I've been watching the first season of "Six Feet Under" on DVD and I highly recommend it to all of you. Very funny and interesting show about a dysfunctional, yet wholly normal, family who runs a funeral home in Los Angeles.
Anyway, one of the characters (David) was chosen to be a deacon in his local church. The specific denomination isn't mentioned, but it appears to be Episcopalian or something very similar. At one point in the show, David tells his bishop that a "progressive" job candidate for an assistant bishop position probably wouldn't do very well in that church because he might rock the boat. The bishop says that maybe the church needs to be shaken up a little bit. David responds that the congregation goes to church because they like stability. His final statement is something to the effect of "...isn't that why they call church a sanctuary?"
That got me thinking a little bit. Churches are supposed to be safe places from the world where we can go commune with each other and find peace with God. More broadly, David's point in the show was that the "conservative" or "traditional" people in his church didn't want a lot of change because it was the one place they still felt safe. Their lives were going by so rapidly, their children growing up too fast, technology was passing them by, and so many things appeared to be slipping out of their grasp. Why not look to the church as the one remaining sanctuary where things could still be constant? God as all loving, Jesus as a savior, and peace from the chaos of their daily lives.
Is this something that echos among churches that we know? I'll throw out an idea. Perhaps our churches have become more polarized among the progressives and the conservatives because of things going on OUTSIDE the church. When life is terribly busy and overscheduled, why not look forward to something stable, like the church? This is where the more traditional people might feel comfortable and seek sanctuary. On the other side, we have people who are very busy and overscheduled, but from their perspective there is no excitement. Their lives are neverending chores of driving kids around, filing paperwork, shopping for groceries, and running errands. They don't have time to relax or find excitment in music and movies. They need some kind of mental and spiritual "pick-me-up" and they can look for that in church. They don't want the guilt or don't like the idea of going out to a bar until 2:00 am looking for excitment. Church can offer a good release and way to be excited for something. That is how they view sanctuary. Both sides are leaning on the church to fill their inner needs. Both groups are seeking and wanting to know God and trying to escape the pressure of their lives through fellowship with Christ. In that respect, both are correct.
People seek God in their own way. In these very generalized statements, I don't see a problem with either side. May we seek God through truth. God is there to give us comfort and provide us a sanctuary. Let's just strive to make sure our sanctuary is big enough for everyone. God certainly does.
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I think your comments are well founded, and certainly something I'd never really thought of. While I feel like in some way each of us is a part of church in some sense for "enlightened self-interest", the idea that all sides find constancy in church, albeit in different ways, I think is extremely perceptive.
Ultimately the irony is that I think comfort doesn't really have much of a place in the Kingdom of God, but... that's perhaps just me.
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