WWJD is less helpful than WIJD

By I, CrazyLegsKC, CC BY-SA 3.0

WWJD bracelets were common place when I was younger. The effort in this movement was to encourage people to consider a choices and actions through the question, "What would Jesus do?" It is noble to think about what Jesus would do in different situations and I have asked this question myself. 

I am sure this question has given numerous people reason to pause maybe make a wise choice. However, from what I know about human beings, the chances are greater this question was used to justify a decision already made or to guilt someone to a particular action. So while it is a helpful question, it is less helpful than "What is Jesus doing?"

The obvious difference in WIJD is the verb tense. It is a question asked of the present, not of the past. What would Jesus do is something we often have to guess at. What is Jesus doing can be brought into greater clarity with spiritual disciplines and community.

Practices like discernment, prayer, reflection and contemplation are all helpful for us to pause and consider what is Jesus doing right now. In our midst, at this moment. 

Christians of all denominations believe a wide variety of things about Jesus, but there is at least one thing all Christians can agree on. We all want to be where Jesus is. We all want to be where Jesus is going. We all want to be on what Jesus is doing.

So lets start asking.  

Worship And Las Vegas: More Alike Than We Think

Photo by Bradley Wentzel on Unsplash

It has been said what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. And this has come to be more true than just keeping the “wild” that happened from being expressed in the “civilized.” The truth is that despite all the parties, concerts and mystic around the desert town, Vegas is just not that wild.

Of course most people who go to Vegas do not have the experience that we see in movies or have in our imaginations. Few people wake up with a tiger in their hotel room or win it big at the high rollers table. Still with all the promiscuity and sense of “all is allowed,” Vegas is not that wild because Vegas is an escape.

Vegas is the iconic escape location. Like all forms of escape, Vegas does give you access to the source that can transform your life, it only gives you an escape from your current life for a bit before you have to return to it. Escapism is among the most common ways to live our lives. It is seen when we are living for the weekend. The weekend is the “everymans” Vegas. We party hard on Friday and Saturday, recover on Sunday and then catch a “case of the Mondays” to start the next week. We do things on the weekend that we would/could not do in the week and we are “recharged” by these customs. We sleep in. We party. We drink and rest.

Escapism is also seen in the way we worship on Sunday mornings. We use language to talk about going to worship so we “can recharge” or “fill up” for the week. We talk about “re-connecting” with God on Sunday or, as one person said to me once, we get our “God fix” for the week. Worship is for many of us a form of escape – it gives us respite but we do not allow it to transform our lives. In this respect, Vegas and worship accomplish the same effects with different means.

The call is not to avoid the escapes in our lives. It is good to escape every now and again. The problem is when we cling to escapes we cannot grab a hold of the transformative. This is why worship calls us to “let go” and “open our hands” to “receive” and “give thanks.” Worship can be treated as an escape. It can also be the means to transformation. If worship is not leading us toward change and transformation and only feeding and nurturing, then worship may be an escape.

Remember “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is more than a slogan. It is the sirens song of escapism. If “what happens in worship stays in worship”, then worship is a less flashy manifestation of Vegas.

Christianity: less building more erosion

As I listen to people come into the church I serve, there are reoccurring words that are used to talk about what they are looking for.  Most of the language is around building and growing. I hear a desire to develop faith, a church to help them build up their values, a community that can help their family grow in loving kindness, a place where they can develop, flourish and thrive.

We all need to mature and develop, but following Jesus leads to seeing growth differently. Growth in Jesus Christ means less building and more erosion. 

The process of erosion is slow and steady. It is a process of removing. It requires extended exposure to the power that is beyond you so to be shaped in ways that you cannot control or expedite. Erosion is a scary thing because it feels like we are becoming less, and you are right. That is the point. We decrease and Christ increases. We die to ourselves and are raised in Christ. It is no longer I that lives in me but Christ that animates me. 

Letting go of the facade and front; the traditional thinking of might and what strength looks like; the power and ego - this is what Christianity is all about. It is trusting that the Holy Spirit blows in and through and erodes away the very thing we have been told since our youth that defines us. It is about discovering the God we sought for all along is already with us. It is about living with less only to discover it to be more liberating and beautiful than imaged. 

Perhaps this is why so many of us, myself included, struggle with Christianity. It requires of me to focus less on building and more on erosion.