from among you
yourselves.”
“When is a bhikku
not a bhikku?” This was a question that the Buddha asked his son
after he received complaints that the young man wasn't following the
dharma and behaving inappropriately. The question is literally, “when
is a disciple not a disciple?”
I received news
recently that a major denomination in the United States is
considering the question of allowing pastors to have sexual
relationships outside of the boundaries of marriage. The logic behind
this is that the culture has changed and the church has to change
with it, essentially. What is more troubling is that it is younger
pastors within this denomination who are pushing for this.
And so the Buddha's
question to his son comes to my mind. “When is a bhikku not a
bhikku?”
I am not writing to
lament the moral decline in our nation or culture, nor am I writing
to lament the moral decline in our churches. It is the emphasis on
morals, rules, and ethics which has brought us to this point. Morals,
rules, and ethics are, fundamentally, whatever the society and
culture says they are. This itself is a kind of rule of cultural
anthropology.
It isn't the lack of
morality, traditional or otherwise which has brought us to this
point.
It is a failure by
the church, both individually and collectively, to remain in Jesus
Christ. It is a failure to obey his command to “Remain in Me and I
in you.” It is a failure to recognize that “The person who says
to remain in Him is obligated, just as that One walked, also he
himself to walk in the same way.” It is a failure on the church's
part to not just teach about Jesus Christ and their own traditions,
but to live, breathe, and be Jesus Christ, allowing Him to express
Himself through them.
It isn't a lack of,
or failure of, morality. It is a lack of Jesus Christ and a failure
of the church's people to remain in Him in action as well as word.
This failure,
however, extends far past a single denomination. The proof of this is
how many people are leaving the churches in general, regardless of
denomination. The statistics tend to speak for themselves. And all
the while, when asked, more often than not, they are leaving not
because they reject God or Jesus Christ, but because they can't seem
to find Him in the churches and they are hungry to do so.
Recently, I wrote a
fan fiction story setting the Gospel narrative in the fictional
fantasy world of Warcraft. I
didn't think it would actually take off, and originally thought I
would get a lot of hate mail for mixing the two. Instead, it's become
my most popular novel on the website in which it was posted receiving
dozens of positive and engaged reviews from readers. I followed a
very simple rule for writing it. I sought to be faithful to both the
lore of the universe it was set in, and faithful to the Gospel
narrative as much as was possible, often having the gospels open in
front of me as I wrote.
In
writing that story, I reached hundreds of people with a very thinly
disguised Jesus Christ, separated from the “safe” wrapping the
church has put Him in. Many of them described themselves as “not
religious”. All I did was give them Jesus.
We
don't agree to be moral when we commit to Jesus Christ. We don't
agree to be political. We don't agree to be ethical.
We
agree to remain in Jesus Christ, and He in us. That's the contract He
made in His blood. He was also clear in the terms of that contract
what happens if we don't.
We
dry up and eventually are incinerated along with the other waste.
This
is why churches are dying and people don't want to hear it any more.
They're tired of hearing perfectly prepared sermons and seeing human
beings doing what every other human being does.
They
want to see Jesus. They want to hear Jesus. They
are hungry for Jesus.
Not
you. Not me.
Jesus.
