"A Funeral Song for the Church" by Greg Arthur for Monday, 23 October 2017In Amos 5 the prophet sings a funeral song over the nation of Israel. Thought they appear to be thriving, their end into far. The imminence of their death is known because they are a people of chaos. They have not carried on God's work of justice, ordering all things so that the world is made whole. In fact, they created, benefited from, perpetuated, and defended, systems that allowed some to prosper at the expense of others.
So today, in keeping with the prophetic tradition, I offer this funeral song/poem/eulogy for the church in America. I add my voice to the voices of the grieving, those who mourn the church for what she has become and what she has failed to become. As with Amos, I end with hope. There is always hope for the people of God, but before rebirth and resurrection there is always death and surrender.
How beautiful you are, the Bride of Christ, cleansed by his love, redeemed by grace that could never be imagined if it were not so real.
How lovely is the community of the redeemed, people merged and transformed from nothingness into a family. Out of many there is now one, what could be more glorious?
Though you are lovely, though you are promised to prevail, there is a sickness within you emitting the stink of death.
Carrion Birds, who have long wanted to see the failure of the church, who have dreamt of picking its carcass, each tearing of flesh with their beaks an act of repudiation for the idea of you, - they are circling overhead, squawking their delight at your demise
They have seen your hypocrisy and know that it will be the death of you. They have foretold what many have refused to see, that your tolerance for injustice will betray the very idea of you.
Church, American Church, White Church, have you lost your soul? Have you exchanged the good news of God redeeming all the world for the sake of comfort and power? Have you been deceived by the accidental moment of your existence? Because you live in the time of a great empire built on racism, greed, violence, and hoarding of resources, do you truly believe this to be the way God desires the world? Is this what you picture when you pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven?"
We are dying, we have lost our power, because we have lost our savior. Where is he that we might find him again? He is right where he told us to find him.
He is in prison with the millions of others our country has incarcerated. He is there because we have turned prisons into a business. He is there because it is easier to incarcerate and ignore minorities than it is to fix systems that create and maintain economic injustice and poverty.
Jesus is living in the city, in all the neighborhoods that have long been abandoned by our churches. When we moved out to the suburbs to find a nice quiet place to build a church, a place that was safe from the reach of poverty, Jesus stayed behind. He remained in the places of greatest need while we retreated to the place of greatest comfort.
Oh church, why can you not see the perpetuation of horrors that your inactivity has wrought. You pray for a revival, but you imagine the blessing of God to be a return to a yesteryear of your own imagination. If resurrection is to come it will rebirth us as something we have never truly seen.
And so we sing this song of grief and sadness. Tears roll down as we see the Bride of Christ in her distress. They are tears of a groom who longs to be with his bride, to make her whole, to see her thrive.
Resurrect us Lord! Revive within us a passion for you that crosses all manner of comfort, all ideologies, all barriers of race and economics. Cleanse your bride and make her shine forth with the beauty of your glory. Amen.
Monday, October 23, 2017
Categories: Scripture and Discipleship
URL: http://wp.me/pqY3-XL
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