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How do we make church relevant to people, especially to young people?  I encounter this question weekly—sometimes daily—and it’s nonsense.  How do we make church relevant?  What are we asking when we say this?  Are we speaking of the institution, building, or the Body of Christ?  If we are speaking of anything other than Christ, we are missing the point.  What we are actually saying is, how do we make Jesus relevant?  If we are asking this, then how relevant is Jesus in our lives, and how much does our faith inform our lives?

My belief is that Jesus is relevant to everyone, and not only relevant, but also dwelling within all of us.  This whole notion of relevance is not of God, because in speaking of relevance, we objectify one another and only see that which can benefit us. What makes me relevant: my family, vocation, or nationality?  All those things can be taken away from me, rendering me irrelevant.  But those are only aspects of who I am; they are not the totality of who I am.  I am relevant because I am; my existence is what makes me relevant.

Relevance is a nice way of saying, “Why should I care about this?  Why is this important?”  How can we make church relevant?  Why should we care about church?  Lots of places have fellowship, music, and events. Fellowship can be found in little league, the country club, or on the pickleball court, and there’s no shortage of places offering programming and live music.  It’s our faith in and love of Jesus that sets us apart from everyone else.  Yes, our faith is incredibly personal and sometimes closely guarded, but we are not meant to keep our love of Christ to ourselves.  Jesus tells us not to put a bucket over our light—we are meant to let it shine.  

How could Jesus be any more relevant to our lives than He is now?  He who loves us all because we are, who says to everyone, “You are worthy, loved, and forgiven.”  I cannot imagine anything more relevant than that.  The question we should be asking ourselves and one another is this: how are we presenting Jesus to the world around us, and how can we confidently tell people about our love of Christ?  The latter answers will be different for all of us, but the former is something we do together.  At St. Francis, we present Jesus as loving, forgiving, and welcoming, and so long as we keep doing that, our lights will shine bright. 

—Fr. Jason

The Rev. David Black is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. On September 19, he was standing outside an ICE detention facility in Chicago, praying and preaching, when an ICE agent who was on the roof shot Rev. Black in the face with a pepper ball – essentially a ball of pepper spray that explodes on impact. Someone recorded it on their phone, and there was no warning shot at his feet, nor any verbal warning. As Rev. Black was imploring the ICE agents to give their lives to Christ, they shot him.

Later in the day, he was praying on his knees outside the facility and was pepper-sprayed in the face and shot multiple times with nonlethal rounds. I can’t get these images of my fellow pastor being violently assaulted out of my mind. The official DHS/ICE response is that the Rev. Black was impeding operations and had been told multiple times to move, and he refused to comply.

The comments I’ve read have fallen into two groups: one group says how evil ICE is, and the other says how Rev. Black needed to stay in his lane and not get involved in politics, as if it’s that simple. I don’t know Rev. Black, but I admire his courage to witness to those ICE agents and call them to repentance.

I don’t know the ICE agents either, and I am deeply saddened and bothered that they responded the way they did. What leads a person to the point in his or her life where s/he decides the best course of action is extreme violence? What leads a person to carry out the brutal acts of violence that they’ve been recorded doing? I’ve seen people express care and concern for one group or the other, but not for both. Jesus loves all of the people involved in that tragic incident and calls all of us to repentance, as no one has a corner on the need for it.

It’s hard to say what bothers me most about this, but it breaks my heart that people readily defend the actions of the ICE agents. Intentionally harming an unarmed person is evil. Rev. Black wrote, “I extended my arms, palms outstretched toward the ICE officers, in a traditional Christian posture of prayer and blessing. Without any warning, and without any order or request that I and others disperse, I was suddenly fired upon by ICE officers. In rapid fire, I was hit seven times on my arms, face, and torso with exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent. It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head, which they struck twice.”

Excusing their actions as necessary is evil, as is blaming Rev. Black for being there. Yes, we pray for those who hate us, but we don’t condone their hate. Jesus loves all people, but he stands with the oppressed, not the oppressor.

—Fr. Jason

Last week’s gospel was difficult and meant to make us feel uncomfortable. The gospel about the rich man and Lazarus is not a feel-good story of love and redemption; it is a warning against pride, arrogance, and putting our faith in anything other than God.

When he was alive, the rich man put all of his faith in his wealth, and his wealth was for him alone; he was the center of his universe, and everyone else was there to serve him. As I said on Sunday, wealth is not inherently evil or bad; it’s how we use it that gets us into trouble. And sometimes it’s how we don’t use it that gets us into trouble, as the rich man didn’t do anything to help Lazarus when they were alive.

Much of Jesus’ ministry was supported by wealthy people (nearly all of them women), as was the ministry of the early church. It’s how we use what we are given from God that matters.

As I said, the story of Lazarus and the rich man is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. Much of what we read in scripture is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. Our story of salvation can be distilled down to this: we are taught how to live in a way that both glorifies God and makes us feel wanted and loved; choose not to live the way we’ve been taught, things go wrong, and we turn away from God.

God gets angry, sends a prophet to tell us how to act, we promise we’ll do better, we don’t do better, and we suffer the consequences. This happens until Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, when we are taught that Jesus suffered the consequences for all people for all time. Now, what we need to do is confess our sins to ourselves and God, repent, and ask for forgiveness. And this is something we will repeat at varying frequencies for all of our lives.

So much of the discomfort I feel in reading scripture comes from knowing my sin, knowing and feeling that I’m forgiven, and knowing that I will sin again. I don’t know how many times I’ve ignored Lazarus, though it’s become far more frequent since moving to Los Angeles. I also know that if I helped every Lazarus that crossed my path, I would be as penniless as they are.

But there is a middle way, and as an Episcopalian, I am honor-bound to pursue it. I may not be able to financially support every unhoused person I meet, but I can certainly guide them to places where they can get a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night; I can pray for them, either with them or as I pass them. I can do the hard work that the gospel calls us to do.

It’s not easy work, and as I said last week, striking up conversations with strangers takes me right out of my comfort zone. But we are not meant to be comfortable all the time. When we do physical exercise, we have to experience discomfort if we want to make progress. When we want to strengthen our bond to Christ, we must exercise our souls; we must wrestle with the Word, as Jacob wrestled with God in the desert.

We must acknowledge our sin and distance from Christ, but in so doing, we also welcome the grace and love that enfolds us when we give ourselves completely to God. I don’t want to go to church and hear about all the ways I’m failing and falling short; I am all too aware of my sins. But I also don’t want to go and hear that everything is great and we’re all great and there’s nothing we need to do differently.

Because everything isn’t great, and there are lots of things I could do differently. I want to hear about the struggle. I want to hear that we are seen, forgiven, and loved. I want to be reassured that God’s grace covers all of us.

Jesus didn’t come to tell us we’re all going to hell, nor did he say keep up the good work; he came to show us how to live and gave all people the perfect example of selfless love. Love takes work, and at times it is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the best work we will ever do.

—Fr. Jason