Looking for Authentic Enthusiasm

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I'm in Nashville, staying at the rather nice Renaissance Hotel next to the Convention Center for the School of Congregational Development for the United Methodist Church.  There's about 500 or so attendees, from what I've been told.  My guess is that there's more than that if worship last evening was any indication.  Lots of talks.  Lots of education.  Lots of worship.  And it's fun having a layperson from our congregation along as well.

My guess is that a lot of my blog posts from the next several days are going to include information that I've been given while here.   This is one of them.

One of the speakers (actually someone giving an introduction tonight) said the following:

AUTHENTIC ENTHUSIASM BRINGS FORTH HOSPITALITY AND EVANGELISM.

I'll say it one more time:

AUTHENTIC ENTHUSIASM BRINGS FORTH HOSPITALITY AND EVANGELISM.

When I look at the churches I've served, and when I look at MYSELF, I struggle to find AUTHENTIC ENTHUSIASM.  I'm not saying that it doesn't exist EVER.  But I am saying that I sometimes question how passionate persons are about their faith, about their Savior, about worship and church and service and all of that stuff I have in my head and understand to be "church."  It's a lack of enthusiasm for both Jesus AND Church, for the Spirit of the religion AND the form of the religion. 

And if we don't have people fired up about who Christ is and what Christ is doing, how can we ever expect to be truly hospitable?  How can we be evangelical?  How can we have a church that persons want to visit and a faith that they would care to profess?

I am a pretty good cheerleader as a pastor.  I don't have the pompoms, but I can get persons to get behind me for one cause at a time.  More than that and I seem to get distracted.  But that's not the same as building up an enthusiasm for the work of God in the world among the members and friends of the congregations I've served. 

I want to see passion.

I want to see enthusiasm.

I want to see some of that Pentecostal Fire in our congregation.





I want to see it in me.


I want others to see it in me, too.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
 

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.  Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?  Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?  Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"  Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

Stanley Hauerwas, Greed, And Me

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Anyone who has been reading any of this stuff knows that, with Shane Claiborne, and thinking missionionally, and talks of immigration and politics, a lot of my own personal conviction has centered on how we are called to be faithful with our finances.  We live in a world that tells us that we can't have enough and I'm still very moved by Compassion International's comment that the opposite of poor is not rich but enough.

I can't say I've come up with a lot of answers or what this all means for my life, but I'm asking the questions.  I was very happy to find the following comments from Stanley Hauerwas, Christian ethicist, over on Richard Hall's blog, Connexions.  The comments are from Hauerwas' article, "Can Greed Be Good?" at the ABC Religion and Ethics Site -- a site I'll have to look around a bit more.

Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never “enough.” But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need.

Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need.

The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared.

The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations.

As I've talked of the Eucharist, I have always said that it has bearings on economic justice...and how it is that we can share, intimately, in the body and blood of Jesus and then not share when it comes to things as "trivial" as money and goods.   I like Hauerwas' notion that "Greed...prohibits faith."  If one believes that we operate from a position of "scarcity" can one ever really believe that we have a God that gives us all that we need?

My problem with all of this is that I see myself operating from a perspective of "scarcity" in my own life...with my money, my goods, my belongings.  Then how can I fully trust in our God to provide for me.

Going To Live With Shane Claiborne in Philadelphia? Not that faithful

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Last Monday, as I drove Shane Claiborne into Anchorage for a meeting with some fellow clergy, he told how hard it is to keep families in his community in Philadelphia.  It's a rough place. There's gunfire most nights.  There's a constant battle with heroin in the neighborhood.   He recounted how a young man had died of gunshot wounds on his front steps earlier this year.  Oftentimes families come to his community and stick it out for a while...and then they decide to move...maybe a mile away...maybe two...maybe more.  But they move someplace a little safer, not quite so challenging.

But it's a place that healthy, wholesome families are needed.

I told Shane that our family has struggled with living in the privileged areas we've been able to live and that there's a part of myself that would find that wonderfully freeing...recognizing that it would be a challenge for myself and would involve sacrifice.  But, more difficult, it would be "forcing" a sacrifice on the part of my kids -- their scholastic education, their friendships, and perhaps their safety.  It would be asking a lot.  And while it may require faithfulness to make sacrifices in your own life, I think it requires a different level of faithfulness to require sacrifices by your children or your spouse.

Shane said, "Jim, if you and your family would like to come to Philadelphia to be part of what we have going on there, we'd love to have you.  We could always use some families who are willing to stay."

My answer was:  "That's an interesting offer, but I'm not that faithful yet."