Too Much Time

Too Much Time on My Hands

One the things (dangerous thought it may be) I enjoy about going on these trips is that my fancy takes its flight. My friend, Bill Hopkins, likes to hear my outside-the-box thoughts, but, being a practical man who actually fixes and maintains things that relate to the real world—heavy machinery—says that his job in our friendship is to hold firmly onto my feet. He is fearful that I will rise like a hot-air balloon and wander forever in the clouds.

While I am occupied steadily here with the ethics course and with reading new books and supervising the 6th edition of The Quest for Truth (soon to be published here in India), I do have an environment in which new thoughts—or old thoughts revisited—can dance like sugar plums in my head. (A little musical allusion there—Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky, in case you missed it.)

Noting the vitality of the new churches being started by NTC graduates here, I note how good it is that they have not yet grown top-heavy. I say not yet because it is the nature of energetic enterprises birthed at great sacrifice eventually to become structures to maintain. A bureaucracy grows up around it that requires maintenance. And over time we have a sluggish and top-heavy monument trying to preserve, usually unsuccessfully, the vibrancy of previous years.

This certainly has happened thousands of times in the history of the People of the Way of Jesus. And there is nothing wrong with organization and structure. In fact it is essential and valuable. But as someone mentioned about governments, bureaucracies have a way of justifying their own needs until they kill the host upon which they feed (a bit of biological allusion there, in case you missed it). I have observed this—in my own brief lifetime—in the history of congregationalism, where a top-brass elite, ever-further removed from the people,e spends resources on things that the people do not want (or would not want if they knew the truth about it) and that does not feed the true purpose of the congregations. Fearing now that dark days are coming upon the church—the evangelical church—in our nation, am I wrong in guessing (am I no prophet nor the son of a prophet) that the day of the “successful” church is waning?

Even here in India the news of the latest big name scandal among evangelicals is noised abroad. The damage of personal sinning among those who should know they “will be judged by a stricter standard” is immeasurable. Bringing shame to our Lord’s name is close to unforgivable. So what enables people like this? One (but not the only, I know) cause is that we have forsaken humble holiness for the lure of being power brokers in the world system. We know from two millennia of our history that every one of us needs someone to hold us accountable. The saints of the early church, the medieval church, and the reformed church knew this. The Apostles taught this. The preachers preach it. It is thus inexplicable that the leaders of a congregation do not demand that people who represent the congregation—its public face—submit to accountability.

Big churches. Big budgets. Big bucks. Big temptations. I wish there were a lay council in every church to probe its pastors and teachers on possible hidden sins. I picture the future as one where smaller congregations—perhaps joining forces for special programs that need critical mass—become the wave of the future. Why do people flock to large churches and mega-churches? I suspect that many (not all) of them go for what is really entertainment value. Better music, preaching, worship space. And perhaps even for anonymity. Do we unconsciously adopt the reigning ethos of our day: better to look good than be good? And one result is that pastors get to hide behind their persona so that they insulate themselves from careful examination of the soul in the presence of “confessors.”

Have any of us really done what is costly? Confession (commanded in the New Testament) is one of those costly requirements for those how are walking in the Way. Why is this so rare in our communities of faith today?

Have we ever had to walk by faith in any significant way?

Lord, do what you know it will take to take us deeper. So often we are more hearers of your words than doers.

Trim our church apparatus. Help us to shrink our professional overhead and develop and use the gifts of the laity. Show more how they can be bi-vocational ministers, just as St. Paul was. The world is on the edge of doom and we are prettying up our suites on Titanic Earth.

“Hey, Bill! Pull me down! The oxygen is thin up here and it’s making me a Jeremiah—which I surely do not want!”

Whew—that was close….

O! Here’s another thought that comes when you have too much time on your hands. Do you recall the account of Mary sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus? You know the reason why she was there instead of helping with the work? She was weaker than Martha, that’s why. It was Martha who greeted the guests and made them comfortable. It was she who ventured out when her brother Lazarus had died to meet Jesus and his party when they approached Bethany. Meanwhile, Mary weeps or sits dreamily at Jesus’ feet to gain strength from him. “She has chosen the better part,” Jesus said, rebuking Martha. But why was it better? Because Mary needed reassurance. She was not a take-charge type that knows what to do and how to do it. Martha recognized Jesus as Messiah and believed he could save every situation. So she went about using her gift of hospitality. While Mary found what she needed. They were a matched pair. I don’t think there is any basis for judging either of them harshly. You people who say “Someone around here has got to tend the store!” need to know you are valued. Without you, the Marys of the world would have no chance to sit at the Master’s feet.

“What does that have to do with anything,” you ask? Wait a minute – I didn’t know ideas had to be connected. This is a blog, not a philosophy essay! (You want essays? See my other blog sites.)

Item: Ajit came to see me last night at the Guest House. (Dave Walker, my missionary housemate, has more drop-bys than I do. But then, he is the color man around here—just going into rooms when there is a free period and asking if they want him to fill the time. The entire class stays—every time! He holds them spell-bound and they come for private advice.) Ajit is a vibrant, earnest early-twenties guy—so happy he is going to graduate in March and start as associate pastor at a church hear his home district. He comes from a solidly middle-class Hindu family, who wanted him to be a doctor. And he has enough smarts, no question. They have cast him out of the family since he gave his life to Christ. But he is happy to suffer for the one who suffered so for his rescue. He plies me with many questions about how to be a good pastor. He already loves the people there so much. He wants to show them how to be co-ministers with him—to visit the sick and the poor in their afflictions and to reach out to Hindus and Muslims. He says his goal is to write a book a year. But his plan is this. Gather a dozen people for weekly Bible study and encourage them to probe his teaching on a Bible book and then to put it to use. Then he can compile into a sort of collaborative Bible commentary. Naturally, I affirm his desire. Then he starts asking about marriage. “What qualities does a pastor require in a wife?” Well that’s right down my alley. I have a lot of wisdom in theory and lots of blessing in experience on that one.

Then he asks about a man on campus that has his sights on a girl who comes from a higher socio-economic station and he doesn’t know if it is proper to seek her hand. Besides, she is several years younger than he and at NTC long after he graduates. How can we advise this man? After pointing out a few obvious cautions for to use to advise this friend, he tells me “I am that man! I believe God has shown me this classmate is to be my wife!”

Hoo-boy…! Breathe deep here.

Ajit quickly comes to see that he needs to give her space to search her own heart. She must come to it on her own. (Well, I’ve counseled people before in that kind of situation. But usually in vain.) To my delight he says that he will not push but will wait for her to make an approach to him, since she knows how he feels about her already. “If she comes, then I know God is in it. If not, I will know God is not in it.

Bingo! I assure him that in this way he walks by faith. He will see ten years from now how the right path was already planned for him and he will have no regrets—no matter how it turns out.

Amazing. The guy with too much time on his hands actually made a difference in the real world—helping fix something so the real world is a little less broken.

Thanks, Bill. I know you were holding my rope and gently bringing me back to planet Earth.