The Words of the Prophets are Written on the Subway Walls...and Tenement Halls

I have been preaching repentance for the twenty first century church for well over a decade.

It's not gone well...to say the least. 

One of my old friends from the CGGC used to write to me, from time to time, to advise me that people with my ministry need to measure success by how faithful they are in bringing the message, not by how many people act on it, and I know that.

The truth is that, throughout most of the history of the people of God,  in both Testaments, the mainstream of the organized, visible nation/church has isolated, often castigated dissenting, counterculture...prophetic...voices. Think of Elijah's exile. Think of the forerunner of Jesus preaching in the wilderness. 

Paul Simon was not thinking about the Kingdom of God when he punctuated his Sounds of Silence lyrics with, "and the Words of the prophets are written on the subway walls." But his description of the institutionalized American church of the past 70 years is apt with laser like accuracy. 

Today's American church is losing the culture. One dominant characteristic of the institution of Christianity is that it has exiled dissonant voices as throughly, though not as violently, as mainstream religion ever has.

In my recent posts, I've been noting that my history in the ERC and CGGC extends to the 1970s. I've been reflecting on how little things have changed during those years.

Of course, the overarching story of those decades has been decline. Yet, there are subplots connected to that theme. 

One subplot that drives the story of decline is the way the body has treated the people of its counterculture. 

Since the 1970s, there have been quite a few people who have challenged the direction that Conference and denominational leaders have mapped out.

Two truths about those people:

1. Looking back, they were correct. Not one of the programs or plans devised by decades of our church leaders have succeeded. 

2. All of those voices have been silenced. Either they gave up and left our body in frustration or they have been sent away, in one way or another, by the leaders of the institution. 

In the CGGC, as Paul Simon sang, the words of the prophets?, well, they are not written in Conference or denominational reports. They are not at the core of new programs or Strategic Plans. The words of the prophets in the CGGC these days aren't even found in dishonored places such as subway walls, or tenement halls. 

We must repent. Nearly all of us agree.

But, repent, specifically, of what? How?

Over the centuries, in the wisdom and plan of God, certain people, they were both men and women, have been called to set themselves apart from the Kings and High Priests to speak for the Lord. Almost without exception, they performed two tasks. 

First, they called for the act of repentance. 

Second, they defined the particular acts of repentance that would please the Lord and restore relationship with Him. (For people primarily familiar with the New Testament, this second task is most vividly portrayed in Revelation 2 and 3.)

In our first days, we were a prophic people who expected counterculture voices  to speak. We empowered those voices. We obeyed them.

We must change. Yet, the truth is that, in the CGGC, we have been changing almost continuously for decades. But, change for the sake of change is not what we have ever needed. We need the Lord's change.  I'm convinced we need to empower the people to whom the Lord speaks...

...and, we must listen. 

The only acts of change that matter are the acts of change the Lord demands.

For years, we have responded to dissonant, counterculture messengers in the way of Pharaoh and of the most hard hearted Kings and High Priests.

We must repent. 

Where Never is Heard a Discouraging Word

As The Gospel of Matthew tells it, one day Jesus saw the crowds and went up on a mountain and began to speak. What follows has become known as The Sermon on the Mount. 

As Matthew tells the story, Jesus doesn't draw the crowd's attention by telling a brief story from His childhood or about what happened as he was climbing the mountain. He begins by declaring a simple, foundational, universal, inescapable truth for anyone who would be His disciple:

"Blessed are the poor in Spirit..." And, then, "Blessed are those who mourn..."

In the CGGC, we have a colorful history.

Reading the accounts of our first days, it's clear that, from the beginning, we struggled. In the beginning, however, the struggle was not for survival.  We struggled to follow the Spirit faithfully so we could keep up with His blessing. 

These days in the CGGC we have precisely the opposite struggle: The Lord of all authority and power and  grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us.

We have been struggling to be in relationship with the Lord so that He will, again, provide the increase.

Yet, no matter what new strategy we adopt, no matter what plan we put in place, He is untouched. 

There are many ways we are different today than the Church of God was at the beginning. 

One difference between us then and now is a matter of heart. The most foundational difference connects to the first words Jesus spoke from the mountain, "Blessed are the poor in spirit."

We once were a dynamic people who acted on a full range of emotions. We struggled among ourselves and we struggled to walk in the blessing of the Spirit. 

These days, even as we work desperately to reverse our decline, we're,  simply, pleasant with each other. We encourage. So very rarely, if ever, in the CGGC is heard a discouraging word. 

We uplift. We rarely, if ever, confront.

We don't stare wrong, or sin, in the eye. We never raise our voice against it. We're never so passionate in a moment  of righteous indignation that we regret our words.

While we may, on rare occasion, confront a wayward member of the body, no one,...no one with institutional authority,...ever passionately confronts the whole body.

...yet, as proper as this may seem in today's CGGC culture, it's not the way of Jesus.

Below is a rarely quoted passage from the letters of Paul: 2 Corinthians 7:2-13. 

In this passage, Paul describes his fight to get the Corinthians to turn from a sin.

How did Paul do that? 

To use the words of Jesus, Paul caused them to be poor in Spirit (Mt. 5:3), to mourn (Mt. 5:4). What Paul says is that his letter made the Corinthians "mourn" (v. 7) and "grieve (v. 8).

Paul says that what he wrote to them was so harsh that he himself "did regret" writing it when he wrote it.

Happily, in the end, the letter Paul wrote achieved its goal. The Corinthians chose not to be defensive or angry. 

They chose to grieve over their fallen ways (v. 8). The grieving, led them to repenting (v. 9).

For Jesus, being poor in spirit, and mourning, were merely first steps in the discipline's journey. They led to repentance. 

Paul explains the totality of this teaching of Jesus succinctly in 2 Corinthians 7:10a,

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret...

In verse 11, note the raw emotional qualities of the Corinthians' revitalized walk as disciples: Earnestness, eagerness to clear themselves, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, punishment. 

Take a moment to read Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 7:

Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one. 3 I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. 4 I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

5 For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. 6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. 8 For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. 9 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing,  zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. 12 So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. 13 Therefore we are comforted. (ESV)

As I noted in a recent post, on the day of Pentecost, Peter was brutal in addressing the crowd. He concluded by accusing the people in the crowd of being the very people who crucified Jesus. And, they were cut to the heart. Ultimately, about 3,000 repented. 

Years ago, I heard an authority on Luther's preaching say that Luther began by preaching law to convict his audience and then he preached grace and offered repentance. 

In our early Church of God days, people would be driven to the mourners bench in abject sorrow until, being overwhelmed by grief, being "poor in spirit," their spiritual mourning produced the repentance that leads to salvation. 

The Corinthians to whom Paul wrote were already a church. The godly grief Paul spoke of in verse 10 is grief that must be experienced by a church when that church loses its way

In the CGGC, we know that we have lost our way. We have known for generations that the Lord of all authority and power and grace and mercy and blessing is not blessing us. 

Yet, today, the CGGC is a community where never is heard a discouraging word. 

The Gospel truth is that "godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret."

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

We must change. We need to become a people known for "speaking the truth in love." (Eph. 4:15) Our love must be the love Peter practiced when he accused the people in the crowd of crucifying Jesus...the love of Paul when, for a moment, even he regretted his harsh letter. 

We must call each other to grieve.