Change is a given.  You don't have to like it, but you have no choice but to acknowledge it.  Being alive means changing.  To be just a little bit morbid, even in death our bodies change as they decompose. Like I said, change is a given.

Inexplicably, churches have come to think they don't have to change.  The world around them changes at an ever quickening pace as technology changes our ability to travel, communicate and gather information, and the Church clings to the past believing that if we just believe hard enough we can make the reality of change go away.  But we can't. Change is a given.

The Church's general resistance to change is really odd if you think about it.  God was (and is) always about to do a new thing.  From Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to the prophets, to Jesus, the disciples and Paul, the people of God are always experiencing God moving them from one state of being to another.  The way it was done (the old life) is gone and the new way (the new life) has begun, and those are just the most obvious Bible stories.  Add to that the fact that the history of the church is also littered with constant change.  It truly is inexplicable that we think we don't have to change.

So, how did we get to this place of such a staunch resistance to change?  We forgot that Jesus was a radical redeemer.  You see, as a colleague once reminded the congregation where I serve, Jesus never met anyone he didn't ask to change.

If you don't think you need to change, you haven't met Jesus.  He never met anyone he didn't ask to change.  Now, while change comes in all forms (some change is small, some is big), it isn't all that surprising to see in scripture that Jesus was typically interested in the big changes.  The kind that challenged the status quo and flipped our whole way of seeing something upside down.  He was a radical reformer.  A reformer in that he asked us to change, radical in that it often required a paradigm shift to become the person Jesus said God was calling you to be.

Are Churches radical reformers?  Do we ask the people we meet to change? Radically? Better yet, are we willing to change radically?  And don't think that we are talking about change for the sake of change here.  That would just be mean and short-sighted. We are talking about change that engages fully with the reality that change is inevitable.

In that, the Church must also recognize that it has been clinging to the past for so long that it lost sight of the communities in which God planted them.  The Church must acknowledge that as it clung so desperately to how things have “always” been done, it lost it's ability to hold onto a God who moves about in a tent (2 Samuel 7:5) and is always about to do a new thing.

If we can recognize that, then we can also see that in order to catch back up with the community in which God has planted us, it is going to take a radical change.  Not change for change's sake, but change for God's sake.  It is not about changing what we believe about God, rather, it is about trying desperately to live into it!  It would feel better, it would feel safer, to move slowly, methodically and only in places that cause the least stress, but that's not the kind of change Jesus asked of those who met him.

Have we truly met Jesus? Do we hear his call to radical reform? Are we willing to let loose of our past and let the Spirit move us as the Spirit will? 

It is time for the Church to change at the speed of grace.

Good and gracious God,

Today, like the rest of the world,
when I woke I wrapped myself in myths.
They are comfortable and warming in what can seem like such a cold world. 
Yes, they are old and worn but they are familiar
and even the most fashion forward find comfort in this thread-worn garb.

They tell me that while it may not be fair
that 1600 children die from hunger everyday,
I can do nothing about it.
They silence my own judgment of myself
when I give money to the church
or put a quarter in the cup of a homeless man
as I walk on by the lack in his life
to live into the abundance of mine.

They tell me that the rich shall inherit the Earth,
and that they will be beneficent rulers.
The myths that I wear tell me
that giving to the rich is better than giving to those in need,
so we as a nation heap blessings upon the rich
expecting 'trickle down' to make it rain on those of us below.
Yet, we remain drenched in our inability
to pay the rent,
pay for college,
save for the future...
at times, even believe we have much of a future.

So, today, like the rest of the world, when I woke I wrapped myself in myths.
They are comfortable and warming in what can seem like such a cold world. 
Yes, they are old and worn but they are familiar
and even the most fashion forward find comfort in this thread-worn garb.

They tell me that violence, while abhorrent,
is inescapable, a part of the reality of life -
that violence is the path we must travel to find peace.
Religion reinforces this myth of Redemptive Suffering
suggesting that suffering builds character,
that you, O God, won't give us more than we can handle,
ignoring the realities of the families who have survived
the loss of loved ones through violent acts:
War, Domestic Violence, Gang Violence, suicide.

Even in the names we use,
we see how we believe this myth:
The world calls one of humanity's most violent acts
The Holocaust, which means 'sacrifice by fire,'
Suggesting that there might be something good
or even of God in it.
Those whose lives it destroyed call it
Ha Shoa – the calamity.

So, I wrap myself in myths.
They are comfortable and warming in what can seem like such a cold world. 
Yes, they are old and worn but they are familiar
and even the most fashion forward find comfort in this thread-worn garb.

They tell me that the least of these deserve what they get,
that “But for the grace of God, there go I,”
believing that somehow God's grace falls more abundantly on me.

They tell me that I must shut off who God created me to be
and live into the image the world expects of me
because who I am on the inside won't be accepted on the outside.

They tell me that some are created more equal in God's eyes
and don't deserve the same rights as the rest of us
that they should be punished for being their own unique reflection of their Creator.

Loving God,
take from me this earthly garb,
for not only are they old and thread-worn...
but they reek.
They stink of the stench of power, money and greed.
They have the foul odor of prestige, self-importance and control.
They fill my nostrils with an offensive aroma
that smacks of a history of abuse, belittlement and pain.
They exude with the suffering they let me ignore.
They ooze with the memories of the blood that has been lost.
They smell to high heaven and point to my complicity
in the lies of this world.

Redeeming God,
take these Robes of Myth from me
and let me walk naked through this world if I must,
but I wish to walk through it blindly no longer.
I wish to breath in the brilliance of creation
and leave behind the stinking myths of humanity.

Help me, my God.
Free me, my God.

Help us, O God.
Free us.

Amen.