The Long Defeat

We work with churches in conflict.  I spend my time with people when they are at their worst, when they are most difficult, angry and ugly—sometimes enticing me to be the same. Some conflicts are ridiculous.  A college student once told me her church was, “Always fighting about stupid-ass stuff!” Regardless, church conflict is always heart wrenching—tearing families and friendships apart. I’ve had to deal with lying, gossip, slander, fraud, embezzlement, racism, pedophilia, adultery, rape and even murder. Being the one to confront these sins means I become the new target. I’ve been called “Satan,” “Heretic,” and, my favorite from a church in North Carolina, a “Damn Yankee,” in addition to many unprintable names. In twenty-eight years, I’ve seen more dysfunctional church boards, narcissistic leaders, angry members, petty disputes, failed ideas and stupid decisions than, well, than you would believe.

Even the good churches—the large and outwardly successful ministries—often hang together by temporary, tenuous cords, with tales to tell behind the scenes. It is easy to attract a crowd, quite another to make disciples. Each generation, it seems, has its own idea of “success” that the last generation finds offensive and the next generation finds irrelevant. Conflict ebbs and flows. Churches rise with glitter, and fall in ruins. Success is a flash in the pan. Failure is inevitable. It is enough to make one want to shake the dust off your feet, and to wonder, “What could God be thinking?” or “Why doesn’t God blow this world to smithereens?”  This is how I feel some days.

There are other days when the clouds break and, for a moment, light comes streaming through.  A hardened heart softens, dead bones take on sinew, eyes open to see and arms embrace what was shunned before, a little miracle pops up in a sea of sickness.  God is here and He is for us.  He is present, and at work. Who knew?  But these days are less frequent.

Usually, when we first start working with the church, the Smithereens Solution seems the only reasonable option. When I suggest this to God, he suggests I live three days in a belly of a fish. Like Jonah, I learn, again, that whatever God is doing in the church, he is using the circumstances to change me. That’s the way it works, you know. You don’t do anything for God. God plays your thoughts and actions back on yourself, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. Discipleship is tuning your heart to a different song, and finding an altogether different rhythm to the history you assumed.

Here are a few chords I’ve been learning about God, the church and myself:

1. 1. God is inefficient. God seems to work in stages. Sometimes his steps are so small and slow they are impossible to see for a long time. Often, the steps I do see are clearly, at least to me, heading exactly in the wrong direction. Either way, God is not in a hurry, despite my coaxing. Generally speaking, the longer a person or church (or I) has been wandering away, the longer it takes for real change, even if repentance is immediate.  It is our desire, not our behavior that God wants to redeem. Character takes time and a community. What if God’s purpose for you was not to grow a business, a church or ministry, but to transform your character?
   2. God sighs deeply at my cause and effect reasoning: the premise that if I do A and B then C is sure to happen—C being some big result or major breakthrough to transformation. Here is what I have found:  God’s will is far more complex and, to our perspective, random. Life is not linear.  It is chaotic and messy.  Just when you think we have reached some calm and gained control, stuff happens.  This, I have learned, is because control is the enemy of faith. Any idea, event or answer that does not depend on God is inadequate, and dangerous.
   3. Miracles happen, but they do not last and they are not the end. Think about it this way: nearly all the truly big and impressive stuff God has done—like parting the Red Sea and raising people from the dead—did not stick. How long afterward did it take Israel to rebel? Lazarus was raised only to die (again) of something else. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples when they returned excited about miracles: “do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (1)  Pray for faith and believe in miracles.  But pray more for faithfulness and for more believing people.
   4. God does not care about football.  (However, I’m told that His mother roots for Notre Dame.)  Stay with me . . . Every year since fifth grade through college, some coach tried to convince me that football was like life and, if the coach was a Christian, like faith. Of course, the discipline of practice and performance does have application for life, but this would also be true of laying bricks, or sewing, or playing the tuba. Have you ever heard someone say, “Playing the tuba is like life? This is why I have found the preoccupation with sports to be silly. Yet, the notion still seems to fascinate pastors (particularly with those who never played football.) If you ask me what I enjoyed about football I might say, “hitting people.” This, I have found, is not a workable metaphor for life. Leadership by coercion is not leadership.
   5. This brings me to the principle that has struck me most lately, one that I’m only beginning to put into practice, and one I ask you to think carefully about before dismissing: following Jesus means living faithfully into “the long defeat.”(2)   I’ll be direct with you.  The likelihood of your ministry “succeeding” over the long run is very small, (if succeeding means continuous growth.) Moreover, you are going to fail. The question is not is not if, but when, and how big you will fail. This is very important for you to acknowledge and accept: everyone fails. If you doubt this, just look at Scripture. The biggest Big-Wigs in the Bible tend to be the greatest failures. Anger keeps Moses from the Promised Land. David breaks every one of the Ten Commandments in his sin with Bathsheba. Peter, whom Jesus names the Rock on whom the church will be built, is called “Satan” a paragraph later. Paul refers to himself as a “wretched man.”(3)
   6. In a fallen world, three things (beside taxes) are certain: death, evil, and failure.  Death and decay are part of our natural world.  Principalities and powers occupy our spiritual world.  Intellectually, humanity may be increasing knowledge faster, but it is not making us better.  Socially, there is more war, violence and inhumanity than ever before. Yes, thank God, there are small victories here and there and times of real rejoicing, but these times are limited and temporary until the end. Meanwhile, God calls you and me to live by faith for a promise yet to come and cannot see.

We have served more than 115 churches and the hundreds of pastors and leaders. Nearly every failed church and leader tried to cover-up, minimize or deny their failure, blaming others  Driven by pride, fear, doubt, and envy—as we all are—they became passive and evasive, or defensive and aggressive in an attempt to make the humiliation of defeat go away, all the time making it deeper and deeper because they were feeding the dynamic system of a fallen world.  In every circumstance, healing came only through repentance and by sincere efforts to make restitution. Those who do this, and they are few, get a glimpse of heaven. Those who don’t, dig a deeper hell on earth.

So, I’m learning to embrace, rather than deny the defeat of a fallen world. I’m learning to see that the reality of defeat is neither permanent nor cause for despair. We are not created for this world. We were created for relationship with God and others that is only fully possible in a world without evil and sin, a world made possible only by Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. We want to pity ourselves. It turns out, (surprise!) the only person to be pitied is the one who places his or her hope in this world, which is exactly what most churches and leaders are doing when they refuse to face defeat and failure squarely!(4)

Do you see the upside-down nature of God’s wisdom and will?  Jesus said it this way, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me will save it.”(5) 

Take a moment to read (or better yet, listen to) and ponder the lyrics of this song written by Sara Groves:

The Long Defeat

I have joined the long defeat

That falling set in motion

And all my strength and energy

Are raindrops in the ocean

 

So conditioned for the win

To share in victor’s stories

But in the place of ambition’s din

I have heard of other glories

 

And I pray for an idea

And a way I cannot see

It’s too heavy to carry

And impossible to leave

 

I can’t just fight when I think I’ll win

That’s the end of all belief

And nothing has provoked it more

Than a possible defeat

 

We walk a while we sit and rest/\

We lay it on the altar

I won’t pretend to know what’s next/

But what I have I’ve offered

 

And I pray for a vision

And a way I cannot see

It’s too heavy to carry

And impossible to leave

 

And I pray for inspiration

And a way I cannot see

It’s too heavy to carry

And impossible to leave

It’s too heavy to carry

And I will never leave

Faithfulness is obedience to a way we cannot see and carrying the load that is impossible to leave. The glory is not winning, or even finishing the task. The glory is your refinement in the journey.  Faithfulness means being attentive to your character, not your reputation. Here, briefly, are four virtues that every follower of Jesus must cultivate as you embrace the long defeat:

• • Humility: Keep this perspective:  Most of the world’s 7.9 billion people do not know your name, your failures or accomplishments and if they were told, they would not care. Yet, God does. So, when you fail, own it–completely and unconditionally. It is not the end of the world, but it might be the beginning of true discipleship.
  • Courage: Faith is not faith unless there is risk of failure. Hope is not relevant if there is no danger. Are you facing a decision between what is right but unpopular, and what is wrong but safe? Do what is right, not what is safe. If you do not know what is right, or there appears to be no good option, do what is best. If  you do not know what is best, do the next thing. Inquire of God. Consult godly friends. But act in faith.
  • Integrity:   Nurture and practice mutual submission. Live in community and be accountable to that community. Give and receive forgiveness. Stop running away from or fighting the people opposed to you. Instead, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”(6)  Submission is the key that unlocks the secrets of true community.
  • Justice: Jesus came to seek and to save those caught, oppressed and defeated by the economic and social violence in society.(7)  So must we. When you fail, redeem the wrong through restitution.  When unjust powers or systems damage the weak and oppressed around you, embody the healing presence of Jesus in fellowship with the Father’s heart and what Jesus would have you do for him.(8)

The long defeat calls us to a pathway where, in the midst of heartache, struggle and failure, we prove that God has, indeed, swallowed up death in victory(9) by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The promise made in the dawn of time will be realized in eternity without end, and we will look back and say, “It was worth it all.”

The empty tomb is our hope unseen, our freedom from bondage, our promise yet coming, our city whose foundation is designed and built by God.(10)  Thanks be to God.

Footnotes:

1. Luke 10:20
2. From J.R. Tolkien, who once wrote of himself, “ I am a Christian”. . . so “I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’— though it contains (and in legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”  Letters, page 255
3. Romans 7:24
4. 1 Corinthians 15:19
5. Luke 9:24
6. Luke 6:28
7. Luke 4:18-20
8. Matthew 25:21-46
9. 1 Corinthians 15:54
10. Hebrews 11