Being all right with being content

Churches and families can be viewed as hothouses where plants suffocate instead of replicating. So the solution is to get rid of the old vines and trellises. Start from scratch. You may have to lose a lot of people in the process, but that gives you a chance to start fresh without sheep slowing down the shepherds. (Horton, Ordinary, p.126)

Michael Horton makes use of a lot of garden imagery in his book Ordinary. That is not surprising. Gardens and vineyards were used by God in Scripture as a description of his people, the church. Jesus tells parables about garden work in the gospels. So the above quote falls into that line.

Chapter 7 of the book, entitled "Contentment", begins to give us a response to the 21st century need for novelty. "The cure for selfish ambition and restless devotion to The Next Big Thing is contentment"(p.125).  But contentment is not something which we can find in ourselves. Contentment needs an object, a purpose.

So, we need to find contentment. But what is the object of our contentment? Ultimately it needs to be the work of God in our lives. And that work, surprise, happens in ordinary ways. So often, as Horton speaks in the above quote, we seek to start over, to tear up the garden and replant. Tear down the trellis. Rip up the vines. Start fresh, no more "sheep slowing down the shepherds."

Every minister complains at times about his people. We all can tell stories of "sheep slowing down the shepherds." But listen to the words with fresh ears. I have heard pastors say, "you may have to lose a lot of people in the process," as they attempt all manner of new things. Don't stand in the way, church people. There are new things, new ways brewing. But the shepherd in Jesus parable went looking for the lost sheep. It didn't make sense. It slowed him down. He couldn't get the flock moving until he found this one sheep. But the shepherd was not content until his sheep were safe. Safe in the fold. Safe in Jesus.

Being content means that we are not looking to turn everything into a miraculous moment. Horton writes, "The birth of a baby doesn’t have to be elevated to the status of a miracle to be an astonishing example of the wonder of God’s ordinary way of working in our lives and in the world" (p.141) Our worship doesn't have to be awe-inspiring or  tear-inducing to tell us that God shows up. And I, for one, am content with that. It takes the pressure, and the focus, off of me, and puts it back on God in Jesus Christ, where it solely belongs.