OCCUPY The Church 2011

Most have seen the protestors expressing their discontent with signs, shouting, and camping out at strategic locations near the doorstep of all whom they deem corrupt or unfair. They were motivated and intent on being heard. As a group they appeared as a force with which to be reckoned but as individuals, they seemed confused and inarticulate.

Why, because while they claimed to be seeking justice and fairness, many of them, like most mob members, were simply pleading for significance and vindication. “Someone needs to hear what I have to say because I don’t like something but I am not really sure what and if given the opportunity I would actually be clueless as to how I would handle things myself. I just know that I am mad as Hades and I will not be ignored.”

This is precisely why knowing for what or against whom I am protesting is not at all that important. I just know that my pain and emotional need are at a fever pitch. What is important is that “the man” saw my tent in front of his office but even if he invites me in and gives me my own office I haven’t a clue as to what a solution would even look like. Remember, I am still not sure why I am so upset to start with.

Still, this movement may hold a valuable lesson for the Church and her attendees who, like me, still struggle with emotional and spiritual maturity. For example, the protestors were...

• angry, but not sure why
• wanting someone else to fix a problem but unaware of how they may have contributed to the situation or could contribute to the solution
• emotionally toxic and doing and saying things as a group that they would have never done or said as individuals
• contagious – others  joined the resistance and became suspicious of anyone in authority as well
• holding to expectations that are unrealistic but clueless as to what they themselves would do about the situation even if they were given full authority to do so.

Augustine famously prayed that God would forgive him for his lust for vindication. Like significance, vindication is either found in a mature understanding of who I am in Christ or becomes an abyss of broken relationships, blame, hate and insecurity but is never satisfied. Pastors, teachers, friends and even spouses are cleverly discarded into the dark pit as the scorned soul sooner or later finds something amiss in all of them.

As I personally continue to mature emotionally and spiritually, I discover all the more frequently that the righteous idealism I demand of others is a reflection of its absence in my own walk. I am not so much dissatisfied that I cannot change my spouse, my church, or my friends, as I am that I cannot change me. Even if obliged my sense of significance would be fleeting at best. The merit of all I am is to be found in Christ and Christ alone. So...

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36Just as it is written,
“FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”

37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nuf Said! (“Nuf said” not found in some ancient manuscripts) 

NASB Eph 8:31-39