Community-Building - A First Step

Over the last few months, I've paid a few very infrequent visits to the Russian church I mentioned in one of my earliest posts on this blog. I've picked up a few new Russian words and am better able to find my way around the Russian Bible. My last visit was to attend a dinner and church service they had to send off a number of visiting preachers from Russia, Uzbekistan and the Ukraine.

A young, recently married man volunteered to translate for me during the preaching part of the service. Afterward, during the dinner part, we struck up a conversation. He was very curious about my interest in their church, as well as my impressions of it. As for himself, he revealed a sort of wry perspective on customs and practices of their group – a perspective that he said was shared by many young people in the church.

To be sure, their church is rather strict in its attempts to keep the Law and the Sabbath, forbidding even driving and the use of cell phones on the Sabbath. Their meetings are also somewhat similar to those of the Plymouth Brethren, in that there are usually no musical instruments (but sometimes a piano or acoustic guitar manages to squeeze in), most of the women wear head coverings, there is more than one preacher per service, and the meetings tend to be a bit long (as one young man told me, “At least two hours every time. Never less.”) However, this church seems to be somewhat more democratically run than many Plymouth Brethren-styled gatherings. They have not tried to apply any strictness to me, probably figuring that I must be just a “crazy American.”

I told this young man about my experiences in the church I was involved with in Southern California, and mentioned the similarities between the practices of his church and the practices of my former church. I also noted wryly that one of the best ways to find out about a group of people was to ask the younger members of the group. These young people are reading the Bible for themselves, and are beginning to question some of the strictness that has been imposed on them. According to this young man, the young people would like church services to be quite a bit shorter and more lively.

All of this got me thinking about the attempts by parents in my old abusive church to raise “godly” children by burying them under a pile of strictures, by enforcing harsh discipline, and by condemning as “worldly” many of the normal, natural cravings children have for good, clean fun. Thus were many positive, Biblical values poisoned for these children by having these values forced on them as rigid legal requirements.

Anyway, we got together again recently, not at church, but at a coffehouse. This time, we talked a bit more about the Law in relation to the grace of God revealed in Christ. I showed him some passages from Galatians that talked about our freedom from the Law in Christ. For his part, he asked me some rather challenging questions – first, about what I believe concerning keeping the Sabbath. For it is part of God's moral law (as opposed to the Old Testament ceremonial law that dealt with worship and sacrifices), and the righteousness of that moral law is to be fulfilled in us who are Christians. Up to now, I was sure that Christians are no longer under obligation to keep the Sabbath. Yet I have been noticing the transformation of our society into a “Sabbathless” society over the years, and the stressful effect it has had on daily life for most people. This young man's question could basically be summed up in this statement: “Doesn't the command to keep the Sabbath carry the same weight as the command not to murder or steal?” To which my honest answer at this point is, “I don't know!” I'll have to chew on that one some more.

We got to talking about the present economic situation. I mentioned to him that I had read Reinventing Collapse by Dmitri Orlov, whose book described many aspects of Russian life before and just after the fall of the Soviet Union. I told him that I was curious to know whether the Russians in our neighborhood would likely agree with Orlov's descriptions and assessments. He could not give me much help, as he was only five years old when he left Russia, but he was interested in borrowing Orlov's book. He did agree that people in Russia knew and relied on their neighbors far more than people in the United States, and that immigrants from poorer countries are probably much better prepared to face the times now upon us than most native-born Americans. (To paraphrase Orlov, it's relatively painless to fall to the ground from a first-story window.)

One of the most important things we talked about was how the Church in America – the Christians – could be salt and light in these present times, meeting needs, making peace and being a blessing to their neighborhoods. We both agreed that Christians could take the lead in ministering to their neighbors and forging connections within the community, and we discussed ways to make this happen in our neighborhood.

We'll probably get together again soon. He is a guitar player who wants to learn a bit more about the instrument, and I happen to know a little bit, which I volunteered to teach him and anyone else who is interested. In exchange, I asked if he or his friends could teach me a few Russian hymns. By the way, his perspective on the music of his church is quite funny. He said that one of his friends remarked that it sounds like “funeral music.” I, however, like the Russian hymns. But then again, I have some CD's of a cappella Russian folk songs. As Larry Niven once said, “One man's cheese is another man's rotted milk.”

Thoughts on the Loaves and Fish

The apostles gathered themselves together to Jesus, and they told him all things, whatever they had done, and whatever they had taught. He said to them, “You come apart into a deserted place, and rest awhile.” For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

They went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. [The multitudes] saw them going, and many recognized him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. Jesus came out, saw a great multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things. When it was late in the day, His disciples came to Him, and said, “This place is deserted, and it is late in the day. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages, and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat.”

But He answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They asked Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give them something to eat?” He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go see.” When they knew, they said, “Five, and two fish.”

He commanded them that everyone should sit down in groups on the green grass. They sat down in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke the loaves, and He gave to His disciples to set before them, and He divided the two fish among them all. They all ate, and were filled. They took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and also of the fish. Those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

– Mark 6:30-44, World English Bible, a public domain translation.

I am almost through the Gospel of Mark. (Yeah, I know, I go slow, but I've also been reading Judges and Ruth!) One passage I read several weeks ago has stuck with me, as it reminded me of parallels between my experience in my old abusive church and the experiences others have had in their involvement in movements unrelated to our old group. I saw the passage in a new light in my most recent reading of it, and saw a bit more clearly what God really meant by including this story in the earthly life of the Lord Jesus.

First, the parallels. There is a branch of evangelicalism known as the charismatic movement, whose members believe that the miraculous powers employed by Christ and His disciples are still being used today by those gifted with such powers. Many charismatics are very nice people who don't get overly hung up on miracles, yet there is a hardcore element who emphasize the miraculous to extremes. They teach that the evidence of faith in a Christian's life is that he or she is constantly experiencing miracles, especially those miracles that have to do with naming and claiming good health, lots of money and material possessions. Many of their churches are known as “Word of Faith” churches, due to their identification with this sort of doctrine. Some of the blogs in my blogroll are written by ex-members of these churches, who left after they saw not only the errors of doctrine, but the abusive ways of these churches.

In our Assemblies, we used to look down our noses on the Charismatics and the Pentecostals, especially in our early days. We had all our doctrinal reasons why the “sign gifts are not for today,” and all our valid criticisms of wacky Charismatic behavior, criticisms that were often shared with us as anecdotes from our head honcho, George Geftakys. What we didn't realize was that we were as wacky as the people we criticized.

The Pentecostals, Charismatics and WOF types were always seeking the miraculous, and their leaders held themselves up as men and women who always experienced the spectacularly miraculous, because of their spectacular faith – just as our “dear brother” George held himself up as an example of the miraculous, through the tall tales he told about himself and his “missionary labors.” He used to share stories about people from whom he had cast out demons, unseen voices giving him guidance, people who had been healed through his prayers, and so on.

And just as the WOF/Charismatic leaders taught that true and successful disciples would be known by the evidence of the miraculous in their lives, so George taught that the sign of a true servant of God was that such a person had a miraculous ministry. But whereas “miraculous” for a Pentecostal/WOF person meant having lots of material possessions (or “mountains, oh, mountains of things” as Tracy Chapman once sang), for us it meant being in charge of Something Really Big. “Brother, I've preached before thousands. Thousands!! I founded a work which now has hundreds of members!”

And so we come to our Thursday Night Prayer Meetings, where the brothers (adult men, for the uninitiated) were all supposed to come ready and “exercised” with “a word to share with the Lord's people” as each had opportunity. A big part of preparing a “word” to share was reading passages like the passage in Mark quoted above, and to try to figure out how to wring miracles out of God. Each Thursday, one or two of us would stand up in front of everyone else and preach out of a passage of Scripture, saying things like, “Saints, the Lord wants to do great things! If we only do x, y and z, the Lord will surely do for us and for this ministry the sorts of miracles we read about in this passage...”

But now it has been a rather long time since I was at an Assembly “Thursday Night Prayer Meeting.” I no longer read the Bible to try to figure out how to make God do stuff; instead, I read in order to learn more who God is. I know God has worked miracles in the past, and I believe He answers prayer in the present, yet as far as people with supposed miraculous gifts, I suppose I am a “cessationist.” I believe that answers to prayer come largely through the arrangements of providence nowadays, and that miracles are like a potent drug – healthy in the right doses, yet detrimental when employed to excess. As a master Pharmacist, God's chief aim right now is not giving us “mountains of things,” nor a Really Big Ministry, but to change our character – to bless us by turning us away from our sins, as it says in Acts 3. That happens as we learn to be decent people in a world full of limits. The real aim of the story of the loaves and fish is to illustrate who Jesus Christ is. I pray for clearer eyes to see that portrait.

We offer ourselves up to Him daily (or at least we should), and He does with us as He wishes, just as He did with the five loaves and two fish. But are we willing to be satisfied if what He does with us is nowhere near as spectacular as that miraculous meal, if instead, He uses us in ordinary, providential ways, or ministers to others through the testimony of our behavior? A handmade fish sandwich is also nutritious.