The Way of the Cross

          “There is a lot of nerves and hand-wringing and worrying right now about the future of the church and how the church in North America is dying.  We are losing all of our money, we are losing all of our power, we are losing all of our influence.  What I want to encourage you with today is that death is something empires worry about.  It’s not something resurrection people worry about.  So maybe all this change in the church means that our empire building days are over.  And maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it means that God is doing what God is always doing -- and that’s making something new.  Chesterton said, “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died.  Christianity has died many times and risen again for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.”...If Christianity as we know it must die, may it die to the old ways of dominance and control and be resurrected to the way of Jesus... resurrected to the way of the cross” (Rachel Held Evans).
          Followers of Jesus, at least in the first two or three centuries of church history, had no political or financial clout.  And, perhaps more telling, they didn’t expect to have any.  They had been taught that the world would hate them just like it hated their Lord (John 15:18-20; 1 John 3:13).  They had be instructed to treat persecution, insults, and slander as a blessing (Matthew 5:10-12).  They knew they were aliens in a hostile environment and expected to be treated accordingly (1 Peter 2:11; 4:12).
          For whatever reason, the modern-day church in the U.S. has different expectations.  We expect to have a seat at the table in politics and government and cry “foul” when we excluded.  We are mistreated and react angrily.  Rather than living as aliens, we live and sound more like worldly citizens than heavenly ones.
          Where did we go astray and how do we get back?

God loves you!
Mike