I don’t often write up my thoughts as I read the Christian scriptures. Though I’m a white Evangelical of long practice, I’ve found recently that listening is far more important than speaking.
Today, however, was interesting, as I got a chance to tune in to one of my favorite long-distance churches and pastors, Pastor Andre Mitchell of Deliverance Temple, in Muncie, Indiana, and was able to listen to much of his preaching just before my own church services. There was a powerful synchronicity in the two experiences—Pastor Mitchell spoke on a theme of “Stand Your Ground,” and in my own church we had a lectio divina on Acts 4.
Now of course a message about Stand Your Ground is going to be challenging, most especially in the context of America in 2018. You’d have to listen to/watch the entire sermon, and if you do, I highly recommend that you make a habit of listening to Pastor Mitchell—he is the real deal, and I would hope that he extends and deepens his ministry in the community. Combine that with an experience of taking an entire service to contemplate, as a congregation, on a select passage of scripture—the time when Peter and John, after healing a man, were strictly warned to stay silent, but responded with, essentially, “Well, what else can we do but talk about what we did?”—and you have the thoughts about authenticizing your religious belief. (Note: not authenticating, which would mean to confirm its truthfulness, but authenticizing, which is to make true its meaning).
I thought about how so much of the church experience is about listening. It’s about having word studies, about advice, about lectures, about having yet another ladle of knowledge poured on your head. Now, don’t get me wrong—I fully believe in Christian education, and the Christian scriptures are directly authored in order to teach us about our faith and about the practice of our faith, as evidenced in the apostolic-era church. But what I’m getting at is that if church is solely about the experience of the word and the rituals around the word—then, in my amateur opinion, it’s not enough to be church.
What struck me by the passage and my own church-community’s meditations and sharing, and by the words of my long-distance pastor about the forcefulness and strength of our faith, is that I can get lost in the second part of this passage’s teaching—speaking out because we cannot help but speak out—and miss the first part, which is the doing. Peter and John (et al.) were first caught doing. They healed a man, and they did so because their faith impelled them to do so. I don’t get the feeling from this passage that P&J were doing these acts in order to perform their faith, but rather, did so because their faith simply moved them to do so—to heal, and to do so with confidence that they were doing the right thing.
I’m impressed by this in good ways because I struggle mightily with the faith I hold in that it seems to be so much word-centered and belief-centered and sit-centered. Yes, studying and listening and thinking are all part of this thing I call the Christian faith. But it also includes the very hard parts of doing the words of Jesus.
I struggle with how much my church tradition is strongly centered on the word part, and not upon the work part. I struggle with the glaring division in our wider church community between the suburbs and the urbs, between the well-off and the left-off, between the centering of the white culture in our church and the peripheralization of our black churches (especially), or our Latino churches, or our East Asian churches—how we are our most segregated as Christians when we are in our congregations on Sunday morning.
I struggle, but my struggle is mostly in my thinking, and I use words—lots of words!—to make changes, and yet changes do not come around me.
Perhaps, my lectio divina instructed me this morning, perhaps it is not more words that I need, but more works.
That is what I need to work on for now.
And note: if you’re ever in Muncie, be sure to stop by Deliverance Temple (720 East 2nd Street Muncie IN) and sit under the preaching of Pastor Andre Mitchell – you will not be disappointed.