37. Abiding While Engaging the Church's Failures (2 of 2)

Apart from me you can accomplish nothing. Not: apart from me you will do things less effectively. Nothing. The branch that is separated from the vine - however correct its analysis of the vine's failures, however legitimate its frustration with the institution, however genuine its love for the people the institution has wounded - is not producing fruit. It is withering. And a withering branch cannot help anyone find the door.

Stay at the vine. Engage the failures honestly. Bring the wounded people you find. Come back to the vine.

This is the curriculum. This is the whole curriculum. In six volumes.

A FINAL WORD - Six Volumes, One Story

Volume I gave the disciple their identity in the battle. Volume II gave them their King. Volume III gave them the conversation with the Muslim. Volume IV gave them the conversation with the secular mind. Volume V gave them the conversation with God's chosen people. Volume VI gives them the most personal conversation of all: the one with the person who almost made it to Jesus but was stopped by the church that was supposed to be showing the way.

Six volumes. One story. And the story is not about the institution. The institution is the cracked jar. The treasure is the Person.

The Muslim who senses something is missing. The agnostic who forgot to ask the question. The atheist whose faith in matter is quietly failing. The Jewish neighbor carrying four thousand years of covenant. The person who was driven away by young earth creationism. The LGBTQ+ person who was confronted rather than engaged. The divorced deacon who was removed from ministry. The teenager who was abused by the pastor. The socialist who was told they were the enemy.

For all of them. The door is open. It was always open. The Person on the other side is not the Crusader. Not the Inquisitor. Not the pastor who failed. Not the church that got the science wrong. Not the tradition that chose purity over presence.

He is the one who touched the leper before healing him. Who ate with Zacchaeus without conditions. Who asked the woman at the well for a drink before telling her about the living water. Who said to the adulteress "neither do I condemn you" before He said "go and sin no more." Who told His disciples that by their love for one another - not their positions, not their purity, not their theological precision - all people would know whose disciples they were.

That Person is not the institution. He stands behind it, and sometimes in spite of it, and His door is open regardless of what the institution has done with His name.

"Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me."
-- Revelation 3:20 (NET)

He knocks. He does not break the door down. He does not require the institution's endorsement. He does not demand that the wound be resolved before the door is opened. He knocks. He waits. And when the door opens - from whatever broken, wounded, disappointed, betrayed, science-educated, LGBTQ+, divorced, abused, socialist, cynical, or simply exhausted place the person is opening it from - He comes in.

And eats with them.

That is the Gospel. Six volumes of preparation for that single sentence.