The Long Walk Home

I have a friend called John. He’s excellent but lives far too far away. He’s been my friend since I was small. He writes reviewing computer games in a world I don’t even pretend to care about or understand but he writes very well. He’s also a lot of fun to talk to and was the guest who looked most like a tramp at the recent wedding of husbandface and I.

He has a podcast. If you want to know what many of my conversations with him were like growing up (and why wouldn’t you?) listen to Rum Doings.

If you care about computer games go to Rock, Paper, Shotgun and if you like pictures of cats go here.

Husbandface and J in macbook heaven plotting to take over the world…

On a more serious note they are plotting to transform the excellent Jesus Comic.  Check it out now. Seriously. Go. Now.

J did an amazing picture for us as a wedding present- click on it to see it in full glory.

His Jesus Comic is in a similar vein and adds a whole new dimension to the gospel narratives (makes them look cool). Enjoy it, buy the book, download the app, read the site. Off you go now.

I’ve been out of ‘fulltimepaidchrisitianministry’ now for 2 years. In it for 7, out for 2. I’ve pondered and wrestled with the transition from one way of being to the other. Most of my issues have led me to one conclusion. My problems arise from ladders. Bear with me.

I think in our churches we are trained to believe in the ladder syndrome. I was well schooled in this during my time at University. I went to a large CU with a funny name. As with all large organisations it had a hierarchy and a code and some ladders. The pinnacle of the ladder was the exec (organising committee of the CU).  I know, I can barely believe it myself. The pinnacle was the exec. The holy of the holiest.  This wasn’t intended. No-one set up the CU to function in such a way, it just meant that some were chosen, others weren’t and a whole lot of assumptions were made. You weren’t a good enough Christian if you didn’t make it onto the exec.

In the cold light of day such thinking seems preposterous. Stupid. We knew that it was wrong. And yet the ladder system grew. At the bottom were the ordinary members of the CU, further up those who did the catering, further up those who organised prayer meetings and so on until the really spiritual ones amongst us got to have a year of their lives consumed with CU politics and the occasional joy of seeing people come to know their Maker and others grow in their love and trust of Him.

The ladder system continues in the church. The pinnacle can often be ‘full time ministry’. There are the people who just turn up to church occasionally at the bottom of the rung, written off for not being committed enough, then those who ‘serve’, depending on your church the more important job is either the coffee makers or the people who pray and read the Bible. Next are those who get to preach, those who lead us in worship, then somewhere near the top are the full timers.

Sometimes we’ve realised this and so have inverted the ladder- now full timers are down the bottom somewhere as people who don’t understand the ‘real world’ and now we place people in 9-5 jobs at the top- they are on the front line of mission after all.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it ends up being all about me, where am I on the rungs? Did I slip down some rungs? Am I now at the bottom, or the top and does it really matter? The ladder needs to be burnt. Life in the family of God can’t be reduced to who is better than whom at this Christian malarkey. We aren’t seeking to climb the ladder of success in the Christian life. Especially as everyone has a different marker of what that success looks like.

Pride most seen in the obsession with self. The worry about where I am all the time. Humility is all about self forgetfulness (it must be – CS Lewis said so).  It’s about forgetting the ladder system and getting on with being loved and loving the people around us. Trouble is that’s a whole lot harder than working out where we are in the hierarchy and feeling inferior and superior in equal amounts.

God gives us our worth. Our value. He takes the ladder our from our feet. Declares we are Loved and then kicks us up the backside to love those around us.

What do your ladders look like? Where are you putting people higher or lower than yourself?

I actually thought when I came home from work today, “I need to clean the house before I sit down and talk to Jesus.” Obviously there is a context to my madness. There is my ocd tendancy to think a clean clear house means a happy content mind of Kath (and that’s oddly true) so I clean, ordering thoughts, finally able to sit in peace and quiet after the cleaning is done. (yes I know this is a little odd, and I can pray in a messy room, honest…).

(Jump of logic)

I wonder how many of us really think we need to clean up our house before we talk to Jesus, clean up our act, wait until we’ve stopped doing the things that hurt him before we come to talk to him.

I wonder when we think that will happen?

I am constantly doing or thinking things that hurt Jesus. The point is I can come to him in those times. In the worst of times. Knowing that was the point. The whole deal of grace, undeserved love pouring out on us, was so we could relate, embrace and live well even when we’re in the equivalent of a pile of stinking manure. We don’t need to clean up the act. To put it bluntly we can’t, and if we think we can we’re kidding ourselves even more. We’re never going to be able to.  We might as well give up and hold out our arms from the pile of crap and cry to our Daddy.

Your correspondant… Attempting to close the gap between the wonderful truth of this and the amount of times she forgets it.