Staring at the Serpent

Through an unfortunate series of events, already enumerated in the update I shared this morning, today’s original post was irretrievably lost.

The thought has occurred to me that maybe the devil didn’t want me to finish that post — which, I know, sounds strange, but I feel like this little conversation we had with a man named Stewart is crucial in taking back what has been lost in recent years.

It’s hard to even describe what has been lost, but maybe you have felt it, too.

It’s as if we (and by “we”, I mean “Christians”) have given up the good fight and gone into defensive mode, just trying to get through life and not lose too much ground, too quickly.

We have given up hope in something that is still so good and so powerful and so full of graces that we haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the beauty of our faith and what it can equip us to do.

Many of us have become cowards, stuck in a rut, in a retreat from the culture around us — or worse, we have grown comfortable with it, made peace with it and even adopted it as our own.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those people who believes everything in the culture around us is bad — I see a lot of good — but we have to call a spade a spade.

There are many things that are very wrong with the culture in which we find ourselves, and I for one, have found myself adopting an attitude of defeat when it comes to addressing them.

Objectively speaking, I am just one woman who is extremely busy and trying to keep all the balls up in the air — how can I possibly find the time and energy to dig in and stand against the tide, let alone gain some ground?

Do you ever feel that way?

Are we crazy to even imagine the that we can actually gain some ground that has been lost in the world?

Are we?!

Maybe we are, but I’m beginning to think that Christians have grown far too comfortable with “being comfortable” and with just getting along — even when we know that “getting along” means allowing beautiful souls to wither away in the process.

We have grown selfish. We have stopped actually caring if our fellow man or woman goes to Hell — as long as we make it, who cares about them?

It should be obvious, but God cares desperately for them. He is thirsting for them, to save them from destruction and He needs you and me to begin to care again about the people around us.

Because if we did care a little more about them, we couldn’t possibly stand by and watch their souls wither away and die. If we really cared, we wouldn’t accept defeat and all the “collateral damage” that lays before us.

We would fight.

We would fight for the people around us. We would fight for their souls and we wouldn’t just fight for them, but we would love them — really love them.

We would stop staring at their sin and see the good that was left within them, and we wouldn’t be afraid to help them.

Which brings us to that conversation, between my family and an Irishman on our last night in Medjugorje, a conversation I attempted to share yesterday when my post was lost.

For those of you who don’t know, the Church in Ireland is a bit of a mess.

Don’t get me wrong, there are beautiful pockets of beautiful souls who are keeping the faith alive — but abuse and cowardice and disappointing leadership has left the Church in a bit of a tailspin.

Last year, when our family visited Ireland, we were privileged to see some of those beautiful pockets of light — beautiful families and individuals that blew us away with their amazing faith.

But we also saw Churches that felt more like mausoleums than places of life-giving faith.

Which is why, when we sat on that last night in Medjugorje in a little restaurant where the English speakers seem like to spend their time — a place called Viktor’s — we closed out the place with deep, heartfelt conversations with pilgrims we had only met that day.

One of these pilgrims, Stewart, began to discuss the challenges that faced Ireland.

He shared the heartache and the sadness of the faithful men and women who found themselves sad and depressed about the state of the Church.

His point was clear. Those great old faithful men and women had lost hope. They couldn’t see those pockets of goodness — they could only see what was lost.

Honestly, it’s understandable, considering the Churches they grew up in were packed to the gills with men, women and children — they knew what the Church in Ireland once was.

True, they had lost much — but not all — but their despair over the loss was blinding them to the good that was left.

Stewart shared an analogy that got to the heart of the problem in Ireland — and honestly, I think the heart of the problem that we are facing in the broader Church as well — so I’m going to share it with you.

He said that in Ireland, they have lost hope because they have been staring at the serpent for too long.

Then he said, “Look at images of Mary. She is showing us how we need to approach the serpent. Any image of Mary in which she is tramping on the serpent, she isn’t looking down at the serpent. She is looking up at God”.

I have to say that this was one of those moments where you understand the importance of community and deep conversation and the beauty of pilgrimage.

It’s like everything clicked for me in that moment.

All the things I’ve been praying about and thinking about and writing about and reading for the better part of three years.

Everything in that one little conversation connected all the dots.

You guys, I think most of us have been staring at the serpent for too long!

We’ve been staring at the evil, the hurt, the abuse, the infidelity, the power of evil in our world and even in our Church — for far too long.

Because you can look at the good in a situation or you can look at the evil in it — but not both at the same time. You need to make a choice.

It’s time. It’s time we begin to take our gaze off of the serpent and raise it back up to God.

It is only in His gaze that we will discover who we were really meant to be, created to be. It is only in His gaze that you and I will gain courage and hope.

In His gaze, we will gain the hope that is necessary to get off the defensive and back on the offensive.

No more scampering away in fear. It’s time to begin to kick some butt for God.

You know the scripture in which it says,

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”?

Matthew 16:18-19

That phrase, “the gates of Hell will not prevail” has often been mistakenly interpreted as the Church being in a defensive stance against Hell.

But I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying here.

In that particular verse, the action that is being taken is the Church “attacking the gates of Hell” to defeat the Evil One.

Guys, if we are part of the Church, if we call ourselves Christians, then why the Heck are we not on the offensive? Why are we scampering away from the fight like cowards?

I think it’s time we took our rightful place in this big, beautiful Church of ours and take back the ground that has been lost because we are a bunch of scared, lazy self-centered Christians.

It’s time to regain some ground. It’s time to engage in the battle.

It is time!

In order to get on the offensive, though, we need to take our eyes off of the serpent and put them back on God.

We need to keep our eyes on Him and through that gaze, He will give us everything we need to be victorious.

But the catch is, you are entirely free to keep going on the way you have been going on.

You are free to do absolutely nothing, to cower in your homes and places of work and study, to bide your time until the day you die.

God gave you the freedom to say “no”, — but He also placed within you in Baptism, the soul of a warrior, and I think it’s about time we activate that warrior and go kick some butt for God.

Whose with me?

It’s not going to be easy. We will have our own weakness and principalities fighting against us — but what thing of great value has ever been easy to achieve?

I can’t think of one.

So it’s up to you. How are you going to live your life?

Are you going to choose to live your life, staring at the serpent, or are you going to choose to live your life with your gaze fixed on Jesus?

It’s up to you, but you can’t unread this. The gauntlet has been thrown down and now it’s up to YOU!

Gotta go. Have a great weekend!

Sharing over at Kelly’s.