Comfortable and Afflicted Churches

It’s been said that the job of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Some might say that is also the mission of the church. Considering that Jesus’ message and way of living upends the status quo in so many ways, how could it be any other way? If you think I’m taking things to an extreme, let me offer just a few examples:

In John 11, Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead. This of course brings comfort to Lazarus’ loved ones. But it also afflicts the comfortable. If we go to John 12:9-11, we read about this affliction: “When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.” The chief priests have a great deal of incentive to maintain the status quo – they benefited from it after all. It was comfortable.

So many of Jesus’ parables offer comfort for the afflicted and provide affliction for the comfortable. Two that do this very well are the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). Both of these parables make those in positions of authority very uncomfortable.

Jesus certainly offers comfort for the afflicted and afflicts the comfort in his sermon in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30). Jesus’ message is comfort for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed. What gets Jesus in trouble is that he expands who this good news is for – foreigners, outsiders. And it is such affliction for the comfortable that we hear how the comfortable crowd responds: “They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” (Luke 4:29-30). They would have preferred Jesus preach a message that maintained a status quo of privilege.

Jesus offers comfort for the afflicted when he talks about the judgement of the nations – “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25:35-36). And his words bring affliction to the comfortable as well: “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” (Matthew 25:41-43).

There’s plenty more examples of Jesus doing this. Paul offers this same message. Revelation does too. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of such messages.

So why is it that we have so many American churches that want to maintain the privilege of a status quo of comfort and privilege? I don’t know, but we don’t need any more comfortable churches that value their privilege over offering comfort for the afflicted.

Let me be clear in my writing. I’m not talking about the economic status of churches. There are wealthy congregations that do an amazing job of faithfully comforting the afflicted and recognizing that they are broken in just as many ways and that they themselves need Jesus. I’m not dismissing the importance of providing comfort either – we are supposed to provide comfort.

Comfortable churches are those whose primary concern is to maintain a sense of control, order, and privilege and to be able to impose that control and order on others.

I’m talking about churches that turn the afflicted away in their language, in their actions, in how they treat outsiders. When did these church become a bastion of comforting the comfortable? When did these churches decide to flip the message of the Gospel from proclaiming a message of Good News to the poor and setting people free to a message of status quo comfort for people to give the appearance of having their lives in order – so much so that they have divine approval to impose that order on others? When did these churches decide Christ’s mission for them was to turn people away – because of their sexuality, economic status, housing status, language usage, nation or origin, legal status, addictions, or anything else used as an excuse to exclude?

We don’t need more comfortable churches. We already have too many.

Instead, we need more afflicted churches – churches full of people who desperately need Good News and who want to share that with others because they see the brokenness, cruelty, and violence in the world and want the world to be better for everyone.

We need more churches that open wide the doors to those people who have been rejected elsewhere.

We need more churches that offer healing to people to have suffered cruelty and violence.

We need more churches that want to encounter Jesus, and watch him upend the status quo.

We need more churches that proclaim the transformative message of Jesus.

We need more churches that believe following Jesus will transform lives, communities, and the world and are so very thirsty for that transformation that they dive into the mission Jesus has for the church.

We need more churches that put their allegiance in Jesus, not a political party promising the power to impose beliefs and actions on others.

We need more churches willing to see the image of God in the diverse array of people in their community.

We need more churches willing to look at the past with open eyes, acknowledge where harm has been done, and work to right those wrongs.

We need more churches willing to advocate for and with the poor, the unhoused, the outcast, LGBTQ+, the foreigner, a variety of races, and neighbors who worship differently.

We need more churches who will take a stand against Christian Nationalism, recognizing that it is a heresy and a sin because it puts the hope of salvation in other things besides God.

We need more churches that integrate the Gospel into the fullness of people’s lives, not being just a compartment of life that can set aside when convenient.

We need more churches willing to live into life, death, and resurrection to see what God is up to in their midst.

We need more churches participating in the unfolding of the Kingdom of God, rather than the maintenance of the kingdom of a membership club.

We need more churches living into Shalom – peace, wholeness, completeness.

We need more churches willing to reject the creedal statements of the theology of empire – that the ends justify the means, that might makes right, and only the strong survive.

We need more churches that strive to follow Jesus and his way – followers are to pick up their cross, die to self, and follow him.

We are called to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And that starts in and with our churches. We need more afflicted churches so that we can hear and see the Good News enfleshed and lived into – that this message is for us and everyone. We need more afflicted churches so we can see God at work and be in awe. We need more afflicted churches so that we can see how that hope for a better world is alive and well. We need more afflicted churches to remind us that our foundation is not about being in control, rather it is about inviting people to be in right relationship with one another, with God, and with the rest of creation. We need more afflicted churches who embrace Jesus’ refusal of earthly power and control, so they can more fully participate in the unfolding of the kingdom of God in our midst.

We need more afflicted churches.