In praise of the cockroach or at least grudging respect

A couple of weeks ago I talked about how the church should be like a cockroach in a growingly hostile world.  Some readers found the idea of pouring out 5 gallons of cockroaches on the floor somewhat disquieting.  What was the term that was used?  Oh, yes, “full body shiver”.  The Bible uses a number of animals to illustrate some truths.  Some are becoming like being a sheep, some are not like cunning as a serpent.  Our personal disdain for roaches should not prevent us from appreciating these marvels of creation and learning from them.  C. S. Lewis points out that we have imagined angels with bird wings and demons with bat wings not because birds are more holy than bats, but because of our own preference.  So, continue to hate roaches, at least the ones in the house, but let’s learn a lesson from them about what the church could be like.

____Amazing Facts about Roaches that Churches need to imitate.

1.) A Cockroach Can Live for Week Without Its Head

How long would the average church member survive if they were separated from the local leaders of their congregation?  While Jesus is the head of the church and the believer, most church members are dependent on the church leaders to spoon-feed them in their faith.  We need to help our people grow to be able to manage without us. 

2.) A Cockroach Can Hold Its Breath for 40 Minutes

Privation is not something we are good at and will not be tolerated by our members.  By use of the “seeker driven” approach to ministry we have created whole congregations that are utterly focused on their own interests.  If by some chance they are not happy over almost anything they will find a church somewhere that will “meet” their needs.  We need to train our people that the life of the church is not about them and that they do not always have to have their way.

3.) They Can Run Up to Three Miles in an Hour

Compared to body size that would be like a man running about 70 MPH or a sub one-minute mile.  How quickly can churches make the decision to take advantage of opportunities?  I know of a committee that took two years of discussion about a project before they could agree to pray for its success.  We do not need to act rashly or in ways that compromise the truth, but there are occasions in which we need to move more quickly that we do.

4.) Newborn German Cockroaches Become Adults in as Little as 36 Days

The maturation process for believers is often slow by design or to be more accurate as a by-product of the design of our churches.  We have church members that still act infantile in regard to their faith, service and life.  We need to emphasis that maturating in faith, including making new disciples is the baseline expectation.

5.) A One-Day-Old Baby Cockroach Can Run Almost as Fast as Its Parents

Baby cockroaches are really small, like the size of a spec of dust.  Nevertheless, they travel well.  What we often do with new Christians is try to lock them in a “Christian Ghetto” cutting off all the connections with their network of nonbelievers.  Rather than sheltering new believers away let’s go with them in their old circle and join them in making disciples. 

6.) The Cockroach Has Shown an Ability to be a Survivor

The radiation that it takes to kill a roach is about 15 times what will kill a human.  What if our church and our members were a little less likely to fall apart when faced with hardship?  Despite the millions spent to try to kill roaches they are in every community.  That is a worthy goal for the church.

7.) There are More Than 4,000 Different Cockroach Species Worldwide

They range from the arctic to the tropics and can adapt to almost any environment and survive and thrive anywhere.  What a message for our church planting mindset.  Look at the place in your community where you think a church would not do well.  If we think like roaches we would see that as an opportunity. 

8.) Cockroaches are social and they swarm.

As if you didn’t know it roaches live and do their thing together.  They actually are beneficial to each other.  What if the church membership was swarms of like-minded individuals that worked for a common goal?

I’m not saying you should like cockroaches or compare your churches or Christian friends to roaches.  However, in this amazing creation we see some attributes that we can imitate in our lives as disciples. 

Paul's 5-step plan to a health church

I generally dislike simple formulas that are offered for complex problems.  But at the end of I Corinthians Paul offers a simple 5-step plan for this sick church's restoration.

Paul’s conclusion to his letter to the most dysfunctional and problem-beset church in the New Testament is both powerful and beautiful.  It is loving and gentle without being sentimental and weak.  Paul’s five instructions in I Corinthians 16:13-14, if followed by the church, would almost completely restore it to good health.  They are instructions that we in our chaotic time would do well to heed.    These instructions are progressive, each of these directives connect to the principle or behavior preceding it and prepare for the one following. 

Paul begins with, “Be on the alert”; have some basic, situational awareness.  Realize that troubles are coming, both for individual Christians and for congregations.  Too often Christians act as if we live in a world that is or should be “pro-Christian” and that opinion is not supported by Scripture, history or experience.  Once problems have infected the church or our lives it is often too late for the best solutions.  So, be looking for trouble.

When facing these problems we do so in the faith.  Notice that Paul doesn’t say, “Faith,” but rather, “The faith.”  It is not our personal or subjective faith, but rather, the orthodox faith once and for all given to the saints. If we address our troubles based on the Christian faith rather than opinions, fads, or the latest psychobabble, the problems and solutions would be much clearer. 

Seeing these problems Biblically in advance will still require courage to respond effectively.  Paul says, “Act like men.”  This is the only occurrence of this word in the New Testament.  It means to act mature, full-grown, responsibly and courageously.  Knowing the truth is great, but acting on the truth will require resolve and determination.  So many times congregations face problems and rather than confront and deal with the problems leaders run away from the conflict and pretend that if everyone acts nice the problems will go away.  A child left to himself will never do the hard work of study or clean his room, will play endlessly with video games, and eat only ice cream and cake.  A mature grown up will work and do the hard things that need to be done.  In most church disasters there was a moment when a wicked person or group should have been confronted forcefully but were not.  Because the leaders were weak the wicked won the day or moment but ultimately the ministry died.  Children left to themselves will only do what feels good in the moment.  Too many times church leaders act the same way to the ruin of many congregations.  Such leaders deserve nothing but the most pure form of contempt.

Dealing with problems in the church is not easy; in addition to maturity it requires strength.  So, Paul adds to alertness, orthodoxy, and maturity the character of strength.  The word Paul uses here is also rare, being found only 4 times in the New Testament.  It comes from the root word that means, “complete”.  It carries the idea of complete domination.  To use a sports metaphor, the kind of domination when Georgia Tech beat Cumberland University in football 222 to 0, never allowing Cumberland to make a first down and amassing 1,650 yards of rushing.  When confronting problems or wicked people this is how Christians and church leaders are to express their power over evil.

The last point that Paul makes is that it all has to be done in love.  It is easy for us to procrastinate dealing with evil.  When we procrastinate we only put off what must be done.  We generally put it off until it becomes personal and when it becomes personal it is easy for our actions to become vindictive and unloving.  The church must be aggressive in its oppression of evil and it is easier to do that in love if we do it sooner rather than later. This loving suppression of evil requires the strength that will endure from maturity in the faith and clear-sighted concern for the future.  Loving the sinner while hating the sin is no easy task; it is the hallmark of a mature Christian.  Ideally, we develop a very thick skin so that nothing really bothers us while maintaining a tender heart for all people, even wicked people.  Ironically, what we often find and universally find in church troublemakers is a person who is both thin-skinned and hard-hearted.  If they won’t repent, such people will wreck a church.   

 

Be like a cockroach be a better church

As you may have heard there have been of late several acts of vandalism carried out on a number of churches in the last few weeks.  While this is far from the kind of persecution that Christians in other parts of the world experience it is something unusual here in America.  The acts of lone individuals in personal fury are different from the acts of the state as a matter of policy.  However, we can be certain that the dark powers of evil are equally behind both.

I am not interested in proposing or discussing conspiracy theories about grand plots against the church in America.  I am interested in a more micro scale of potential persecution of the church, persecution and the local congregation.  In short, could your congregation survive a season of persecution?  Would the function and ministry of your church end if you lost your senior leadership?  What if you were completely barred from using your facilities or if going to the church building was highly risky?  What if your technology was compromised and everyone who logged in to watch a service or communicate with other believes were at risk?  Could your church worship and study if there was no polished music team and magnetic personalities?

In most congregations in our country if you rounded up a small cadre of key leaders the church would cease to function.  We have not done a very good job of passing key ministry in the church from a few key leaders to members at large.  In most churches there is a high degree of specialization associated with leadership.  This may facilitate ever-larger congregations, but it does not allow for a “next man up” approach to ministry in the church. We are all familiar with teachings about the priesthood of all believers; it is just that we haven’t done much about it.  We are tempted to say, “Persecution can never happen here.”  There are a great many things that have happened in the last year we never believed possible.

This may be the time for the church to look for new, actually ancient, structure.  Rather than organized around large congregations and buildings with a few central leaders the church could take on the structure of underground operatives.  It would be hard for an elephant to take over a house, but roaches are another matter.  The impact of a 3,000-pound elephant could be easily countered. But how hard would it be to capture, kill or restrain 3,000-pounds of roaches?  As long as we organize ourselves around buildings and large gatherings we remain an elephant or maybe a dog if we are a smaller church.  What we need to do is to be more like roaches.

Stop for a second and imagine a 5-gallon bucket of live roaches (about 10,000) and that bucket is up ended in the middle of your living room floor.  Now stop and imagine someone turning loose a 40-pound dog in your house. Which will be easier for you to remove?  Let’s become like roaches.

What no one wants to hear or say.

 Preface and warning

I have no interest in a discussion of the relative merits of the North, the South and the legitimacy of the two nations, the reason(s) for which the war was fought or the political outcome of the war, at least not in this forum. However, as a disciple who is much more concerned about the Kingdom than any nation (including this one) I am very much interested in what lessons we can learn from what happened. 

The Third Rail of the Racial Discussion

A friend and former church member of mine sent me a note a few weeks ago concerning the current racial tension in America.  She is a deeply committed Christian of African heritage, she is from the Caribbean, has significant international experience, married to a white man, raising a mixed race son, and living in the deep South.  She has a very broad perspective on race.  She asked me in her note why is race such a difficult issue in America?  Why does America have such a problem with race?

Let me offer a disclaimer.  What follows is very much a sort of third rail of racial politics that is almost universally offensive.  What will follow will offend conservatives because it calls into question one of the sacred cows of US history.  Liberals will hate this proposition because it will remove the scapegoat of Southern racists as easily vilified and almost defenseless anti-heroes.  Please gather your pitchforks and torches now and prepare to march out.

If you will look at racial issues across most of Western Civilization we do not see, specifically between the descendants of Europeans and Africans, the tension that we see in the US.  In Europe slavery was ended through the noble efforts of abolitionists, of whom William Wilberforce is the poster child.  Through boycotts, education, preaching, teaching, political efforts, patience and most of all prayer, slavery was ended as hearts were changed.

However, in our history, slavery ended by force of arms and as part of the machinations of war. The way slavery ended in the United States, in no small part, planted the seeds of racial conflict that we struggle with today. 

The struggle of the antebellum abolitionists was slow and difficult.  Slavery was an unspeakable evil that was powered by evil men more committed to money than the Lord.  While most of the disagreements between the North and the South might have found compromise, there could be no compromise over slavery.  The war was fought because of states’ rights; it was made inevitable because of slavery.  Very likely, abolitionists saw the war as a good thing, perhaps even a God send.  It was seen as a holy war, “as He died to make men holy let us die to make me free.”  The 14^th Amendment ended the evil of legal slavery.  But what it did not do nor could it do was change hearts.  Rather than end it, as in Britain, by means of a moral revival, slavery was ended by force of arms and imposition of political power.  As a result, hearts were, I think, hardened.  The humanity and dignity of slaves while recognized by law was not the practice of many people.  Law cannot change hearts, it can teach, warn and punish, but it will never change a heart.  If you doubt this ask, “If we pull down every Confederate statue and memorial will racism (in both of its directions) end?”  “Was the North or did the North become a bastion of racial tolerance after the war?”  In both cases the answer is, “No.”  In fact, today there are more radical, racist groups (Klan, Nation of Islam, etc.) in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and New York, than in almost any of the Southern states.

While Lincoln deserves high marks for the preservation of the Union, we need to lay at his feet the racial conflict of the last 155 years.   As a nation we attempted to do by law what can only be done by the change of heart.   When we do that, we create new, unexpected and perhaps more deeply rooted problems.  Witness the bitter and angry response to the desecration and removal of statues, ironically, including those of abolitionists and Lincoln himself.  This is not promoting unity, but only creating a deeper rift. 

So, what are we to do?  Learn the lesson antebellum Christians failed to grasp. You cannot do by bayonets what can only be done on your knees.  Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  We cannot deal with this current issue by anything other than repentance, grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.  If we believe the problems we face are too great for the power of the Holy Spirit then we have moved beyond apostasy and our doom is assured or our God is just too small to be of much use or we, for sinful reasons, refuse to recognize God’s true power. 

One final consideration.  What if George Floyd, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin had all been fully committed disciples of Jesus Christ? How might things in Minneapolis been different?  What if only one police officer or Floyd himself had been a fully committed disciple might things have turned out differently?  We have in our nation plenty of laws and high ideals.  Our government has provided for us a pretty good civil structure, but we remain in a mess.  The one thing it can never provide, it can’t provide, it shouldn’t even try to provide, is the one thing that only Christians can provide, the Gospel.  The heritage of Lincoln is division, hate is not the sole property of Southerners and the failure is that the church has been busy with a lot of stuff rather than making disciples. 

No Justice, No Peace: what a wild ass boy and his brother Giggles can teach us.

The place of rage in the face of injustice is not a theme unknown in the Bible.  Divine justice sometimes takes our breath away.  Psalm137:8-9 is perhaps the best example of harsh justice and the frightening nature of Divine retribution. 

O daughter of Babylon doomed to destruction,

Happy is he who repays your for what you have done to us,

He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

It is part of our nature to become angry when we are the victims of injustice.  However, Psalm 137:8-9 must give way to Isaiah 11:6 and Matthew 5:10-12, 43-48 to name a few.  While no one doubts that over the last 400 years black people have suffered injustice, the question is how is that injustice going to be corrected?

One of the cries associated with BLM has been, “No justice, no peace.”  While a pretty catchy cliché it has some fundamental problems.  Because it is so catchy it is easy to remember, chant, and take up as a battle cry.  But this statement is fundamentally flawed and without examination can be a seedbed for great harm.  It is in and of itself a dangerous proposition and if you wanted to excite people to violence and vigilante action a better slogan would be hard to imagine. 

In order to address the application of this statement we need to have a definition of both Justice and Peace.  Until we know what is justice we can’t know if it has been accomplished.  What is meant by peace and how is it achieved? To examine this I need to share two stories.  The first is about a wild ass boy and his half brother Giggles, the second is about a Roman soldier and a Jewish man outside of Jerusalem. 

Justice: the wild ass boy and his half-brother Giggles.

Let there be no doubt these brother’s hated each other and they did so with good cause.  The older one was ripped off and treated badly by his dad and his stepmom.  The family was so messed up that they could have done a whole week of Jerry Springer shows.  It all started when his dad and his mom, who was a domestic help, had a roll in the sheets.  His step mom knew about it and as we might expect developed some real hatred for the younger woman who had her husband’s son.  This wild ass boy grew up in a home that was some where between crazy and miserable.  His bio mom and stepmom were always at it, so much so, his mom decided to run away.  If that wasn’t bad enough his stepmom got pregnant and the new baby, “Giggles” was the favorite of the old man.  By now you may recognize the boys and will recall their actually names of Ishmael and Isaac. Hated and being hated the older boy took it out on his little brother on his special day by sexually molesting him.  (The word “mocking” in Genesis 21:9 is exactly the same word “caressing” in Genesis 26:8.  Whatever Isaac did to Rebecca that convinced Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, but husband and wife is what Sarah caught Ishmael doing to Isaac.)  Sarah wanted to send both of them out in the desert, sort of a slow death sentence. On top of that, Ishmael was disinherited.  Abraham left all he had to Isaac contrary to the custom of the day and the Law of Moses that would come later, in which the eldest son receives a double portion of the inheritance.  Ishmael had received no justice and had a right to feel enraged.  Interestingly, the family dysfunction continues in that the Midianites that bought Joseph and took him to Egypt were descendants of Abraham by his son Midian.

Within this family there is an act of injustice that is responded to by an act that is seen as retribution by one side and by the other as an act of injustice which must be responded to by an act of retribution.  The cycle is endless.  The injustices of Isaac and Ishmael have passed down generation to generation in a cycle of violence.  Both sides saying in effect, “Until we get justice there will be no peace.”  Take a moment and Google “Arab-Israeli violence”, my guess is that you can do this any time and find an event that has transpired in the last 24 hours. 

Which brings us to the question, “What is justice?”  Is it a bad cop being arrested?  Is it retribution for policies from 20, 30, 50 or 150 years ago?  How do we decide if justice means an equal opportunity moving into the future or retribution for past wrongs? Who decides what is enough retribution for past wrongs?  Who is to be punished and who is to be compensated?  Who do we blame: Confederate officers or enlisted men, slave owners, northern ship owners who transported the slaves, Arab and African tribesmen who captured the slaves, the person who first domesticated cotton, sugar cane and rice, or Darwin who gave the scientific justification for racism?  While I am not trying to be trite or disrespectful until we know what is justice we can never know if it has been achieved.

Peace: the Roman soldier and the Jewish man outside of Jerusalem.

We have no record of the name of the Roman, but what he saw had a profound impact on him and the rest of the Roman army.   In the days and the weeks ahead the experience of the army and a great many Jews would be impacted by what he saw or said he saw.  In fact, we can’t even be sure that the event actually happened.  But whether it happened or not the Romans acted as if it did.  The Roman soldier happened upon a Jewish man who was carefully searching through a pile of his own feces.  This Jewish man came out of the besieged city of Jerusalem to the army of Titus.  He was willing to surrender to the Romans rather than stay in the doomed city.  He was searched for weapons and valuables and then sent to the Jewish encampment.  So, why was he digging in his own feces?  Apparently, he was trying to smuggle jewels out of the city in his digestive track. Once found and recovered he could use them to secure a better life.  The fact or rumor of what happened spread through the army.  Perhaps in the belly of refugees coming out of the city there was treasure to be had.  As you might expect the Romans wanted the treasure, but were unwilling to wait for defecation to get it.  Refugees were searched inside and out; they were cut open to see if they had swallowed jewels prior to leaving the city.  The siege of Jerusalem was one of the most brutal, violent, blood thirsty, and ruthless battles in all of history.

So, what does this have to do with the chant, “No justice, No peace”?  The siege and the destruction of Jerusalem happened in the middle of what is called Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.  What do we mean by peace?  For the Romans peace meant no resistance to power, the iron fist demands its way and if it is not given, monuments are pulled down, buildings and towns burned, and opposition is silenced, people are beaten and killed.  For the Romans peace was not a promise it was a threat.  Consider the violence enacted on Christians praying in St Louis this weekend.  Behold the ultimate expression of “No Justice, No Peace”.  https://youtu.be/yFvXJ8W93Cg

The chant of “No Justice, No Peace” is the near opposite of what the Old Testament calls Shalom and what Christ envisioned in His Kingdom. 

If a person or a group feels that they have not received justice are they allowed to arbitrarily act in ways that are violent till they feel they are satisfied?  Can a black man take it upon himself to deface a monument because it offends him for a wrong he feels he has suffered?  What if a monument to Dr. King offends someone, can they deface it?  Can the descendants of those who were the victims of war crimes at the hands of General Sherman or reconstruction burn federal buildings?  I am part Cherokee.  Does anyone doubt that American Indians have been denied justice?  May I scalp people?  After Alabama lost to Auburn and the statue of Bear Bryant was desecrated by having an Auburn jersey draped over it, Harvey Updyke was offended.  There would be no peace till justice was served, so Harvey poisoned the oak trees at Toomer’s Corner near Auburn’s campus.  It is universally agreed that Updyke is a lunatic, but his logic is the same.  “If I do not get what I perceive as justice, I will not allow peace.” 

There was No Justice, so there can be Peace

On another occasion outside of Jerusalem justice was denied to the absolute degree.  An innocent man was murdered by the powers of the state and the religious community.  He was completely innocent, but the punishment that we deserved fell on Him so that we can enjoy peace with God.  The cry of “No justice, No peace” is not the cry of the Gospel.  It is the cry of the Romans, the Arab-Israeli terrorist, of lunatics like Harvey Updyke, but it is emphatically not the message of the Gospel.  Every Christian needs to be very clear on this point, the threat of violence unless satisfied is not the message of the Church, the Scripture or the Gospel.  It must be condemned and receive no hearing or support within the family of God.  We do have a lot of work to do and the first things we must do is reject the damnable false teaching of “No Justice, No Peace” and replace it with the message of true peace because of the Cross.

Next week:  The Third Rail in Racial Tension