Life As Performance Art 104

If I have one major issue with the Anglican Church, and with Christianity in general, it is simply this one single point of contention: There is absolutely nothing in common between the attendees at church and the one from whom this religious faith is said to have its beginnings. In fact, Jesus would not be welcome in an Anglican church. He would not necessarily be crucified all over again. Anglicans are too nice for that. Nastily nice. He would have been welcomed as a novelty, there would have been great pleasure taken in his scandalously profound and insightful teachings, and probably no one would have otherwise lifted a finger to live as he was teaching. They would never even imagine having to sell their lovely multi-million dollar homes, live more modestly and contribute the equity to the Lord's work and people, nor would they make any other changes that were not merely superficial and cosmetic. No one would do anything to move out of their comfort zone to really help someone in need. For example, I am the only person in my church on a really low income. I don't have dental coverage, and I need work done pretty soon. One particularly obnoxious elderly twit in my parish suggested I get a UBC student to do the work for free, which for many reasons is not a good option. Others suggested I get it done as soon as possible, even if I have to make sure I have the extra money in the bank first. Not one of those well-incomed Anglicans did or is going to offer to actually help me pay for the dentist. Because they do not really get community, nor do they get Christianity. Likewise with this other wild card that has just appeared in my deck. They want to paint part of my apartment, just part of one wall, as part of some necessary repairs after flooding last March. I will probably have to endure a few nights sleeping with the strong and noxious paint odours afterward (I live in a tiny, single room bachelor unit), because I have no friends able to help me, and no one in my parish church really gets community or Christianity. No one is going to invite me into their big, spacious multimillion dollar home. Nor do I expect them to, because at the end of the day, if any of us are Christians, it likely doesn't run very deep. They would, in my denomination, of course change the language of their hymns and liturgies, expunging all gendered, and especially masculine pronouns (though just last Sunday at my church we were singing a hymn where the words, "wicked men" had been so overlooked by the liturgical politically correct thought police. I have the text right here. The name of the hymn is Be Not Afraid. Lovely words and music, and I intend to learn it. I will even sing the words wicked men, though maybe I will make them gender neutral. Maybe I will sing instead "if the wicked insult and hate you all because of me", even if there is also no shortage of wicked women around. Two of them are now retired priests who tried to do to me what Anglicans would do to Jesus. They tried to persuade me that I was mentally ill (I was telling them that we needed to do way more in anti-poverty and fighting homelessness and supporting the vulnerable. They didn't appear to think so) and that I ought to be on medication. When I communicated to them that my doctor and my psychiatrist thought otherwise, they shunned me. Crucifixion, Anglican style. So nastily nice. Who only knows what we would do to Jesus, and I say we, because I am not better than the rest of them. God, as it says in Hebrews, is a consuming fire. And if we are really going to invite him into our lives and our structures and our houses of religion and worship, then we had better be prepared to burn. We had better be ready to be transformed, because we are otherwise going to be quite useless to God. The Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, appeared as tongues of fire. We had better be ready for the fire, because if we want to be the people of God, we are going to have to be transformed. Me too. And it is going to be painful.