Mon Dec. 12 Come Alive (Gungor)

           

Rejoice you lonely and lost
You sick and despised
All will be made right
Rejoice you cynics and freaks
Those searching for peace
All will be made right

Even you religious teachers
Separating us from them
Heaven’s found inside us all
So turn and come alive again

  - Wake Up Sleeper, Gungor

              For several years of my life (and even occasionally now) I would’ve heard a song like today’s and thought to myself, ‘Yeah, Church, get it together!’ But I have come to realize that for all of my institutional malcontent and my disgust for some of the ways the church gets represented in the wider society, I am the church. I was formed by a church family, it is part of my heritage and, through membership and even career choice, I am a stakeholder and sometimes even a leader in the church.

           

             It is valid to critique those who would divide and condemn, who would use positions of power and leadership in ways that dishonor others, in the church as elsewhere. And I do note with relish the invitation that comes toward the end of the song, for the very ones to whom the woes are addressed, to turn and “come alive.”  Still, there is something to be said for knowing where you are in the scheme of things; and I fear that if I do not think about my role among the rejoicers as well as those who must come alive, I will be limited by my own self-denial.

            ‘Scandal’ is a word that I have frequently heard (in churches) attached to the story of Jesus and more specifically to the love and mercy of God for the world. It is an idea that today’s band, Gungor, translates into our own cultural context: all of us have reason to rejoice (freaks, cynics, the despised, saints, the poor, the lonely) for God intends all of us to be part of the coming kin-dom.  ‘All’ meaning, well…ALL; and if I really think about who within that scope would scandalize me: suffice it to say the list is not empty. And that self honesty feels about as comfortable as some of the dissonant, wailing chords of our song today: almost, but not quite, cringe-worthy.  

So, I find myself engaging in two strains of reflection upon this song.

• The one that I suspect many of us can relate to (though it still doesn’t seem to get enough air time): In what ways does the church need to wake up? In what ways does it need to come alive again?

• The second, which I, at least, turn to with much less passion: What are the areas of my life in which I need to wake up? The places where I can come more fully alive?

“Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God for the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…” Joel 2:13

In this season of preparation, awaken us to the endless immensity of your grace, that when we look back at the finite constraints of ourselves, we might truly rejoice to be inheriters of your kin-dom.

                           -Lindsey