(43) One Beggar

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for One Beggar, originally shared on August 24, 2020. It was the forty-third video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   It’s been observed that communities used to be known for their religious buildings, their temples and cathedrals.

   Cities built them to announce themselves to the world.

   Then it was the commercial centers, the malls, the great downtowns, the iconic skylines that defined a place. now it is the sports and entertainment complexes.

   I saw a promo last week on Channel 7 for the LA Rams’ coming season at the brand new SoFi stadium, expected to cost just under 5 billion dollars, that described the new stadium as a new cathedral for football.

   I suppose that’s true. Why mince words? <sigh>

   We are at a point in the coronavirus where there is some hope and there is a lot of pressure to open everything up, including cathedrals for football. Rates of positive test results and hospitalizations are down. We’re not out of the COVID-19 woods yet, but we’re beginning to see familiar landmarks.

   What will the church look like when we emerge from this worldwide nightmare, this global isolation?

   Some wonder how many churches will be back at all, in any form.

   But, I think there is a good possibility that just the opposite could be true, that the world will be hungry for community, for something real and alive, with connections to others and to the larger community, and hopefully they will also be open to something larger than themselves, something that will give them a sense of meaning to their lives.

   How can churches get ready for that? What do we have to offer an awakening world?

   I read an opinion piece recently about the closure of The Claremont Club, the place I and my family worked out before the pandemic. The author touted the importance of such places as community watering holes. That is, the necessary places where people gather that are, the article stated, much like weekend religious services, a place for fellowship.

   I thought, well, I guess that’s something the world sees that is of value to us, a place for fellowship.

   The world likes what we can give them: social services, schools, hospitals, food banks, retirement homes, orphanages, adoption agencies, low-cost counseling and so on. Those are the world’s ideas of our redeeming qualities. And sometimes we get used to that, to being a social service agency using religious language.

   The world doesn’t like what we ask of them, faith, sacrifice for the common good, belief in one God, sexual continency, the preservation of life broadly defined, human dignity, Jesus.

   Some of us get to the point where we don’t want that stuff either. Maybe we get tired of the resistance, the stereotyping, the rolled eyes, the avoiding, the patronizing, the pigeonholing, the confident ignorance, and so on.

   Maybe we’d rather just build our popular cathedrals to worship as entertainment, to supporting whatever the culture wants, to modeling material success, to having a little something for everybody, to promoting personal fulfillment, to being inoffensive and undemanding.

   MacDonald’s does sell a lot of hamburgers. Maybe that’s all that most people want: spiritual junk food, high in calories but low in nutrition, something fun that makes them think they are being fed without having too many expectations.

   But, maybe, there are people who want food, not a food-like substance. Maybe some people recognize their spiritual malnutrition and want something real to chew on, something that is hard to digest sometimes, but that sustains life, real life.

   When I retired a couple years ago, we spent the first six months being church nomads. We went to different churches of different denominations every week. We all had our impressions but one thing impressed me the most as a visitor. As I listened and responded, read the announcements, met people and got a feeling for a place and how we were regarded, it often occurred to me that I could see why someone would want to become a member of that church. Some had a good music program, or good preaching and teaching. Some had good community engagement, or Sunday School, or youth programs. Some had several of these.

   What I couldn’t see is why anyone would come to a living relationship with God in those churches.

   Evangelism, or sharing the good news of Jesus Christ for life transformation and salvation seemed a sub-theme, if it was there at all. There was almost nothing about what fueled and motivated that church’s work. It was as if we were all small town kids starting at a big university; formed but a little embarrassed by where we’ve come from.

   How do we do evangelism? How do we share the good news, not about our nice church but about Jesus Christ. How do we profess our motivating foundation, our defining relationship with God in Jesus Christ?

   D. T. Niles, Celanese (or, today Sri Lankan) evangelist, ecumenical leader and hymn writer, once said, “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread”.

   Church reformer Martin Luther said almost the same thing, “We are all mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread”.

   Let’s think about that for a minute. “Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” Does that language seem too harsh? It’s certainly not popular.

   Do we think of ourselves as fully deserving or our salvation because of our good works? Or do we see ourselves as beggars, as sinners deserving only punishment but receiving only grace from a loving God who died on a cross in order to reconcile humanity to through the living relationship that only the one, true living God can give?

   Jesus said,

*John 6:25-35

   I mentioned earlier that the place where we workout has closed. There is a lot of talk about finding new owners and bringing it back.

   Maybe that’s what we need. A church that is our spiritual gym. A place to exercise our faith in order to gain, to use an unpopular word, discipline, to burn the fat of spiritual obesity: all feeding and no exercise, in a way that improves our fitness to carry it to others. A place where we give more than we get.
   We are, each of us, just one beggar before God. We have earned nothing for our salvation. The only difference between us and other beggars is that we have found food, the Bread of Life.

   Maybe our churches will be known as nutrition centers when things open up again.

   Maybe we will be known for whose we are more than for what we do.

   Maybe we will be that one beggar who take this bread to the world, and tells our fellow beggars how to find bread, the Bread of Life, Jesus.

   May we make it so.