Rites of Passage, Resisting Empire

Yesterday we went to the graduation of my spouse's youngest brother.  We spent time with extended family, some of whom had come all the way from Indiana.  We reflected that it was great that we gathered for a graduation rather than a funeral.

Once, I went to graduations once a quarter, as a faculty member and then as an administration member.  At times, I found it tiring, but at the end of the event, I was always glad to have been a part.  There's something so thrilling about seeing people at this happy event that celebrates a major accomplishment.

Because I need to head back to seminary today to close up the seminary apartment, we drove back to our Lutheridge house last night.  It was an easy drive; it could have been otherwise, as we are in road construction season.

We had a great conversation on the way back.  We started with a topic that we often circle back to:  what is the purpose of church, of the Christian church?  We mean that both in terms of worship service, the church of Sunday mornings.  We also mean that in terms of big C church--what is the purpose of Christianity?  Can we get what Christianity gives us from some other source?  When Jesus says "I am the way" does Jesus mean he is the only way?

I believe the church fills a need that many of us have, a need to know the Divine or perhaps it's a need for transcendence, to know something bigger than oneself.  Can we get that from somewhere else?  Sure.  Can we get that consistently--from Church or somewhere else?  Maybe.

I gave some of my standard possible answers:  Church is good for those rites of passage, death and joining lives together kinds of things.  Church is also good for helping us deal with the random chaotic nature of life.  Then I gave the answer that comes closest:  we live in a soul crushing empire, one that wants to stamp out most of what is good and life giving.  Being part of Church helps us resist that empire.  Does it guarantee success?  No, of course not.  But it gives us the tiniest fighting chance, and Church molds us into people who can resist empire.

Are there other ways to resist?  Sure--and those ways also give the tiniest fighting chance.

By empire, I mean all kinds of things:  governments, systems of economics like Capitalism, all the ways that socialization warps us, all sorts of domination systems.  By Church, I mean both the community and the worship, but I find what I need to resist the domination systems more often in the community than in the worship service.  I don't see God needing our worship in the ways that so many people conceptualize it--but we need elements of it.  And there are elements of worship that are less important to me, but we keep them in because others might need them to be formed into people who can resist empire.

We got home, sat on the deck, drank in the evening light, and then went inside to watch my spouse who was part of his brother's last seminary project on Frankie San, who did important prison ministry in Columbia, SC in the last part of last century.  I said to my spouse, "What are the odds that this man, Frankie San, born in Japan, affected by the nuclear bombings, would come across the world and end up at Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC?  He would do prison ministry, where you would meet him while you were teaching Philosophy to inmates at CCI, after having written a thesis on just war and nuclear deterrence.  Thirty years later, you would be able to help your brother who was preparing for prison ministry.  What are the odds of this???!!!"

Sometimes, you just have to say, "Well done, God!  Well done!"  And I imagine God saying, "Well done, dear ones.  Keep up the good work of resisting empire and domination systems of all sorts!"