Pre-thanksgiving thoughts pt. 1

I feel jerked in two directions.

I know, I eschew dichotomies as much as the next person, but ideas have grown increasingly black and white over the past few weeks, and I don't know why, but this is what it's been sounding like for me...

On one hand, there is a kingdom of God that is small, like a mustard seed. (Today's sermon at Renewal was based off of Mark 4:26-34.) It has humble beginnings, and it grows slowly, but inevitably. It requires patience to see the fruit of this plant. Pastor Charles encouraged us not to lose the faith, even when Christianity became "boring". It isn't all about the mega-churches, the revival meetings, or the deadlines of a generation of results-oriented, perfectionist American Christians.

I'll confess that I am a perfectionist, and I am very results-oriented. I became less so after coming to Swarthmore, where the particular face of Christian culture that dominated was the "back-door Christianity" brand. Going along with the themes expressed above, the kingdom of God is almost like a secret. A messianic secret: "Don't tell anyone who I am," Jesus says constantly in the book of Mark, "But go show them what I have done." Christianity is to be spread through the truth of actions- the deeds come first, followed then by the explanation ("I do it because I follow Christ") if anyone is curious enough to ask. It's counter-cultural because everyone today, seeks attention by being as loud as they can, but the quiet Christians are the ones who are really changing hearts and minds, one honest friend or one tight-knit community at a tim

I like this, I really do. But the other direction I'm being pulled in has a slightly different shade.

This other direction takes the inevitability of the kingdom of God to grow and places it squarely in the context of the early church in Acts, which we have been studying in our small groups this semester. "Why," we should be asking, "are we not growing the way they did?" Why is it that when Peter has something to say, crowds of thousands will listen to him, but the voice of the Christian on this campus is effectively ignored? Don't we have the same Holy Spirit working in us to do great things?

Jesus warned us that the tree that did not produce good fruit would be cut off and thrown into the fire (Luke 13:6-9). I'm not implying that our community is in danger of being cut off and thrown into some metaphorical fire, but I do want to ask: where is our fruit? Why is it taking so long to ripen? I can see some things happening: GIGs are starting as a result of the Proxe station on wealth and The Stand (which was phenomenal, by the way, photos coming soon). And our numbers in small groups and at large group are generally larger than they have been in past years. But where's the miraculous advancement of the kingdom that's supposed to be happening? Why aren't people moving from a place of more distrust of Christianity to less distrust of Christianity? Why isn't anyone actually turning to place their lives in Christ's hands for the first time? And why aren't Christians on campus all even on the same page when it comes to this vision?

God's timing is strange. You'd expect that if he actually wanted us to have confidence in Him and his power, he'd show us that what we're doing is right and good. That we'd see fruit. But I hardly see any, and it frustrates me. Maybe three years isn't enough time to see the bigger picture of what God has been doing at Swarthmore, or in the Tri-co, or at Renewal Presbyterian Church, or even at home.

I'm not really asking for a revival here. I guess what I really want is clarity, and confirmation that I'm not just wasting my time. And of course- if I'm doing something wrong, and the reason I haven't brought a single non-believer to Christ during my time here as his advocate is through a fault of my own, then I really need to know! Because, as Pastor David stressed during last week's sermon at Renewal, it's an important re-focusing exercise to think seriously: "If I were the only Christian on the planet, with Jesus and me as a team, would the church grow as it is supposed to?"

The very nature of God's kingdom demands that it should expand, thus it follows that if it's not expanding in some way, then it's just human work and not divine. How can I myself grow in discipleship and in turn help others grow, so that in the end I can say that my Christian faith can effect tangible, positive change in the world God created and not stagnate as a lifestyle of fatally passive expectation?

Between a kingdom of God that advances slowly and surely, like weeds breaking through concrete, and a kingdom of God that sweeps inexorably across an entire region, the way light floods a basement when the doors and broken through, where is the happy medium that the kingdom is supposed to straddle? What can this look like at Swarthmore, and when can we expect to see the fruits of our labor?