Gear for the Journey: Submission

This coming Sunday will be about Submission and Fasting – recognizing that our own control is an illusion, realizing what else has power over us, and submitting ourselves to God and each other.  When I began sermon preparation, I figured that fasting would be the more difficult discipline to preach since I’ve rarely had a successful fast and hunger really doesn’t make me want to pray or make me better at it.

Fasting is hard, but submission is a killer topic.  The discipline of submission goes against the American dream where we are “masters of our own destiny.”  Submission, though, is a discipline, like the others, that leads to greater freedom.  Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline) points out that submission has the reward of freeing ourselves from needing to be right, needing to have our own way, or needing to maintain the illusion of control in our own lives.

I grew up knowing submission.  I was subject to the will and rules of my parents.  I bucked them from time to time, but they had control and I had to acknowledge it at the end of the day.  After going off to school, I lost sight of some of this discipline and did what I wanted, went where I wanted, and thought what I wanted.  I had to learn submission again when Erin and I said our “I do’s”.

We, as human beings and particularly, Americans, suck at being submissive.  As a result, we waste our time on the illusion of control and sometimes do things that aren’t congruent with the will of God.

I met with a group of other pastors yesterday, as I do regularly.  One of those pastors leads a two-point charge.  That means that she’s got two churches that she leads – she preaches in two locations on Sunday mornings.  It’s a beast of a different nature than what I’m facing.  The curious question I always have  is why, in this day and age, do we still have two- and three-point charges that consist of churches that are within walking distance of each other when it makes sense to combine them and their resources?  Instead, the pastor, and leadership, double their efforts to have worship, Bible study, and other functions in multiple locations.

A few years ago, a pastor at Mt. Bethel and the District Superintendent at the time entertained the idea of combining Mt. Bethel with two or three other churches in the area.  These churches actually used to be on a circuit together, as recent as 1993.  Needless to say, the idea never got off the ground and four churches are still spending ministry money on four different facilities, four different pastors and staffs, and multiplying their efforts to do the regular, everyday tasks of ministry.  The idea went over like a lead balloon.

The same idea was broached with my friend’s two churches several years ago.  The result was the same.

Why?

The idea died when people from both congregations insisted that the combined church had to be at THEIR address, with THEIR leadership in place, and they would just absorb the other church.  In retrospect, it seems a little humorous that the smaller, more dependent church of the two is the one that made these demands the loudest.

Submission is the issue here.

If we’re disciplined at submission, we drop our power struggles and listen together for the will of God.  We stop being concerned about fencing off our kingdoms and start working together to expand the Kingdom of God.

Church fights and splits over time (and failure to reunite) occur because people lack the freedom to give in to each other or compromise.  Maintaining the illusion of our control or power becomes a form of bondage when we cannot walk away from it – when we begin to say and do some un-Christian things in the name of this need.

Richard Foster talks about seven things that we need to be submissive to: God, Scripture, our families, our neighbors, the Body of Christ/the Church, the broken and despised, and the world as a whole.  When we submit ourselves, we recognize our place in the world and we FREELY follow after God’s will.

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” –Jesus (Mark 8:34)