Gang,
I've been holding on to this one for a few days. It's an old theme for me, but it's come up again, so, it's worth addressing again, I suppose.
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I didn't see a new eNews for this week and that's okay. I'm still fully engaged with the last one.
It's entitled, Are You Disbursed?
Summarizing:
Lance notes that these are disturbing times. COVID-19 has disturbed and disrupted our lives.
Yet, Lance's notes that being disturbed is not entirely a bad thing. In fact, disturbances can serve a positive purpose.
Lance points to the Word to prove the value of disturbance.
To reach the Promised Land, Israel needed to have its present disturbed by an extended journey in the wilderness.
Lance notes notes that Jesus was disturbing to His culture.
Consider how disturbing it was to His religious culture when Jesus flipped over tables in the temple and drove people out. As He did that, says Lance, Jesus quoted two Old Testament verses showing that He was disturbing "temple Judaism" and its false spirituality.
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And, of course, Lance is right.
Honestly it still stuns me how much Lance and I think the same things. No doubt, in our thought lives, I agree with Lance more than most of you do.
So, allow me to agree with Lance, and extend his argument.
Jesus praised and promoted disturbance.
Think of the so-called Beatitudes. They are not centered in the calm and the comfortable. Jesus connects disturbance in our lives with the ability to live righteously.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who mourn...Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..."
Think of His wonderful invitation to the disturbed:
"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened..."
Think of Paul explaining the connection between disturbance and repentance and, ultimately, salvation.
"For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret..."
Jesus, and His disciples as well, didn't merely promote disturbance theoretically and philosophically. All four Gospels tell the story of Jesus violently and forcefully clearing the temple.
Jesus was far more than a theoretical advocate of disturbance.
Jesus was Himself a disturber.
Think of His frequent anger at the Scribes and Pharisees, on which He acted.
Think of His bold confrontation even of His followers. He rebuked Peter saying, "Get behind me satan," and of His forceful confrontation of James and John when they asked to be placed at His right and left hand when He came into His kingdom.
More than that,...
...think of the disturber Jesus made of John in Revelation 2 and 3 when Jesus dictated letters to be sent to churches in Asia. John wrote:
"If you do not repent I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place."
Of some in one church, Jesus turns John into a disturber who threatens, "...I will come to you and fight against them..."
"Because you are lukewarm, I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
Jesus didn't merely talk disturbance, He walked it. Jesus didn't just teach disturbance, He turned some of His followers into disturbers.
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Lance talks the importance of disciples today being disturbers in the eNews.
Lance quotes Catherine Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army saying,
"To better the future we must disturb the present."
Lance says Booth's statement "resonated deeply" with him.
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Yet, in following Jesus, the time comes when talk must produce fruit in walk.
In the Church of God movement days, we were a community of disturbers.
In fact, according to John Winebrenner on the day the Church of God formed, the first "counsel and work" of the body was "the conversion of sinners."
How disturbing to people who aren't following Jesus!
In the CGGC today, imagine having, as a primary focus, the act of approaching people who don't follow Jesus, calling them "sinners," and attempting to bring about their "conversion."
In the day, we valued disturbance in theory and we also walked that talk. The Church of God was a community of disturbers...
...as were early disciples who were accused of "causing trouble all over the world..." (Acts 17:6)
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My experience, in the CGGC today, is that we resist and quench the Spirit when the He blesses us with disturbers.
My experience, in the CGGC today, is that disturbers are not welcomed nor accepted nor mutually submitted to, nor empowered.
My experience, in the CGGC, is that disturbers are tolerated initially in the hope that they'll stop disturbing but, if they don't, they are shown the door in one way or another.
Ask yourself. How many remaining in the CGGC would say, in the Name of Jesus, "I will come to you and fight against them..."
Ask yourself, in the Church of God days, if our people would hesitate to speak that message if they believed that it was from the Lord?!
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I praise Lance because he can talk about the need for being disturbed,...most in the CGGC today can't and won't...
...but, as a body, we've forgotten how to put disturbance into action. In fact, we trash disturbers, and have for a looong time.
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The truth about the CGGC is that we are in the midst of generations of spiritual decay and numerical decline. The truth is that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing isn't blessing us.
In fact, it's worth asking: Does the "I will come to them and fight against them" threat actually apply to us today?
We need to allow ourselves to be disturbed.
We need to welcome and accept and mutually submit to, empower and heed disturbers. That was once our way...in the days that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing, blessed us.
But, these days, we only welcome comforters.
Truly, comforters have their place. But, it's never been a prominent place. It's a secondary place.
We must walk Lance's talk. We must allow for the Spirit to, as Catherine Booth said, better the future because we disturb the present.
We must stop with the comforting already!
We must value being disturbed. We must deny ourselves and welcome and empower disturbers.
We must repent.
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