For everything there is a season...including change...

Isn’t it interesting how we tend to think that there is only one right way of doing something, or one right answer…I mean seriously. There are all kinds of right ways and answers with some degrees of better thrown in.

Tonight, I got to listen to a group of people get worked up over what, in their mind, is the RIGHT way to move forward on a project…a project that they are not involved in at all. It occurred to me that when we are in a place where our anxiety is high, we can easily become critical and choose not to trust others.

I’ve recently finished reading Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence. I got to hear her speak last May on this concept of the emerging church and looked forward to reading her book. In that work, she talks about how our culture/society/world goes through a major shift about every 500 years. She reasons that we are in the midst of one of those such shifts today. After reading her book and reflecting on the changes I have witnessed, I tend to agree with her. She makes an alluring and impressive case.

In terms of our shifts from a faith perspective, she lifts up that the last major shift occurred about the time of the great Protestant Reformation. If you know your church history, you’ll recall that those within the Catholic church were calling for reforms, calling for the church to stick more closely to what was recorded in scripture rather than expounding on it to the point of adding requirements that had no basis in scripture (collecting money for things such as indulgences – papal prayers for those caught in purgatory).  Indulgences were a kind of fundraiser perpetrated by the church with the goal of building St. Peter’s Basilica. But there were those who had an issue with this practice, such as Martin Luther (though there were others, he is the most noted among the protestors). Out of that season of conflict and challenge came the call to dismiss anything that did not have roots in scripture – sola scriptura, scriptura sola – only scripture and scripture only. And the Protestant churches were born, in a violent split from the Catholic church.

Today, we are caught in a shift because we’ve argued with scripture. Where scripture spoke about slavery but not against it, we eventually came to see slavery as the evil it was…but that wasn’t because we were staying “true” to the biblical mandate. Later, women would receive rights they were never allowed according to our biblical witness. And, now, we are faced with a changing perspective in terms of sexual orientation. We think we know what the Bible says but at the same time we recognize something different and so that tide is shifting as well. As a result, we are no longer looking at scripture as the leading authority…and that creates a huge shift in our religious culture.

It’s not isolated to religion or matters of faith. Every aspect of our culture, our society, is experiencing a major shift. And, let me tell you, that just breeds anxiety upon anxiety. We don’t know what to expect. Our world is changing and we can’t keep up. We are like the ancient Hebrew people released from bondage and living in the wilderness – and, Lord, we want to go back to Egypt. We want desperately to go back to what we know, to what is familiar and comfortable and predictable.

But we can’t. And, let’s be honest, it pisses us off. We get anxious. We get caught up, worked up, and we do just about everything we can think of to stop the tide of change. We insist that we know the way out of this, that we have all the right answers, and we don’t even bother to look at who we might be stepping on to ensure we get our way.

Yeah, I’m a little annoyed, tonight.

The one question we rarely ask when we are feeling anxious or threatened is this…where is God in all of this? It’s like we get so caught up in our own needs and wants and desires that we can’t even think to stop and seek discernment of what God is doing and where God is leading.

Statistic after statistic predict a great decline in the Christian churches of America. We, supposedly, are becoming more and more irrelevant. Why? Because we are trying too hard to hold on to yesteryear and we are scared to death that tomorrow may bring about a change that challenges our expectations.

And yet…there is so much that is hopeful and promising in the midst of this great shift. We are asking questions and being more honest about who we are and how we relate to God than we’ve done in years upon years. The cool thing about these 500 year shifts is that the church always benefits…there has historically been an increase in people who strive to live into their relationship with God.

So, we’ll argue and fuss and get mad and disappointed. But, in the end, we’ll get to that place where we simply put ourselves into God’s care and let go. The kingdom of God is near…again.