here's life

According to many, not going to church is short-changing yourself. Others hold that skipping church or Sunday school makes others miss out as well. By careful scheduling, I mistreated myself and two churches yesterday.

The sermon at the first church was about leadership in the church, and after a recitation of a passage in Matthew, the pastor drew parallels between the pharisees and themselves. "We don't have raised seats..." (gestures toward the platform they are standing on) "...well, they aren't raised much." The question was raised, If we are all brothers and sisters, and are not to be called "Teacher" (per Matt 23:8) why are we pastors employed by the rest, do most of the teaching and pretty much run the church? Well, pastors are given training to better do what they seem to be gifted in (I got the feeling it was a matter of specialization for practicality and convenience). We were then shown that we had a part in most of what a pastor does, and we needed to step up and do it, because the members of the church are going to be there long after pastors have come and gone. I thought of YAC, and Impact, and how when people, decide to be active and accomplish things.

I left before Sunday school, and went town the road to the second service of the other church. Some of the people I know from there had gone to the first service and were now going out for lunch, so I missed fellowshipping with them. I stayed and listened to another installment in a series on Radical Christianity (radical: of or proceeding from the root). The text was from Ezekiel 34 (ministers who are munching mutton instead of feeding the flock are going down) and the good old story of Korah, Dathan and Abiram continued through God's confirmation of Moses's authority. This sermon had a great deal of scripture in it, and focused more on the chain-of-command in the kingdom of God: God>pastor>churchpeople. Obedience was stressed as a necessary ingredient to seeing God work among us. All done in an almost conversational oration.

There was a focus on authority (from God) as being important, and necessary for having power. Having artificial authority without God to back you up is not a fun place to be.
We don't have to worry about bad leaders--God will take care of it. We were shown what happened to Korah and his friends when they said that the rest of Israel were just as special as Moses, Aaron---Korah et al were Levites, no less, and they were complaining even though they already were part of the priesthood. We saw how God protects His leaders from the people, and His leaders constantly try to protect the people. I was struck by how stubborn we are: It was pretty obvious who was in charge by the way those who stood against Moses got consumed by fire, and swallowed by the earth. Yet, the next day the people are saying that the Administration is responsible for the death of the people. And once again, Moses has to intercede for the people and sends Aaron out to stop the Plague's body count at a mere 14,700.
Fire! Earthquake! hmmm, maybe we should listen to Moses. (eventually they responded, incorrectly: "we're all gonna die!")


All in all, it was an interesting Sunday, getting two sermons, each based in scripture, that seemed to look at different facets of the way the church is run. First was the progressive, Democracy type church model, and then the more theocratic hierarchal system. The priesthood-of-all-believers versus obey-the-leaders-God-has-put-over-you. I know which country makes me feel more comfortable.