The What-If Game

I haven't left church feeling so exhilarated and yet so frustrated in a long time. Usually, it's one or the other, but not both. I knew it was going to be a good one when the speaker apologized in advance for stepping on toes.

The message was entitled, "Can You Spare Some Change," but he quickly explained that it had nothing to do with money or poor people. He then opened up to Exodus -- which, if you know anything about the Bible at all, and in case you haven't been tipped off yet, you'll realize that this is going to be a bizarre sermon.

We covered the part when Israel forgets that they just walked through the Red Sea, narrowly escaping from their Egyptian captors, and suddenly turns mutinous because they haven't found water in three days and now they're thirsty. It makes sense, right?

"If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (Ex. 16:2). In other words, it was better back then. It was more comfortable. Nevermind the fact that we pretty much built the pyramids.

He quoted some famous guy: When we realize that we are, in fact, on a journey, we realize how ridiculous it is to argue that we've 'never done it that way before.'

At which point he gently pointed out (okay, maybe not so gently) how many of us are uncomfortable with.... drum roll, please... change. If there is one thing that would characterize my church over the past two years - shoot, even the past 5 years - it's change. And while we've weathered it pretty well, many have been pulling out hair (sometimes theirs, sometimes not) wondering when it's going to stop.

The point: change is never going to stop. Israel wandered 40 years because they didn't trust. They wouldn't change.

It was here that he brought up sacred cows and tradition. And he said: No one wants to talk about these, so neither am I.

Instead he made a powerpoint :)

The questions started innocently enough: What if we moved the alter table? What if we took down the enormous cross at the front of the sanctuary? What if we put a screen there instead? Some of us younger whippersnappers snickered.

But then they started getting more edgy:

What if we stopped calling it the 'sanctuary'? What if we did some remodeling? What if we moved into a warehouse?

What if a person with purple hair and body piercings walked in?

What if s/he sat next to you?

What if you heard someone curse in the hallway?

What if a same-sex couple started coming?


The silence was profound.


It was a challenge to re-evaluate the status quo, to re-examine our own hearts, to return to the important things.

And for one, small moment, I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe this time, maybe now that we are asking the truly important questions -- not just playing numbers games and asking whether a cafe would attract more people.

Afterwards, I gave him a hug and said thank you, maybe we should continue this conversation sometime. I hope we do. I hope he really ticks some people off. I hope they can't sleep at night because they're so mad. And I hope we're all forced to change. But no more of this rhetoric, please; I am tired of hypothetical change.