I’ve run across a couple of instances in the past couple of days that has made me take a hard look at a word.  That word is ‘disillusioned’. For most of my life I saw being disillusioned as a lamentable (maybe a word for another post) state.  I have to admit that I have tended to spend a good deal of time trying to keep people disillusioned with one thing or another (mostly me and my role-whatever it may be-in their lives).  I was reading something the other day, however, that brought me up short. The writer (and I wish I could remember who it was so I could give credit where credit is due) reminded me that illusions are not ‘real’, not ‘true’.  They function to deceive, that’s what their job is.  Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr says,

the greatest ally of the truth is what is. I call it the actual.

We can only deal with what really is.  Jesus seems to be well aware of the need for us all to become disillusioned with the self that we have been sold.  Jesus consistently calls us away from a world that is illusory and calls us more deeply into faith into something that we cannot ‘see’ but is much more ‘real’ that what is right before our very eyes. Paul exhorts fledgling churches to be mindful of the seduction of the earthly things that can get in the way of getting on The Way. In Philippians 3 Paul warns of concentrating on the things of the world-

¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

Again in Colossians 3 Paul exhorts the Church (the people of God on The Way of Jesus) to-

² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³ for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Both of these texts seem to me to be exhorting the Church (God’s People) to actively be aware of the need to be disillusioned with what the world is trying to sell us.  Sometimes that has a very alluring wrapping on it, that wrapping can look wonderfully holy, like a church building.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Church buildings are awesome. I just think they need to be seen for what they are and be viewed with suspicion based upon what they can become.

The bottom line, it seems to me, is to remember that the building is to serve the mission of the Church and that the mission of the Church is not to serve buildings.  In some ways I suspect that we need to take a hard look at where any community or congregation stands along that contiuum from time to time.

At the end of the day if being disillusioned with the Church, on whatever level, reveals to us our life, which is Christ (see Colossians above) then we (the people of God) can really become Church (The Body of Christ in the world) in a new and more faithful and authentic way.

Anybody care to diss some illusions with me?