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Brian Niece on Disclaimer: “24″ Plot Confessions
***If you are into the TV series “24″ be warned that this blog post will discuss the current plotline (or dialogue, at least)***
So I’m hooked on “24” and the intrigue surrounding the hero Jack Bauer. It all started for me when my wife and I cancelled our satellite TV description about a year ago. We signed up for one of the DVD rent-by-mail subscriptions. We’ve watched a lot of movies this year! But we also decided to take the “24″ plunge and see what all the hype was about. We finished Season 1 in about 4 days (that’s 24 episodes, totalling about 45 minutes each). 18 hours later we were in for the long haul. Just about a week ago we finished up Season 5 with great anticipation for Season 6′s two-night premiere this past Sunday and Monday. In fact, after moving to another state we got satellite TV again, pretty much just to watch “24.” ( A decision I’m regretting, and we’ll probably be sans TV again and back to DVD world). Nevertheless, we caught the series premiere. Yes, this pastor often labeled a “pacifist” is addicted to a show about counter-terrosism with lots of guns, explosions, and killing. I guess I’ll ask forgiveness after Season 6!
***Now’s your last chance to stop reading if you don’t want to know details about Season 6 of “24.”***
Jack Bauer has been locked up by the Chinese government for over two years. Tortured beyond imagining, and changed in ways yet to be discovered, Jack returns to the US at great cost to the US government in order to be given to a terrorist organization as a ransom for the country. As Jack is handcuffed to a grate by a coworker and friend in order to be picked up by the terrorists, tortured, and killed so that terrorist attacks against US civilians will stop, he divulges “I didn’t give into the Chinese for two years because I didn’t want to die for nothing. Now, I’ll die for something … by my choice.”
Though watching “24″ is generally a time of escape from reality for me, with these words reality smacked me upside the head in a big way. This is clearly a Christ-motif: he was the ransom who will die (and rise to new life) for the ultimate thing to die for — salvation and reconciliation for the world. And I also am clearly aware that this should be the cry of all who call themselves followers of Christ: let us die for something that matters by our choice.
Serving as a pastor of a congregation there are many hills I could die on. So many intra-church conflicts are, unfortunately, a reality. I readily confess the sin of the Church that over centuries has determined to place importance on structures, organization, and systems instead of following the Way of Jesus in selfless love for God and others. If I chose to die on the hills erected by “church interests” and “organizational structuring” and “program agendas” and “building funds” I’d be dying for nothing. But I am not ashamed to say that I want to die for something (dare I say Someone?)
This realization alone should entirely change the way church is traditionally done. “Church” can no longer refer to a building or weekly Sunday gathering time. Church is a verb. We should be about “churching” in places where life happens so that Christ can build his church. Instead of “inviting people to church” what if Christians took the church into the world out of great love for others? Remember: “for God so loved the world.” If I’m spending more time with faithful attenders of a weekly worship gathering than with those in my community that are searching for relationship and something to fill the voids in their lives, (even as a pastor … especially as a pastor) then shame on me. Christ came for the sick not the well. So who am I here for? A spiritual ancestor of mine once wrote, “The world is my parish.” I’m finally understanding what he meant.
Like Jack Bauer, like Jesus, I want to die for something by my choice. Who will join me?
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Category: Sacramental Living, The Church Comment »