I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Canadian TV is quite fun to watch. From Little Mosque on the Prairie commercials to the newscaster apologies in the form of “sorey” to the ‘McDoh-nalds doh-llar menu eh’ adverts, we Michiganders have all sorts of material from England and Canada to entertain ourselves with on the CBC network.
As most of you know (or are about to know), “Ho-key Neight in Canada” is a big deal. It’s apparently almost like watching football on Thanksgiving or taking your little son to baseball games. The commercials I see and blogs I read always imply that “hokey neight” is a major event. It’s the night where the guys gather around the TV, root for their favorite team and sweat it out until the end. If their team wins, it’s a serious ego booster. When their team loses, well… there’s always next week!
Growing up seeing these commercials never impacted me until a couple nights ago- when I got the sudden desire to watch a few minutes of this so-called grand and glorious sport.
So, the other night, I sat and I watched perhaps 30 or so men, (who looked more like heavily padded robotic red and white versions of Sasquatch); basically beat each other up on ice. At one point in the ten minutes I watched, three guys started beating on a fallen man with their hockey sticks! It was a battle to power, a fight to the finish- each team wanted to win very badly. I turned the channel in hopes of finding a somewhat calmer show to watch, such as the Greta lady on Fox or Rachel Maddow (I argue with her) on MSNBC.
My opinion: hockey is for men.
A couple nights later, my mom and I watched an ice dancing/skating showcase on the same channel. There was a beautiful performance to a romantic French song I am now playing on loop (“Je Suis Malade” or, “I Am Sick” – if you’re dying with curiousity) by a couple that skated expressively and rhythmically. The timing was perfect, the footwork carefully planned out in tune to the music. The crowd was on its feet by the end of the performance. I’d have to admit, I was made a bit silly by it, and it brought me back to my days as a ballerina dancing en pointe with other girls. I like that kind of stuff. It’s not violent, it looks pretty. 
The next day, I began re-reading “Wrestling Prayer” by Eric and Leslie Ludy. In it, they talk of the mighty Christians who “manned up” and fought the spiritual battles. The remarkable life of David shows that God’s power is indeed real and the element of death defying faith is reasonable. Too often, however, modern Christendom leans towards the softer stuff, the girly attitudes that leave Christians picking spiritual flowers and spraying spiritual perfume to cover up smelly odors.
My little noggin’s cogs began turning as I began to think about hockey (or ho-key if you’re Canadian or haa-key if you’re like me) and how it was more of a genuine struggle for power rather than a carefully thought out, always graceful dance.
While God’s rulebook has given us everything we need to know about “doing” church, there’s really no set way to perform church or a certain ritual we should actually follow. If you pray first or last, it doesn’t matter. Just pray. If someone wears red instead of pink on Easter, it doesn’t matter. Be modest. God gives us a model, but too often we make up our own rules and traditions in attempt to make church attractive and more doable.
In hockey, there is a set point in which the game starts and ends, rules to follow and a goal to meet. God gives us rules to follow(and principles to guide us otherwise) and a goal to work toward, but he doesn’t give us every single step to life all at once. Our job is to prepare for the “games” the enemy will play. We learn how to spiritually skate, stop, block, and defend; pad our behinds,elbows, and heads; all in hopes of being ready.
Hockey, much like life, is spontaneous. Just like players in a game, we don’t know if #5 on the enemy’s side will come and attack us with his stick at some point, or how many goals we’ll make. God knows, but how often do people wake up and think “Hooray! I’m going to get in a car accident and die today!” People make plans for the future and have expectations as to what they will do, but they can’t tell you where they will be walking at 11:32 am tomorrow.
As a Church worldwide and local, we don’t treat life and our congregation as such. We’ve made church into more of a dance. It’s all about being ready for performance. We train our people to perform well, but our performances often block out the true idea of Church: fighting to win the lost and fighting against the Devil!
Too often we’re like girly ice skaters, floating through the same rituals and habits, trying to put on a good show instead of fighting for our best possible walk with the Lord. We care more about wearing our floaty costumes (i.e. “Men about 16 years old should wear ties until noon.” What, is the morning more holy than the afternoon?) than getting suited up for some kind of spiritual battle (Does anyone remember how to put on the full armor of God?).
We all chant the verse about God looking on the heart, and how our heart should be above reproach… but don’t we criticize others for “looking” funny? Today I was criticized by nearly a dozen women who told me I didn’t look very spring-y. Some told me I was wearing fall colors (grey skirt, periwinkle shirt) and white shoes before Memorial Day was a blunder. Does it matter, ladies?
Instead of looking good and acting good, how about just being good with the Spirit’s guidance? If we all read the Bible for it’s worth, we wouldn’t need dumb humanist rules. We would be more prepared to lead because we aren’t butting heads over whether or not we should take on a janitor or paint the bathrooms green. The Church, if everyone could realize the power of the Spirit, would be a much happier place. I’ll admit, I greatly dislike going to church. All I see are self-absorbed, happy, shiny people who sit in pews, hash out cash, and are bent on getting “their” way with everything. The minute you do things differently, (even things like using a different room), you are questioned about your motives. Every Sunday, it’s the same. Three hymns, a couple prayers, and a sermon (that never varies from the topic of salvation). It’s predictable as the sunrise! We don’t even think about what we’re doing… just as long as it looks good.
Imagine what power could be tapped if everyone pitched in and gave it their best- not for the sake of performing, but for the praise of Christ? What if everyone suddenly had the attitude of manning up in their spiritual life and devoted a passion for the truth to winning souls to Christ? We aren’t seeing lost people wander into churches nowadays- and if the lost were to sit in a pew and listen, none of the “get saved” jargon would make sense.
The Church, stuck in a different era, is still acting and training people for a world that is imagined to be an ice-skating rink… when the ideas and worldviews reinventing themselves today make the world to be more of a hockey rink.
So Christians, how about we stop caring about things that really don’t matter (like what so and so is wearing or where to set the flowers on Resurrection Sunday) and get back to things that do matter (like studying Church history, paying attention to intellectual thinkers, reciting the old creeds, and binding up the brokenhearted)? We should stop acting like little girls dancing around for fun on an ice rink and start fighting seriously like men on the hockey arena.
More thoughts on evangelical-soft-headed-ness to come. I’ve been thinking a lot about how ‘emotional‘ and ‘exciting‘ people make church and other religious experiences to be. I think it could all be attributed to the Great Awakening and the ideas that propelled it.
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What does that tell you?
