Dear Jesus, Why People Are Really Leaving You
I see the panic on your face, Jesus.Point one I'll skip because Ciaphas here prophecies correctly regarding mega-churches. We'll just jump to point two.
I know the internal terror as you see the statistics and hear the stories and scan the exit polls.
I see you desperately scrambling to do damage control for the fence-sitters, and manufacture passion from the shrinking faithful, and I want to help you.
You may think you know why people are leaving you, but I’m not sure you do.
You think it’s because “the culture” is so lost, so perverse, so beyond help that they are all walking away.
You believe that they’ve turned a deaf ear to the voice of God; chasing money, and sex, and material things.
You think that the gays and the Muslims and the Atheists and the pop stars have so screwed up the morality of the world that everyone is abandoning faith in droves.
But those aren’t the reasons people are leaving you.
They aren’t the problem Jesus.
You are.
Jesus, you talk and talk and talk, but you do so using a dead language. You’re holding onto dusty words that have no resonance in people’s ears, not realizing that just saying those words louder isn’t the answer. All the religious buzzwords that used to work 20 years ago [will] no longer do.
This spiritualized insider-language may give you some comfort in an outside world that is changing, but that stuff’s just lazy religious shorthand, and it keeps regular people at a distance. They need you to speak in a language that they can understand. There’s a message there worth sharing, but it’s hard to hear above your verbal pyrotechnics.
People don’t need to be dazzled with big, churchy words and about eschatological frameworks and theological systems. Talk to them plainly about love, and joy, and forgiveness, and death, and peace, and God, and they’ll be all ears. Keep up the church-speak, and you’ll be talking to an empty room soon.
Part three is a mixed bag again. I'll give John one point for calling out teen mega church antics, and ten minus fifty for following it up with this:
Rather than simply stepping out into the neighborhoods around you and partnering with the amazing things already happening, and the beautiful stuff God is already doing, you seem content to franchise out your particular brand of [culture], and wait for the sinful world to beat down your door.
Your greatest mission field is just a few miles, (or a few feet) [away] and you don’t even realize it. You wanna reach the people you’re missing?
Leave the [church] building[s].
Didn't think things could get worse? They do.
We know you like to fight, Jesus. That’s obvious.
When you want to, you can go to war with the best of them. The problem is, your battles are too darn small. Fast food protests, hobby store outrage and duck-calling Reality TV show campaigns may manufacture some urgency and Twitter activity on the inside for the already-convinced, but they’re paper tigers to people out here with bloody boots on the ground.
Every day we see a world suffocated by poverty, and racism, and violence, and bigotry, and hunger; and in the face of that stuff, you get awfully, frighteningly quiet. We wish you were as courageous in those fights, because then we’d feel like coming alongside you; then we’d feel like going to war with you.
Jesus, we need you to stop being a warmonger with the trivial and a pacifist in the face of the terrible.
Take a deep breath. Take another. Okay, now we'll keep moving.
Love seems to be a pretty big deal to you, but we’re not getting that when the rubber meets the road. In fact, more and more, your brand of love seems incredibly selective and decidedly narrow; filtering out all the spiritual riff-raff, which sadly includes far too many of us.
It feels like a big bait-and-switch sucker-deal; advertising a “Come as You Are” party, but letting us know once we’re in the door that we can’t really come as we are. We see [you] in the Bible [hanging] out with lowlifes and prostitutes and outcasts, and loved them right there, but [now] that doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea.
Jesus, can you love us if we don’t check all the doctrinal boxes and don’t have our theology all figured out? It doesn’t seem so.
Can you love us if we cuss and drink and get tattoos, and God forbid, vote Democrat? We’re doubtful.
Can you love us if we’re not sure how we define love, and marriage, and Heaven, and Hell? It sure doesn’t feel that way.
From what we know about you, we think you look like love. The unfortunate thing is, you don’t look much like him.
The midpoint call to reflection:
That's part of the reason people are leaving you Jesus. These words may get you really, really angry, and you may want to jump in a knee-jerk move to defend yourself or attack these positions line-by-line, but I hope that you won’t.
I hope that you’ll just sit in stillness with these words for a while, because whether you believe they’re right or wrong, they’re real to us, and that’s the whole point.
We’re the ones walking away.
We want to matter to you.
We want you to hear us before you debate us.
Show us that your love and your God are real.
What's really clever here is that he anticipates a rebuke and tries to shrug it off:
Jesus, give us a reason to stay.
It’s not you, it’s me.
That’s what you seem to be saying, Jesus.
I tried to share my heart with you; and thousands and thousands of people like me who are walking away, to let you know of the damage you’re doing and the painful legacy you’re leaving, and apparently, you’re not the problem.
(Which, of course, is still a problem).
I’ve relayed my frustration with your rhetoric, and you responded by cut-and-pasting random Scripture soundbytes about the [Churchy word] and the [Stupid churchy word] insisting that the real issue is simply my “biblical ignorance,” and suggesting that I just need to repent and get a good Concordance (whatever that is).
I let you know how judged and ridiculed I feel when I’m with you, how much like a hopeless, failing outsider I feel on the periphery of your often inward, judgmental communities, and you proceeded to tell me how “lost” I am, how hopelessly “in love with my sin” I must be to leave you, reminding me that I never really belonged with you anyway.
In the face of every complaint and every grievance, you’ve made it clear that the real issue is that I’m either sinful, heretical, immoral, foolish, unenlightened, selfish, consumerist or ignorant.
Heck, many days I’m not even sure I disagree with you.
Maybe you’re right Jesus.
Maybe I am the problem.
Maybe it is me, but me is all I’m capable of being right now, and that’s where I was really hoping you would meet me.
I get it already you say? Can't take any more? Stop it already? No my friend. Vampires and other such minions of darkness don't die until you put the stake through the heart. Read.
It’s here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned me-ness that I’ve been waiting for you to step in with this whole supposedly relentless, audacious “love” thing I hear so much about, and make it real.
Jesus, I know how much you despise the word Tolerance, but right now, I really need you to tolerate me; to tolerate those of us who, for all sorts of reasons you may feel aren’t justified, are struggling to stay.
We’re so weary of feeling like nothing more than a religious agenda; an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save.
We want to be more than a notch on your Salvation belt; another number to pad your Twitter posts and end-of-year stat sheets.
We need to be more than altar call props, who are applauded and high-fived down the aisle, and then forgotten once the song ends.
We’ve been praying for you to stop evangelizing us, and preaching at us, and fighting us, and judging us, and sin-diagnosing us, long enough to simply hear us …
… even if we are the problem.
Even if we are the woman in adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal, or the demon-riddled young man, we can’t be anything else right now in this moment; and in this moment, we need a Jesus big enough, and tough enough, and loving enough; not just for us as we might one day be then, but for us as we are, now.
We still believe that God is big enough, and tough enough, and loving enough, even if you won’t be, and that’s why even if we do walk away, it doesn’t mean we’re walking away from faith; it’s just that faith right now seems more reachable elsewhere.
I know you’ll argue that you’re doing all these things and saying all these things because you love and care for us, but from the shoes we’re standing in, you need to know that it feels less like love and care, and more like space and silence: If someone is frustrated, telling them that they’re wrong to be frustrated is, well, pretty freakin’ frustrating.
It only breeds distance.
If someone shares that their heart is hurting, they don’t want to hear that they’re not right to be hurt.
It’s a conversation-stopper.
If someone tells you they are starving for compassion, and relationship, and authenticity, the last thing they need is to be corrected for that hunger.
It’s a kick in the rear on the way out the door.
So yes, Jesus, even if you’re right, even if we’re totally wrong—even if we’re all petty, and self-centered, and hypocritical, and critical, and (I’ll say it), “sinful”—we’re still the ones searching for a place where we can be known and belong; a place where it feels like God lives, and you’re the one who can show it to us.
Even if the problem is me, it’s me who you’re supposed to be reaching, Jesus.
So, for the love of God; reach already.
Found that long and troubling? I'll condense it for you.
Dear Mr. Jesus.
You are so dumb. You are really dumb. For reals. You're all like, "Why don't people love me John?" Well I feel so bad for you that I'm willing to help by writing an article to help you feel better about things. Sound good?
Your first big problem Mr. Jesus is that you think educating people by explaining all these old fashioned ideas will actually work. Here's my advice instead: stop using words that convey your meaning and use ones that don't! Instead of "justification" try "spiritual formation." Instead of "propitiation" try "community." Next, start showing us you care for us by addressing the things that matter in our life like catastrophic climate change and raising awareness for living wage coffee bean farmers. Quit talking all the time about such stupid and trivial things like judgement and the life to come, and please for once just do something great. Please? Why not try joining the Muslims in a world outreach event day? That would be huge.
Now don't take any of this the wrong way Mr. Jesus. I know this is likely to make you angry, but be cool. Mediate on it for awhile. Sit. Have a latte. Think it over, you'll see I'm right. Then perhaps consider doing something for us and showing us you love us. Because the fact of the matter is the image we have in your mind is so wonderful. You say such sweet things. You never demand anything from us. You let us think whatever we want about you and are cool with it. In fact entertaining this delusion about you is so wonderful that I'm going to actually rebuke the real you. Be more like the guy in my head. I'm a broken man Mr. Jesus. I think you are too and if you could just admit that it would go a long way to fixing what bothers me so much about you. So do it. Quit telling me things that offend me and start ratifying every decision I make regarding you, no matter how wrong it is. You jerk. You have a lot of potential in there. Just... keep it to yourself okay?
The fundamental problem with guys like this and Emergent Churches is that they want the blessings of the righteous while living in a completely unholy fashion. They want to be apart of the world, serve mammon, and claim to be loving God. "Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase" isn't even a question they ask themselves because giving up sinning never crosses their mind. They have a view of God who tolerates everything they do and loves them just the same, good behavior or bad, and calling them to live like a Christian is strictly off the table. They want unholiness. Sanctification isn't just optional, it's unwelcome. So they say horrible things like the quotes above.
But there's a punishment waiting for those who commit such blasphemy. There's also a punishment for those who agree with it. For the love of Christ John, stop. You too Emergents, close your mouths. He's the Lord of glory. He's the almighty conqueror. He's resplendent in majesty, enthroned above the angels, perfect in beauty, unsurpassed in loveliness. He's a consuming fire. His word is sharper than any two edged sword and His gaze is upon the wicked, whom He will burn with unquenchable fire. His greatness no word can contain, and no one is worthy of more worship and adoration. Please, for your sake, just stop. And never start again. Because holiness isn't optional.
