Members of the Misery Club

Today we’re back with Bryan Lowe and his wonderfully honest and transparent blog, Broken Believers. We’ve also made an exception today and borrowed the graphic image that Bryan used — and it is graphic — in addition to the devotional. Click the title below to read this at source.

The Fellowship of This Misery

Severe case of leprosy

“In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Luke 5:12, NLT

Let’s jump right into this passage from Luke 5.  A very sick man desires to become well.  The Bible text reveals that his condition is agonizingly desperate.  His leprosy has advanced; he is covered with it from ‘head-to-toe.’ He is completely infected; he is ‘unclean’ and without hope. There is no treatment for what he has, doctors can do nothing, so he comes to Jesus.

We must emphasize this, the leper has no illusions of wholeness.  He knows it; he doesn’t need to be convinced, or persuaded by anyone else.  It occurs to him, that Jesus the healer (of lepers, and the like) may provide healing, or at the least a morsel of comfort.  This leper approaches the presence of Jesus, with such humility it is almost painful to witness. This man is completely broken; he has no hope, except Jesus.

There is a fellowship of misery–some of us are “card-carrying” members.

Our diseases differ, but they have affected us completely.  Our pain, and our darkness vary.  Some have physical pain, others have a mental illness.  When we meet, there should be a secret handshake or a password. We share a comradeship— we are all part of the same community.  We are a broken club of tired and decidedly unclean misfits.

How do we measure our pain and desperate darkness?  What do we use to measure it? For the most part, our lives have been destroyed. I think we can understand it by looking up at Jesus.  Lying in the dirt, we believe the unbelievable.  Our faith doesn’t activate his healing as much it guides it to our greatest need.  The presence of Jesus drives away the pain.  His love for us echoes into our emptiness. And he wants to do this!  He has come for us. He carries us through this.

I struggle with deep depression and despondency.  I have been on meds for a long time.  But when I come into Jesus’ presence, all this melancholy is driven out. He comes and injects a true hope into my spirit.  Am I a stellar example of perfect discipleship?  I think not.  (My wife could tell you this.)  But isn’t about us becoming “angels”, it’s about us becoming intimate with Jesus.

“The power of the Church is not a parade of flawless people, but of a flawless Christ who embraces our flaws. The Church is not made up of whole people, rather of the broken people who find wholeness in a Christ who was broken for us.”   

–Mike Yaconelli

The leper would be healed by the authority (and touch) of Jesus Christ. What is impossible with men, is possible with God.

“Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.” (v. 13)

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Read more: Here’s another devotional by Bryan: Never Ever Abandoned.

Sometimes Spirituality is Messy

^{NIV Luke 18:35} As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. ³⁶ When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. ³⁷ They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

³⁸ He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

³⁹ Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

from Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli (bio):

…Religious institutions do not like surprises and especially dislike a spirituality which threatens the status quo. Threaten others with a loud and boisterous faith, and you will be politely (at first) asked to quiet down; dance your faith instead of sitting still in your pew, and you will be asked to leave; talk about your faith with passion, and you will get expressions of concern about the inappropriateness of your emotions.  Allow others to see your brokenness, and you will be reprimanded for being too open; hear the music of faith, and you will be warned of the danger of emotional instability…

…All of us tend to seek comfort, to structure predictability, to eliminate the new and different from our experience. The word messy strikes fear into the hearts of the comfortable. According to the comfortable, God does what he always does. “God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” which they interpret as “stays the same.” There are those in the church who honestly believe God is a nice and neat God. One quick run through the Bible gives you a different picture. The God of the bible is the master of surprises: frightening clouds of smoke and fire, earthquakes, windstorms and firestorms, donkeys that talk, pillars of salt, oceans splitting apart, using a little boy to kill a giant, the Messiah in swaddling clothes and dying on a cross. No one can follow God and be comfortable for too long…

…When Jesus and his followers show up, it isn’t long before people start pointing fingers and calling names. Jesus was called all kinds of names: wine-bibber.., Sabbath breaker, blasphemer. Over the centuries religious people have refined name-calling to an art. The name most commonly used today? Unspiritual…

…According to his critics, Jesus “did God” all wrong. He went to the wrong places, said the wrong things, and worst of all, let just anyone into the kingdom. Jesus scandalized an intimidating, elitist, country-club religion by opening membership in the spiritual life to those who had been denied it. What made people furious was Jesus “irresponsible” habit of throwing open the doors of his love to the whosoevers, the just-any-ones, and the not-a-chancers like you and me.

Nothing makes people in the church more angry than grace. It’s ironic: we stumble into a party we weren’t invited to and find the uninvited standing at the door making sure no other uninviteds get in. Then a strange phenomenon occurs: as soon as we are included in the party because of Jesus’ irresponsible love, we decide to make grace “more responsible” by being self-appointed Kingdom Monitors, guarding the kingdom of God, keeping the riffraff out (which, as I understand it, are who the kingdom of God is supposed to include.)

Michael Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality (Zondervan, 2002) pp 40-48

Tim Chester: Communities of Performance versus Communities of Grace

Tucked away in the November, 2008 archives of Timothy Chester’s blog is a fascinating distinction between two types of Christian community. He writes:

In performance-oriented churches people pretend to be okay because their standing within the church depends on it. A ‘sorted’ person is seen as the standard or the norm, and anyone who is struggling is seen as sub-standard or sub-Christian. In this kind of environment to acknowledge that you’re struggling with sin is difficult and distressing.But this is the opposite of grace. Grace acknowledges that we are all sinners, we are all messed up people, all struggling, all doubting at a functional level. But grace also affirms that in Christ we all belong, all make the grade, all are welcome, all are Christians (there are no lesser Christians).

Imagine such a church for a moment:

• Here is Andrew: he sometimes uses po rn because he struggles to find refuge in God.
• Here’s Pauline: she sometimes has panic attacks because she struggles to believe in the care of her heavenly Father.
• Here’s Abdul: he sometimes looses his temper because he struggles to believe that God is in control.
• Here’s Georgina: she sometimes has bouts of depression because she struggles to believe God’s grace.

Communities of Performance	Communities of Grace
*the leaders appear sorted	*the leaders are vulnerable
*the community appears respectable	*the community is messy
*meetings must be a polished performance	*meetings are just one part of community life
*identity is found in ministry	*identity is found in Christ
*failure is devastating	*failure is disappointing, but not devastating
*actions are driven by duty	*actions are driven by joy
*conflict is suppressed or ignored	*conflict is addressed in the open
*the focus is on orthodoxy and behaviour (allowing people to think they’re sorted)	*the focus is on the affections of the heart (with a strong view of sin and grace)

When they [Abdul, Paulina, Georgina and Andrew]  come together they accept one another and celebrate God’s grace towards each other. They rejoice that they are all children of God through the work of Christ. And they remind one another of the truths each of them needs to keep going and to change. It’s a community of grace, a community of hope, a community of change.

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In a later post, Chester noted that communities of performance impede mission; that is to say they prevent real ministry from taking place:

Communities of Performance	Communities of Grace
*talk about grace, but communicate legalism	*people can see grace in action
*unbelievers can’t imagine themselves as Christians	*unbelievers feel like they can belong
*don’t attract broken people	*attract broken people
*the world is seen as threatening and ‘other’	*people are loved as fellow-sinners in need of grace
*conversion is superficial (people are called to respectable behaviour)	*conversion is radical (people are called to transformed affections)
*people are secretly hurting	*people are open about their problems
*people see faith and repentance as actions that took place at conversion	*people see faith and repentance as daily activities
*the gospel is for unbelievers	*the gospel is for both unbelievers and believers