"Numbness"

Today Brian quoted the word, "numbness," to describe the coping reaction many of us develop to survive in American society each day. It is true, we get overcome by the passions of this world, the worries of a market economy, the insecurities of dependence on a global community, and the insatiable god of consumerism. We work as much as we can, spend as little as we can on as much as as we want and still feel like we are never getting ahead. And our endeavors toward, what I'd say is a myth, "getting ahead," dominates our efforts toward and our hope in "God's kingdom coming on earth."

We exhaust ourselves in striving for what we are told will provide lasting happiness, that we have little time or energy to think about the impracticalities of a radical call of Jesus to abandon all and take up our cross. No, we are so busy trying to protect ourselves from "crosses," that we end up bearing little resemblance to the carpenter who, in the face of accusations and suffering, sat in the homes of tax collectors, prostitutes, adulterers and heathens, a Call we acknowledge on a Sunday morning but by Monday have no time for.

Yet the word, "numbness," gave me a new slant on this reality that I have struggled to describe since my return to the United States from overseas. It names an infirmity facing the North American church. Particularly, it is the deepest challenge of followers of Jesus, at this time in history, to live incarnationally and radically in our society.

When I first returned, I chalked up my struggle with the church to culture shock. I then started judging what I saw as apathy. I mourned it as a loss of zeal or fervency to missional living in everyday life as a Christian. But to diagnose it as a numbness makes it no less a challenge, but certainly more deserving of pity and understanding. It depicts a people who are burdened with something they can't control, at least at first look. They are captive to conformity . . . one could call it a form of mental subsistance living, a people bogged down, unable to think beyond their day to day cycles of making a livelihood and endeavors for personal comforts. It gets to the point that people have little or no imagination for what could be, for how we could live differently and for how our communities really could change to reflect the Kingdom of God in our day and age.

The shock of this reality for me, initially, was almost suffocating, a slowly encroaching lethargy that gets heavier and heavier, threatening any hope or happiness that one claims is possible through Christ. It was like fighting for fresh air, feeling heavy-hearted and not understanding why. When I tried to fight it, I got the feeling that people did not approve. To fight what is "normal" appears critical, foolish, immature and perhaps even rebellious. It makes the claims of freedom from worries sound irresponsible and naive. I wonder if the numbness people feel in life is something contagious, or maybe it is in the water, most certainly grows like a cancer that threatens to consume.

But what I heard today is that it is something we need to fight, to struggle against and proclaim freedom from. It is a matter of life or death, in my opinion. Not only a risk to our own vibrancy in our life in Christ, but also a matter of life for those around us who need to see a Christ that reaches out to them, that loves them as they are, where they are, in whatever state they are. The Body of Christ, in its brokenness and struggle, bears witness to a Christ that understands human suffering and still offers hope and freedom and joy. This in the face of a society that, conversely, proclaims fear, insecurity, judgment, gloom and doom when our independence is threatened and we may not get to live like we want.

The challenge is clear. We need to break free of this numbness. We need to break through the strongholds of a consumer and security dependent lifestyle. We need to throw off our inhibitions to following Christ's call to radical living in a society that demands conformity. We need to think critically about what we hear and who we listen to and what jargon we repeat. We need to submit ourselves to one another in humility and earnestness, seeking not the will of the majority, rather the will of the One who has sent us. We need to trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not our limited ability to figure it all out. Somehow we must break free of the numbness that binds us and keeps us from participating in ushering in the Kingdom. The Gospel is Good News and people want to hear it and see it. There is no time to waste! We need to re-spark the fervency to proclaim it and live it.