Stephen
Terry, Director
The Roots of Restlessness
Commentary
for the July 17, 2021, Sabbath School Lesson
"What has been will be
again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the
sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV
A few years ago, I
attended the 50th annual class reunion of my high school. High
school was not the time of happy memories for me that it was for many others. A
difficult home life meant that surviving academically was not high on my list
of priorities. Nonetheless, with little encouragement to study, I did manage to
eke out a C+ average. It was good enough to graduate with well over two hundred
of my fellow students. I had not attended a reunion prior since available time
to attend and distance were limiting factors. However, since a third of my
graduating class had already passed away, I figured it was now or never. Several
of those whom I would have considered back then to be destined for long and
happy lives had neither. Such is the sadness and unpredictability of life. It
seems that recently even more names of those I knew well back then are popping
up in my Facebook feed as deceased or struggling with overwhelming health
challenges.
With so many of my
classmates gone, I was surprised to see the huge gathering at the reunion. Even
with a third missing, the rest, with their spouses, was a huge crowd, so much
so that they ran out of food at the hotel catered meal. But despite the crowd,
I noticed that as people seated themselves at tables, little had changed since
high school. The same social groups formed as though the same social strata
still mattered. Even at my table, I found myself sitting with the same people I
would have spent time together with fifty years before, even though I had not
seen or spoken with any of them in all that time.
When my generation
graduated, many of us went into the military and then off to the Vietnam War.
Having seen the wider world, I did not return to my hometown and so had little
idea of where my old classmates were or what they were doing, but I got a few
answers at the reunion. Kitsap County has long been a Navy County, home to the
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and many naturally went to work there, doing their
part in maintaining the Pacific Fleet. My father had worked there for several
decades as well. Others went on to college and became attorneys, teachers, coaches,
police officers, and all the other individuals that keep life in small-town
America humming. John Mellencamp's ballad "Small Town" could easily have been
the anthem of our town. Some feel that the growing urbanization of the American
population means that most will never know the experience of growing up in a
small town. But small towns still exist and where they do not, many parents try
to re-create that experience in the suburbs around our cities.
Why do I share all of this?
The reunion opened my eyes to how resistant we all are to change. Those same
groups that meant so much in high school continue to speak to our needs today.
An enduring form of tribalism continues to reinforce who matters and who does
not, what clothing labels are important, and which are not, even to the extent
of what tables should be sat at and which not. But lest I be understood to be
picking on my classmates, I have noticed the exact same thing in churches. Social
tribalism exists there as well. On a larger scale, it is responsible for the
proliferation of denominations, each feeling they have the unique relevant
truth society needs. One might even be able to predict, based on high school
social status, which denominations (or agnostic groups) each student might
gravitate to as an adult. I was voted "Most Individual" in high school, and
maybe that was a natural path to becoming Seventh-day Adventist. It takes
someone with a strong tendency toward individualism to choose to worship on
Saturday when the Catholic, Orthodox, and almost the entire Protestant world
are worshipping on Sunday. That willingness to break with the path everyone else
seems to be following has set the tone for my entire life.
Our Sabbath school lesson quarterly seems to identify this restless willingness
to question as something that arises from greed and selfishness. This betrays a
fundamental misunderstanding of what makes us human. If we were not seeking something
better, why would we ever want to come to Jesus for salvation in the first
place? This may be symptomatic of a bigger concern within Adventism as well as
other religions that try to limit questioning of their dogma. Especially here
in North America, with the accumulation of several generations of church
members who have been raised with figurative denominational walls isolating
them from social interaction with those from other tribes. Children see salvation
then as perfunctorily assumed as a rite of passage without question. The
mandatory dip into the baptismal pool at an early age, at times even earlier
than the Jewish Bat or Bar Mitzvah, seals them as among the saints and
full-fledged members of the tribe, heart-rending conviction not expected or needed.
One might think that this absorption into the greater tribe of denominationalism
would override other non-Christian values, but in fact, it does not. This can
readily be seen in those denominations that run robust parochial school systems.
Having served as a parochial School Board Chairman, as well as seeing my own
child's movement through one such parochial school system, I can say that the
same smaller social tribes, within the larger tribe of the denomination, function
within Adventism as function in secular, public schools. Just like in public
schools, the children of doctors, dentists, and other professionals tend to act
out on the school grounds the same superior social status they see modeled at
home, child baptism aside. Children learn at an early age that one does not
really socialize with the children of blue-collar workers, and especially not
the impoverished or disabled. Even though these lower-status individuals might
be attending a parochial school they could never afford thanks to the largesse of
a kindly church member, they will never be invited for "sleep-ins" at the homes
of children of the denomination's wealthier individuals, nor will those
socially blessed children ever do sleep overs at the homes of their poorer
parishioners.
At one church I belonged to years ago, we hired a youth pastor. He did not
understand that the church wanted him to simply serve as a glorified chaperone
for the church's own youth. Instead, he had a missionary spirit and felt a
calling to reach out to the children in the inner-city neighborhood surrounding
the church. Most of the church members commuted to the inner city each week from
the suburbs and wanted little to do with the dangerous neighborhood they found
there. Admittedly, it was an area where even the city probably felt that God
had little control. But the youth pastor was overwhelmingly successful, and many
of the local children began coming to eat and fellowship at the church each
week. The church was becoming what it should be, a safe harbor for those
fleeing troubled homes. It had been that for me when I was young, so I
understood and loved what this young man was doing in outreach. He faced
opposition from the church every step of the way. The depth of that opposition
was finally revealed when he planned a camping trip for the young people. The
neighborhood children eagerly signed up. But not one child of a church member
signed on for the camping trip. Their parents responded, "We don't want our children
associating with those kinds of people." The report that came back from the camping
trip later was that those children from the "rough" neighborhood were so
appreciative of the blessing they had been given that they were the most
well-behaved the youth pastor had ever taken camping. After dealing with so
much opposition from the local church elite, the young man moved on, eventually
marrying, and having children of his own. I hope those children learn to appreciate
the father they were blessed with.
Being restless is not a
sin. If we do not experience the uneasiness of dissonance between what we believe
and what the world reveals to us, we have little motivation to move from the
spot we have become so comfortable occupying. Perhaps this is why some come to
church and are even baptized during or after a major life crisis. Something has
come along to make them feel restless about the security they have always assumed
was protecting them. Unfortunately, many of those who thus come into the church
often leave when life stabilizes again. Perhaps this is the Mary Magdalene Syndrome
where Jesus cast demons out repeatedly before Mary finally settled into fellowship
with Jesus' disciples. Such restless souls need the safe harbor that Jesus supplies
and expects the church to supply as well. Without that, we only have Ichabod's
departed glory. We may be fortunate to belong to the higher social strata within
our church. We may wear designer labels and drive expensive cars that
depreciate many thousands of dollars the moment we drive the status symbol
home. But these betray the true state of the ragged nature of our assumed righteousness.
We should be aware that sackcloth and walking could be God's cure for that kind
of righteousness if we are willing to be healed. But if we are happy with those
material baubles as our reward, we may never see our need of healing. That
would be a tragedy.