Healthy Animals
When I first came to Norridgewock I included in my self description the philosophy that the church is a “hospital for souls”. Imagine my surprise when I learned that First Congregationalist’s emeritus pastor, Cecil Jones, was fond of saying, “the church is a hospital for souls, not a sanctuary for saints”. How could it be that the two of us could come up with such a clever turn of phrase? The answer is that it is not original with us. I read that the church fathers used to talk about the church being a “hospital for souls” and I think they clearly got the idea from the original, Jesus Christ, the great physician.
This brings me to my thinking about Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. This passage is about souls. It is not about the physical nature of man but about his soul. It talks about being “poor in spirit” and it describes a reality as “blessed” that has little to do with physical or social being. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness, rejoicing when persecuted, being pure in heart and being merciful are not formulas for worldly success.
In my musings I have been thinking about the mentality of our now so secular world. I wonder about my role as a minister in it and the role of the church in a world that so effectively blocks out God. It strikes me that we have decided that the best thing in life is to be a “healthy animal”. When our society raises children it says they need to be healthy physically–pediatricians, dietary considerations, plenty of sunshine, athletic pursuits all take priority. In our desire to raise our children as “healthy animals” we want a certain amount of intellectual health–school, remedial education, even music or drama can demand more and more of our wealth and time. We even want our “healthy animals” to be good members of the herd, to have social health so we enroll them in boy scouts and clubs and watch their choice of friends and hope they will make good choices of mates. Even the psychology of our “healthy animal” is dominated by doctors studying rats in mazes and a philosophy dominated by secular evolution with no room for a special creation of man, man with a spirit.
All these aspects of raising children are good. We are physical, social, psychological, and intellectual beings. It is good that we care for these things, but it is not everthing. Jesus did not come to earth to make us healthy animals. We are not God’s pets. Jesus died to save our souls. God made us to have fellowship with Him. Adam walked with God and talked with Him. We are more than healthy animals.
The last few centuries have been a pretty steady march of secularization. During the first few decades of the last century colleges stopped being Christian in a self-conscious effort to become free of their denominational ties. Large rich foundations held out the carrot of endowments for schools that adopted secularization. As time went on more and more of life became secularized. In the sixties we banned prayer in school–it was no longer a necessary component of raising healthy animals. “Toleration” is now defined as everybody believing that everything is relatives,that there is no such thing as truth, it is not defined as respecting each others strong beliefs.
The average person drives by a church without thinking of going in. They are too busy being “healthy animals”. Ministers are all about as relevant as Father Mulcahy of M*A*S*H–benign relics, living antiques to decorate weddings or funerals. Sunday School or Vacation Bible School may be nice experiences for young “healthy animals” as long as they don’t interfere with soccer or field hockey games and as long as there isn’t homework to be done.
I sometimes ask myself, what makes a person take a look at the spiritual side of life. Often it is a glimpse of the despair of life without a soul. Many of those in church are old and they have lost many loved ones and they have had to ask themselves, is there something more? Others are people who have seen the despair of their own lives as alcohol or drugs or some consuming passion overcomes them–the first step of the 12 steps is recognition of helplessness with the recognition of a need for God.
The sermon on the mount represents a strange mindset to most. Can you imagine taking the spiritual life as seriously as jesus wants us to? Can you imagine that it is that important to be reconciled, or to forgive, or to be faithful? This certainly represents a different mindset than the herd of “healthy animals”. But it is an invitation from jesus Christ to a life that is far deeper than the herd offers. It is an invitation to the salvation of our souls to have the fulness of what Christ offers.
Russell
October 04 2008 08:59 am | Meeting Times