Is Charismatic Renewal for Real? part 14

Letter to Kerry Zmatick, (as if anyone is still reading this nonsense.)

Once again, the best definition of a prayer meeting: "A gathering of the people of God for the free exercise of the gifts of God."

We have already dumped the microphones and, more importantly, the teaching and the teachers. There is still a problem. Prayer meetings have always attracted a group of people whom I call the “Sacred Screwballs,” or the “Loons of the Lord.” They have a tendency to see the prayer groups as their own private therapy group. Shouldn’t there be leaders to pounce on them when they begin to dominate the prayer group? This question is related to the wider problem which I call “the Church oughta do something about this...”   

People come up to me all the time and say, “Father, you need to tell that lady in the eighth pew on the left who wears enough perfume to gag a goat that she should tone it down.”  

To which I respond, “Have you told her that?” 

To which the complainer usually responds, “Oh no, Father. That would be impolite. I would never dare to do that. What would she think? You’re the pastor. Isn’t it your job?” 

No, it is not my job. It’s your job. My job as pastor is still two steps away.   

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.  If they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” (Matt: 18:15-18) 

That means you talk to them, then if they don’t listen, go to them with a couple other people in the group and then if they still don’t listen. Discuss it publicly in the group. Right there in the prayer meeting. Right out loud. In front of everybody!!! But isn’t that impolite? No, it’s honest, and it’s what Jesus tells us to do. No one person should be able to foist his agenda on a group of people. That’s not what a prayer meeting is for. 

Let us consider some scenarios.  One of God’s little helpers comes to the prayer meeting with the express purpose of getting everyone into the "Eighteen Hail Mary Every Leap Year Devotion" that

St. Baldric received during an ecstatic vision and which he explains for us in his third locution for

St. Swiven’s Day. It becomes evident our devotee of St. Baldric is going into a rant of more than two or three minutes. 

If you ("Who me?" "Yes, you.") are uncomfortable with the direction of the rant, take authority. Raise your hand and say, “We don’t have teachings at our meeting. Perhaps you can share this with us over coffee.”  Say it with a smile. Pretend to be open-minded and tolerant. If they refuse to shut up at that point, then a couple of you can ask to see the Locutor outside, and explain the situation. If the Locutor is still intent on taking over your prayer group, bring it up in front of the whole group. This is the Biblical “One, Two, Three or More Ecclesial Heave Ho” approach. 

Pretty soon people will stop using your little prayer and praise group as private therapy. It’s hard at first, but it really works. When someone wants to take over the group let him know right away, that is not what we are here for. You have no teaching. Maybe a brief testimony, two or three minutes, a prophetic word, but never more than two or three of those. That’s what St. Paul says. (1Cor. 14:29) 

I get the biggest kick out of those conventions where five or ten prophets line up at the microphone with their prophetic note books in hand and start off with “My little children....” Haven’t these people read the Bible? If someone writes a prophecy down, you can pretty much count on it not being a prophecy, unless of course it’s Isaiah or Habakkuk or one of that crowd. 

What about prayer for the sick? 

I would suggest that if someone asks for prayer, let the group pray for them. If a lot of people ask for prayer, pray for the sick and the needy at the end of the meeting. But by no means allow a collection to be taken up at any prayer meeting. Any money collected must be accounted for by the parish office. That’s the law. 

 

“But how will we meet expenses?” 

What expenses? 

"There’s always cake and coffee at the end of the meeting. How does that get paid for?"

Have people bring a coffee cake. Don’t take up any kind of collection. Few things corrupt a group faster than petty cash. If you have to have any committees, make it a cleanup committee. Remember?  Jesus said that true leadership is about being a busboy or busgirl. (Is that a word?) If some representative of the group needs to be sent on a mission, it should be a member of the clean up committee. 

Speaking as pastor, I can tell you these are our favorite committees. If somebody does clean up, I tend to listen to them. If someone comes in and says, “Roving Avars have stolen everything we own,” and asks to take up a collection. Don’t do it. It is against diocesan and IRS rules and 99.999% of the time it is a scam. 

I remember a poor fellow who would come to a prayer group with his desperately ill son in a wheel chair and weep as he explained his plight. Outside, after the meeting his kid would get out of the wheel chair, pack it in the car’s trunk and move on to the next prayer group. You are on for charity in your private lives, but not at the prayer group. You are not a church. You are a prayer group. Nothing more, nothing less. Remember what the Lord said, “Where you find the corpse, the vultures will gather.” (Matt. 24:28) Believe me I’ve known a lot of vultures who never missed a prayer meeting.

How will we make decisions? 

What decisions? Decisions on theology are the responsibility of the church, not the prayer group. Decisions such as what time should we start the meeting -- the meeting starts when the church hall is opened and someone starts praying. 

How will we decide when the meeting is over? 

It’s over when people have prayed long enough. If you want to pray for an hour and a half, pray for an hour and a half. If someone else want to stay praying until midnight, what harm is there in that? Go home. Get some rest. Do what the Spirit prompts you to do, not what everyone else is doing. ( I would, however suggest that those who want to pray through the night be automatically made members of the clean up committee.) If there is a decision to be made, ask the Holy Spirit. If that fails, ask the pastor. That will surprise him.  

How do you ask the Holy Spirit? 

It’s easy. Someone in the group asks the question: “Lord, should we have blueberry muffins or walnut muffins after the meeting?" Then pray. If a consensus forms, you’ve got a decision, a consensus being two thirds plus one. If it’s good enough to elect a pope, it’s good enough to decide on pastry. If there is a majority, that’s not good enough. Don’t do anything until you’ve got a consensus. Remember what the disciples said in the Acts of the Apostles. “It seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit...”  (Acts 15:28)

Also, smaller is better. All you need for a prayer meeting is two or three people. Small can be a good thing. Remember, you’ve got no microphones, so if the group gets too big, start a second group. Meet in your homes until there is no more room, then meet in the church hall or in a classroom. DON”T MEET IN A CHURCH!!! (unless you are going to behave yourself.) 

In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament there is no conversation, no shouting, no prophecy. You are in the Great Presence. Everything should be directed at the Lord, present in the Eucharist. Prophecy is directed to the hearers, not to the Lord. We are in the presence of the Lord in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Our prophesying is imperfect. Let the perfect Presence speak in its silence without you kibitzing. 

A prayer meeting is not to be confused with Eucharistic Adoration. They are two different things. If you are going to have a prayer meeting, meet downstairs where you can swing from the chandeliers, shout at the top of your lungs, jump up and down, share testimonies about the Lord’s wonders and have coffee in Styrofoam cups along with your blueberry (or walnut) muffins. I love that kind of prayer meeting. It is abhorrent, however, to do all that, especially the Styrofoam cups, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. 

“But the prayer meeting is so wonderful with the Blessed Sacrament present! There are so many blessings!” 

Fine, go upstairs and be blessed, just mind your  manners, because when you are in the presence of the Sacrament, you are not at a prayer meeting. You are in the presence of the Great King. Behave that way!

So let’s get this straight: dump the teaching, dump the microphone, dump the leadership, dump the collections, dump guest lecturers invited and uninvited, dump the time schedule, dump meetings in the church. (I suppose meetings in the church are okay if they really are prayer and praise.) 

What will this bozo want us to dump next?   

I’ll tell you what this bozo really wants! Dump the music ministry.

Next week: “Be still and know that I am God.”

Is Charismatic Renewal for Real? part 11

Letter to Kerry Zmatick

Still.

Friends, I am sorry that this is so long and frankly, so uninteresting, but I think that the importance of Charismatic Renewal, for good and for ill, is little understood. The effects are everywhere.

• The revolution in Catholic media is a very direct outgrowth of Charismatic Renewal. 
•  Mother Angelica? A contemplative nun who was dragged out of her convent by Charismatic Renewal, who later parted company with the “movement” because of what she perceived as its excesses. She revolutionized Catholic radio and television; 
• World Youth Day with its dancing bishops? I have no doubt that it is an outgrowth of the Charismatic movement’s conferences and youth rallies. 
• That irritating fellow next to you in church who, at the Our Father, insists on holding hands with you, though you haven’t even been properly introduced and then thrusts up his hands and yours in a kind of victory wave at “for thine is the kingdom....”? Charismatic Renewal again. 

Whether you like it or don’t, the Charismatic Renewal is a fact — a huge fact. The other day, I was apologizing to a faithful reader for this endless tirade. He said, “Well it’s true, a lot of people don’t understand the Charismatic Renewal.” That is not why I am writing all this. The big problem is that Charismatics don’t understand the Charismatic Renewal.  I will continue by quoting the Scriptures.

Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the LORD is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD  was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1Kings 11:19 and following)

In my last disquisition, it might have surprised you to hear that stillness is at the heart of true Pentecostalism, and not noise. Certainly things can get noisy, but that is the very human response to the perceived presence of the Lord.  

I was bemoaning these things with another old Pentecostal friend and he reminded me of an experience that we both have had. Sometimes, in a small quiet prayer meeting as I would sit or kneel waiting on the Lord, it would seem that suddenly I was in a very large space, a space that seemed infinite. It would seem so large that I would almost feel dizzy. It was as if the presence in the room was too large for such a small space, and I was transported to another dimension. Pentecost is about expectant waiting, not emotional manipulation. The quiet meetings often produce the most profound experiences. 

PAY ATTENTION! I AM FINALLY GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER!!

The great enemy of Pentecostal spirituality is the microphone. The microphone is, I believe a great danger to Christianity in general. Admittedly I blather at people via microphone just about every day, but that’s because I am talking to people. 

When I first said the old Latin Mass, I was amazed that I didn’t use a microphone except for the sermon. Then it occurred to me. Why should I use a microphone? I was talking to God whose hearing is excellent. 

“But” you might say, “I can’t hear the priest unless he speaks into a microphone.” 

Has it ever occurred to you that it does not matter that you can’t hear or see what’s going on? The Mass is not about you. 

“But I am not getting anything out of it when I can’t hear it. I can’t participate.” 

Remember that if you are Catholic, Mass is a sacrifice in which you come to offer your “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day,” to God. You may or may not get something out of it, but that is not why you come. 

A Catholic goes to Mass to give, not to get. To say that you don’t get anything out of the sacrifice of the Mass is a bit like a lamb on an altar asking, “What’s in this for me?” or like Christ on His Cross saying, “You know, I’m not really getting much out this.”  

To think that you have to get something out of the Mass or that in order for it to be real it must be heard by you, means that you have succumbed to the narcissism of the Protestant Reformation. As I have told you a number of times, Luther put an end to worship when he declared that the Mass was not a sacrifice, but that it existed for the consolation and instruction of the people. What passed for worship was, in Luther’s theory, not directed at God, but at us. 

How, then, can I be consoled and instructed by something I cannot hear or see? My answer would be another question, “So, you are here to be consoled and instructed? Then certainly we will need a microphone because the service is all about you, isn’t it?” 

The sacred microphone is the necessary sacramental for the worship of an audience. The Holy Microphone, not Pentecostalism is the opposite of Catholic worship and the Holy Microphone has done much damage to true Pentecostalism as it is now doing to Catholicism. I wonder if the mega-church phenomenon may not be at its bubble’s bursting point. The bigger and bigger the church, the slicker and slicker the show, the less and less the whole thing resembles Christ and His cross. The mega-church is inconceivable without the microphone and the mega-church seems to be increasingly a kind of self-help movement rather than an expression of Christianity. It is big, it is rich and it is very consoling. And some Catholics think that imitating it is the only way to go. 

In the Christian mystery bigger is not always better. Jesus often seemed to chase people away. He seemed to actually discourage followers by telling them this was going to be tough. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go”, but Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.” (Luke 9:57,58) 

And then there was that outrageous comment about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. That sent them away in droves. 

And what about, “Sell what have, give to the poor and then come and follow me”? 

For Jesus, smaller was sometimes to be preferred. He seemed to favor sacrificial faith over convenience. 

“That’s just not the way to build up a big congregation! Think of how much more he could have done if he’d had a microphone, or maybe one of those big screens up on Calvary so that people knew the words to the songs.” (For the humor impaired: I am being ironic.)  

Jesus and His disciples changed the world without the use of microphones. We are becoming indistinguishable from the world, one microphone at a time.  

I have attended prayer meetings at which there were more microphones in the choir than there were people in the audience, I mean congregation. Part of the original genius of the Azusa Street revival was that there was no obvious leader. No one had the microphone because as yet there was no such thing. No one could electronically overpower the small quiet voice of the Holy Spirit. Rev. Seymour would come into the hall and hide behind two packing crates and people would begin to sing and prophecy, and to speak in strange tongues. The sick would be healed and the poor would have good news preached to them, all without the help of microphones. When a prayer group needs microphones, I believe it has gotten too large. Intimacy and sincerity evaporate and the pond has grown large enough to attract some very big fish, some of whom are interested in taking up a collection.  

The greatest microphonic abuse I have witnessed at prayer meetings is amplified speaking in tongues. This, in my opinion, is idiotic. St. Paul comments on it in his first letter to the wacky Corinthians. It is perhaps salutary to remember that the central texts from which Pentecostalism draws its theology of “spiritual gifts” (so-called) is the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. St. Paul wrote these chapters (1^st Cor. 12, 13, 14) because the Corinthians had made a mess of the charismata. 

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. (1 Cor. 14:2)  

If you are speaking to God, why do you need a microphone?  I have heard “prayer leaders” say, “I want to help the people get excited about the Lord!”  If the Holy Spirit doesn’t attend the meeting, all of your shouting and sweating isn’t going to help anyone “get excited.” It is an exercise of the flesh and not an encounter with God in the Spirit. You end up sounding like the priests of Baal about whom we read in the 1^st Book of Kings. 

So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. (1 Kings 18:28)

Lose the microphone and just maybe the Holy Spirit will get a word in edgewise at the prayer meeting.  

Next week: “But if we lose the prayer meeting, how will they hear the teaching?” Teachings — the next big enemy of the Charismatic Renewal.