One good word
Essays, Featured — By John Blase on November 5, 2009 at 3:56 am
“Eat or die.”
- Jim Harrison
If I hear one more nitwit rage on about consumer christianity or a consumer faith, I may cut my ponytail and go sit in sackcloth and aspens. The usual script goes something like – “All American Christians want to do is consume; they never give back, never volunteer to serve…all they want is more, more, more, and they want most of it in under an hour, please.” Trust me – I get it and some of it is warranted, but some of it just sounds like whiny leadership types.
Alright. Here goes. I believe ours has always been a consumer faith. Unless I’m hell-in-a-handbasket-mistaken, the one at the very core of this crazy little thing called faith said these words: take, eat, this is my body…take drink, this cup is the new covenant in my blood… If that’s not a faith of consumption, then somebody help me.
We’re all consumers. As big Jim says – “Eat or die.” To my little mind, the question seems to be what are we consuming? I believe life begets life. So, if we’re consuming life, it’ll beget life in all of it’s wonderful, cockeyed variety, sometimes 30, 60, even a hundredfold. If we’re consuming the seeds of death or half-baked empty promises, well, the landscape will look much like it does these days. I’m a writer, so I’m always looking and listening and let me tell you, people are crazy-hungry, almost starving, so much so that we’re willing to live on information…I wonder sometimes if that’s behind the current of rage that flows beneath most of our frozen visages…
This is not the age of information.
This is not
The age of information.
Forget the news,
And the radio,
And the blurred screen.
This is the time
Of loaves
And fishes.
People are hungry,
And one good word is bread
For a thousand.
- David Whyte
My friend from afar, Winn Collier, wrote about thoughts like these. Here is the link. Winn’s thoughts pertain to preaching. I like that alot. You might say Silly Rabbit, folks need to learn to be self-feeders. You know what? I believe that. I also believe we’re still living on this dark and bloody planet called Earth and flesh and blood needs flesh and blood and unless there’s a new kind of human being born, which I sure as heaven don’t believe there is, we still look to some to share with us what they’ve gleaned – the poets, preachers, singers, the gypsies, tramps, and thieves.
Now I don’t believe that means that sermons and studies and conferences and all other manner of jesuspalooza needs to go whacked-out-deep-and-heady; that’d just be the opposite but equal error. But I do believe the questions are worth asking – What is the good word? What are we consuming? What are we being fed? What are we feeding folks? This is the time of loaves and fishes…bless and break that stuff and the people might eat and be satisfied with baskets leftover. I read somewhere that happened once upon a time…
8 Comments
Beautiful, thank you for sharing these thoughts. I will have to reflect on this one for awhile.
Hahaha – jesuspalooza!! Brilliant!!
I really enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing.
Well said.
As long as when we take and eat this bread we also “therefore go…”
All of the cynical emergent language that we have spouted for the last 8 years or so does feel tired, immature and whiney sometimes.
I was talking with a friend this summer and we were lamenting that a few years ago we were using language like “I’m not sure I want to be called a Christian…I’m just going to say I follow Jesus.”
Now with a little maturity, time, and perspective we both want to claim the title “Christian” understanding that it includes many who are embarrassing because we understand that we will also do embarrassing and sinful things and we hope others will still call us brother and sister. In the words of my friend “I am tired of my cynicism. I guess all i want to do is be a really great follower of Jesus.”
I traveled in a group of fifty missionaries for a year and came off the field a couple months ago.
After our first month in Africa, one of my friends reflected “I’m not just pissed at the American Church anymore.”
All the Churches have their warts. Sometimes our are tied up in marketable sermon series and great video editing. Sometimes people calls those warts “consumer Christianity”.
Oh and Jamie, one of my friends once referred to the Catalyst conference as “ChristCon”…I like that one
that is wonderful. Yes, there is a lot to be said of the consumerism Christians have created. Over the summer I volunteered at the Creation East. I worked merch and sold a lot of stuff. I couldn’t help but wonder if all those kids left Creation with more than just a crappy t-shirt. I’ve more recently wondered what I could give for the cause of receiving something more. something whole. I had a great week at Creation. Worship with Christians of all backgrounds is very powerful. I just want to give something to those who truely leave with nothing.
amen and amen.
“True spirituality does not consist in what one does not do, it is rather what one does. It is not suppression: it is expression. It is holding in self: it is living out Christ.” – Lewis Sperry Chafer
We are not supposed to stop everything that could be bad and could turn bent or evil. We are to engage in those things compelled by the Spirit and truly be light in darkness.
A thought.
In the Eucharist we are not consuming life. We are consuming death – the body broken and the blood poured out.
Thank you for writing this. I think of Peter and Jesus sitting there and Jesus tells Peter if he loves him he will FEED his sheep. I guess then the question comes down to “What are we feeding people?”
I love what you said about how life begets life. I think where we fail as the church is trying to feed people instructions and to-do lists- the law. That is always death. You can’t eat it.
True food is the pure untainted gospel- the grace of God. I believe that is what the world is starving for.