This is my second post about the Virginia Tech Tragedy. It has really impacted me—as it has so many of you. Or has it? Three weeks have now passed. And do we even remember it? The facebook profile pictures are all back to normal, the headlines are being consumed by other things, and a number of students have left Va Tech completely. We are entering that eternal stage of the “move on” process. But have we responded to this stage as much as to the “initial shock” stage? Now that the newness of this tragedy has worn off, perhaps it might be more appropriate than ever to do something.
But sometimes it is not necessarily our place to do anything. Could this be one of those times? I fear that we—and I most assuredly include myself here—have a “messiah complex.” We want to be the ones who make the difference. We want to be the heroes. And if we were completely honest with ourselves, I think that we would see that we want ministry—ministry of recognition—more than we want to minister. I hope you do not think that it is for this that I have been arguing in these posts. But it would be gloriously inconsistent for me to say that I have not fallen victim to my own “messiah complexes” in the past.
I was talking to Seth Terrell (campus minister at Va Tech) the other day about all of this, and he made some really powerful observations. He is seeing that many Christian groups are coming onto the campus at Va Tech and are trying to “rescue” everyone—as if they were the saviors of this situation (a virtual Christian superhero movement). They want to be the solution to this problem, this horrible and inexplicable problem. And I am not sure that is what God is calling the church to be. (But that is not to say that they aren’t doing good things. It would be really unfair to deny that they are.) Seth calls it “Phariseeism.” Messiah complexes galore.
That reminds me of a conversation I had the other day with my friend Katherine. We were talking about me giving advice to a friend who is going through a really difficult time right now, and she told me that maybe what this person needed was not my advice— maybe what this person needed was not “ministry.” Maybe it was just me. It took me aback; but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense.
She said that suffering people do not necessarily want magic words of comfort. Sometimes they do not want to be “advised.” Sometimes all they want is to be validated in their suffering. They need to have their mourning respected and appreciated. We have to allow time to hurt. Hurt is a vital part of life, and it does a tremendous disservice to belittle it.
I mean, look at the Psalms! These guys would never have wanted a clichéd speech, or some too-good-to-be-true man with perfect hair and a cheap suit (in other words, 9 out of 10 preachers I know!) telling them not to worry—it will all be alright. No, they needed to scream at God. They needed to hurt. They needed to experience life as it was coming at them.
So maybe all we can do is simply be. We can engage in what we in the GST call a “ministry of presence.” Sometimes all we can do is suffer with people.
So the question of this post obviously becomes, What does that look like here, with this situation? That is what needs to be discussed. But let’s face it…these are not the kinds of questions being asked in so many churches (especially, but not limited to, Churches of Christ). Of that I am sure.
That is such a shame.
I recently read the latest edition of the Spiritual Sword, and within it I found over 48 pages of argumentation against Richland Hills Church of Christ in the Metroplex. The volume was almost entirely devoted to bashing them for implementing an instrumental service on Saturday nights.**
I am so profoundly disappointed in us sometimes. I am disappointed in us because I can guarantee you that within the entire corpus of literature produced by Churches of Christ this year, there will not be 48 pages devoted to ideas and discussion of possible ministry opportunities for the Va Tech victims and their families. There will not be as many words of encouragement sent to those families as there are words spent arguing about the instrument.
It just seems like we have separated issues like this tragedy from our religious worldview. It is like we think that this tragedy has nothing to do with our faith. Let me ask you something, Which would Jesus like us to talk about more—worship wars that we know we aren’t going to win, or ways we can help hurting and broken people by ministering to them in a time of extreme need?
The choice is so obvious it is embarrassing.
**Let me be completely clear here: I am not arguing for or against instrumental music in this post. I just don’t think that writing more and more about it is going to do any good whatsoever for either side.
