Perilous Plunge or Liberating Launch? Church on the Precipice

Photo by Nathan Shipps on Unsplash

For a very long while—since well before the pandemic began, well before the tragic events of this year ripped the brittle veneer off the myth of racial equality in our country—I have been in a season of lament over the church, particularly the North American church. Just as the pandemic drags on and we grow weary of restrictions and losses, longing for the happy light at the end of the tunnel, so this season of lament has lingered, intensifying rather than waning, and I yearn for the mighty, sweeping work of the Spirit that will usher out the tears and bid welcome to the glorious wind of revival. But the great spiritual awakenings across the centuries always, without exception, have been sown in the soil of lament and repentance, so I will not rush out of this season of groaning. I am not alone; there is a great groundswell of repentance and intercession bubbling up within the church (see, for example, “Watch for Awakening” at  newroomnetwork.com). And like persevering old Simeon (Luke 2), I pray that we will have the privilege of glimpsing at least the beginning of God’s wave of awakening and revival, even if only for a day, after the long-haul journey of lament.

During this season, the Holy Spirit has impressed on my spirit a vivid image of the church in our socio-cultural and historic moment. I see the church in the United States (Anglo, Latino, African American, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal—no variety excluded!) standing on a breath-taking precipice, a high, narrow ledge where a step in either direction will mean an unstoppable fall. On one side is a slippery plunge into the abyss of irrelevance and impotence. On the other side, however, is an exuberant, risk-taking, intentional leap of faith. That leap launches the church into the arms of the God who longs to send upon his people a wildfire of awakening, repentance, renewal, and world-changing gospel proclamation. I sense that the width of our ledge is narrowing; either we will choose—quickly, urgently, with abandon—the leap into revival, or we will inevitably plunge off the other side of the precipice.

As she perches precariously on the shrinking ledge, the church’s feet are surrounded by a welter of ropes. These ropes are attached to sin-boulders, the weighty entanglements that both threaten to propel us over the side of the precipice in a disastrous plunge and keep us from launching out into the unknown of a great awakening. One of the biggest boulders in that pile is the accumulation of small, secondary loyalties that we have allowed to shape our thinking and living. These secondary allegiances, when permitted to creep into first place, divide and separate us—from the Lord and from each other. Political and ideological, ethnic and racial, institutional and organizational, or even doctrinal and theological, these unrestrained subordinate loyalties become like encroaching kudzu around our feet, growing up to consume our hearts and distort our vision. People of God, we are being called to cut the ropes! If we are to fulfill our calling as the Church of Jesus Christ in our day, we must be ruthlessly honest in acknowledging these competing allegiances, boldly humble in lamenting and repenting of them, and radically obedient in removing them from the throne that is to be occupied only by the One King.

The central message and mission of Jesus—and therefore of the church—is found distilled in Mark 1:15 and repeated throughout the Gospels: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (NRSV). The kingdom of God has come near—it is present to us here and now; our citizenship in this kingdom is a present reality. Dear brothers and sisters, a kingdom always has a KING. And the High King whom we serve and in whom we find our unifying identity has always demanded exclusive loyalty of his subjects. When Yahweh rescued the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from their centuries of slavery in Egypt and invited them into covenant relationship with himself, how did that covenant begin? “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exo. 20:2). The covenant is rooted in the redeeming act of God. And the very first stipulation of that covenant? “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). One rescue, one redemption, one King, one allegiance.

And what proved to be Israel’s besetting sin, her greatest failure? The exaltation of other small allegiances onto the throne that belonged exclusively to Yahweh. And so the voice of God comes over and over again through the prophets, exposing Israel’s divided loyalties for what they are, a stunning rejection of the covenant. In Jeremiah, we hear the Lord’s incredulous assessment of Israel’s devastating foolishness: “Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. [Implied: Of course there has never been such a thing, it’s too ridiculous to contemplate!] Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit” (Jer. 2:11). The Lord calls on the heavens to be shocked, appalled, and utterly desolate as they witness Israel’s divided allegiance, and then he provides a striking visual image for Israel’s choice: “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns, that can hold no water” (v. 13). I don’t think there is a better picture in all of Scripture for the secondary loyalties we set up as “little gods”—they are nothing more than broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Yahweh has asked his people for an all-or-nothing relationship and he will not allow us to find our identity or our security in any other. 

Jesus’ message of the in-breaking kingdom of God held the same consistent demand for exclusive loyalty. “You cannot serve two masters,” Jesus taught, recognizing that any attempt at dual allegiance will inevitably result in loving only one of those masters and hating the other, whether we are aware of the divergence or not (Matt 6:24; Luke 16:13–15). Discipleship (following Jesus) requires setting all other loyalties in subordinate roles; political, social, cultural, or even familial allegiances may not determine the scope of one’s commitment to King Jesus (see, for example, Luke 9:57–62; 14:26–28). It is absolutely essential that individual believers and churches alike take a brutally honest inventory of our allegiances and priorities, because, as Glen Stassen and David Gushee remind us, “We bring into every situation in life our deepest loyalties; these are not checked at the door” (Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, p. 63). If our primary loyalty is to something other than the One King and his kingdom, then our actions, attitudes, choices, and decisions will be shaped by the values of that other sovereign. “Jesus’ realism,” write Stassen and Gushee, “warns us to be aware of our loyalties and vested interests” (p. 64). Jesus repeatedly reminds us that where our treasures (highest priorities) are, there also will be our hearts (our highest loyalties; see Matt 6:19–21; Luke 12:21, 32–34).

And let us never forget the central declaration of the early church, the affirmation of singular loyalty that set the Christians apart from both Jews and Greeks. The consistent, bold “pledge of allegiance” of the primitive church was simply this: “Jesus is Lord.” And in the first-century context, in a world ruled by Rome, the clearly understood corollary to that declaration was: “And Caesar is not.” The choice remains equally stark in the 21st century. The necessary corollary to the church’s foundational declaration that “Jesus is Lord” is still: “And ________ is not.” (Fill in the blank with whatever “Caesar” holds your mind, heart, and will in its relentless grip.) We are right back where we started: “You shall have no other gods before me.” 

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord’s invitation comes to us with urgency in these days. Will we name the other loyalties that we have allowed to become primary in our lives and in our churches? Will we humbly repent of the ways those misplaced allegiances have divided us and weakened our witness? With the help of the Holy Spirit, will we boldly abandon every last “broken cistern” and immerse ourselves in the fountain of living water? This long season of lament can birth a period of revival, awakening, and transformation—and I believe that the Lord’s purpose is to do immeasurably more than we could ask or even imagine as we pray for that outpouring (Eph. 3:20). But this will only happen to and through a church that has been purged of all secondary loyalties and whose unhindered witness proclaims that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!

Dr. Rachel Coleman lives in Elida, Ohio. She is an adjunct instructor and course writer (Biblical Studies) for Indiana Wesleyan University, Bethel University, and Asbury Theological Seminary, and serves as the regional theological education consultant (Latin America) for One Mission Society. Rachel blogs at writepraylove660813036.wordpress.com.