A Tourist's View of the Church

I've lived here in Hana for over 4 months now. The house (Hale Kahu - house for the minister) is on the Church property with the main windows facing the church and road (not the beautiful Pacific Ocean). I get to watch the tourist busses and cars as they pass by.

Hana is a tourist spot - in fact the main industry seems to revolve around tourism, either accommodation, food, souvenirs, or goods and services. Every day many small tourist busses come past Wananalua Congregational Church building. This half block of road is the only way through Hana; a fact which has not escaped the notice of the police when they set speed traps and drink driving tests.

Each of these tourist busses stops or more likely slows to a walking pace as it goes past the Church building entrance. No doubt the driver has a spiel about the historic significance of the building and the graveyard. Only rarely have I seen a bus actually stop to let a passenger off to go inside the building to take a photo. It's a tourist spot - to be seen, photographed, talked about, but not experienced.

But there is a real Church that meets here and worships and, yes, sometimes argues as it seeks to find its way in this modern world. None of that is seen by the tourists.

On Facebook there is a list of 100 places to see before you die. I have seen 8 at this point. But I somehow am uneasy at the 'tourism' sight-seeing approach to life. The comedy movies like National Lampoon's 1987 "European Vacation" plays up the silly side of that.

Yet we find people treat faith in that way - it's a tourist like venture - to be seen but not experienced and worked at; something that is to be dished up to amuse us or to make us feel happy. And the Christian Church has played into this. Can you imagine Paul or Peter of the New Testament acting as a tourist guide for the church buildings in Asia Minor? Can you see them highlighting the building or the artifacts of memorabilia donated in memory of people as they take each party through the old building? Can you see Paul arguing for the churches around to donate money towards restoring the old building in Jerusalem as he travels through Greece?

Congregations unwittingly take this tourist approach also as we skip merrily from Christmas to Easter Day to Thanksgiving and all the other 'happy' church occasions. And make sure the service only goes for 45 minutes because, as one Church in all seriousness actually told me, "We want to get to the restaurant before the other churches so we can get in and have our meal before they take all the seats."

But when a congregation has to face the reality of hard decisions in tough financial circumstances, we have no resources to lead us through because we have only sought ease and our own comfort in our church life. No hard study and grappling with the Scriptures ( "just preach to us from the Bible, Pastor") and sitting in uncertainty with our fellow pilgrims on the Way to prepare us for difficult times. No sharing of disagreement in searching for the way forward nor taking on board the promptings of the Spirit towards new ways.

Similarly we remove all the bits from the liturgy that make us squirm - confession, praying for our enemies, sermons about issues that touch our pocket books or our political sensibilities, new hymns that challenge us musically and theologically. Just preach how to survive our daily living with as little discomfort as possible, like patients pleading with their doctor to remove all pain we demand the morphine of the old comfortable hymns and the familiar, domesticated portions of Scripture.

No, I cannot blame society for treating the Church like a tourist site and a museum, we the Church have done it to ourselves. And while we keep doing it we become what we have created - a museum to faith that others only see superficially as they pass slowly by; a quaint piece of antiquity left over from a former age.

Let the Spirit blow through the Church so that we become the vibrant living community we were meant to be.

The Sounds of Paradise

My Latest Gig

So I took an Interim job in this far-flung corner of Hawaii. The town of Hana is about as remote as one can get on the island of Maui. Although it is just 50 miles from the International airport of Kahului, that distance takes 2 hours with no stops to negotiate by car. It is a tortuous, narrow road with many one lane bridges and road sections so narrow that one must find a wide enough spot to allow any oncoming cars to pass. Locals (and myself as well) drive it at night as the lights reveal vehicles coming before they are visible by sight.

Hana

Hana - some say the word means 'Heavenly' - is a village consisting of just 2 general stores, 1 garage, several churches, and a large vacation hotel. Several other small vacation places are also available. Just south is the grave of aviation legend Charles Lindbergh. Around here Rosanne has a farm and George Harrison also owned a property north of here.

So here I am working to help this small congregation in one of the largest buildings with historic significance. Part of the services in Hawai'ian - part of the Call to Worship, the first hymn, the first prayer, a sung Lord's Prayer, and the Queen's Benediction at the end. I'm learning slowly to vocalize the Hawai'ian language, even where I cannot understand. They need my voice to lift their singing. The building helps - even the smallest voice can fill this lively building.

Rain

Each morning I wake to the sounds of Paradise: not birds, nor the laughter of children, nor the quiet lapping of waves on the beach. It's the winter season here and that means rain - not the pitter patter of gentle rain like that in Michigan, my wife's home state.  Rain here means heavy deluges swept in from the sea and sweeping across the from the south-east and up into the high mountains. And then the shower passes and it will be fine. This cycle may be repeated several times.

Did I mention that the mountain behind me named Haleakalā is 10,000 feet high (and goes another 20,000 feet into the sea!) and is 75% of the island. It makes driving from here to anywhere an arduous chore as you negotiate the mountain slopes.

Wind

All night the wind comes and goes and the gusts blow the trees with quite a force. The noise is almost indistinguishable from that of the heavy rain. It is a constant dull roar in the background, like a low-pitched Tinnitus in the ears. The wind bends the fronds of the coconut trees and pushes its way through the bread fruit trees. As I write it is rustling the leaves of the tallest and the smallest plants. The curtains in the house constantly move as the wind works its way through even our human structures like the blowing of God's Spirit despite our blockages.

Waves

The ocean noises here are not the ebb and flow of waves breaking on a long beach or the ripple of an inland lake rippling on the shore. Here the coastline is so convoluted and rocky that there is no chance for the mighty sea to build up a rhythm as it breaks on the shore so the noise of the ocean is a constant unchanging roar in the background. The sea surface is a constant moving spectrum of water moving and sometimes heaving and always rumpled like the sheets on a teenager's bed.

Wind, rain, waves - but these are not the sounds of Paradise to which I refer. I am surrounded by several properties with large, flat, very green grassy areas - the Catholic Church, the Big Hotel, and my own Church  - large flat areas of carefully maintained lawn. So that may give you a clue to the sounds that start each morning.

Motor Mowers

Yep! The real sounds of Paradise are the noise of motors driving push mowers, whipper snippers, and ride-on mowers.

A constant daily routine of cutting the grass to make Paradise look well, like Paradise, greets each sleeper every day. So I rise to these sounds of Paradise. Natural or unnatural they are the sounds that surround me day by day. With no cinema, no other forms of entertainment other than TV, only two shops and those expensive and somewhat limited, and the two even more expensive restaurants (at $15 per hamburger!), mowing may be a substitute for our familiar city activities.

Humans improving upon God's design! I wonder if we get to shape Heaven as much as we do Hana.

More to follow.

Aloha