nike-ing apathy

apathy:

1.  absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.

2.  lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

3.  indifference

As I pried my eyes open two mornings ago, I wasn’t sure of which was louder: my alarm clock or this word resounding in my head in rhythm with the irritating bleeping.  I was just working out a good reason to tuck myself a little further under the duvet (I’m constantly amazed by my nearly involuntary powers of self-justification at 5:45 am) when the Holy Spirit interrupted my internal monologue:

“I want you to study this word because you need to understand what you’re feeling and what you’re facing as a church.”

I’d felt really strange for a few days…sort of restless, but I didn’t really want to do anything.  Maybe discontent is a better word.  I found myself wanting to avoid conversations and issues and…people.  Vaguely discouraged by the current circumstances, which chiefly involve immigration challenges.  And the more I took notice of this feeling, the more disillusioned I felt about things ahead, and the more I wanted to avoid it all, anyway, all leading to subtly whispered questions in my mind: what’s the point, anyway?  Who really cares about anything we’re trying to do?  And with that question, a strange heaviness settled around my shoulders and down my spine, like a horribly overweight backpack.

Consequently, the voice of the Holy Spirit came as relieving insight.  This strange feeling of discontented lethargy leading to listless discouragement and purposelessness…it’s apathy.  And it’s not simply the byproduct of my own fluctuating emotions.  It’s the spiritual climate here, if you will, and it seeps into everything the way the damp drafts from the rain tend to chill even the sturdiest buildings.

Spiritual battle and the intense challenge of pioneering the gospel generally conjures images of living in squalor in some remote desert or rainforest where you’re never sure if you’ll be arrested or shot for acknowledging Jesus.  I have the utmost respect for the men and women who live in this type of battle zone.   But in the West, the battleground is far less obvious.  Here, counterattacks to kingdom advancement are not so much physical danger, job and property loss, and imprisonment; they are depression, workaholic tendencies, materialism…and apathy.

The most desperate thing about the West is that isn’t desperate.  Christian or not, we Westerners have enough grocery shopping, work deadlines, unanswered emails, and social engagements to occupy us from dawn until dusk- no, midnight.  These produce a paralysis in the Church; we are indifferent because we don’t have time to notice needs that are relatively invisible to middle class living.  And outside the Church, they provide a necessary diversion from gnawing emptiness and hopelessness.  The West doesn’t care because it doesn’t have to care, and this indifference is the apathy that settles in like a heavy fog.  It’s a helpful momentary narcotic that produces side effects of purposelessness, depression, and the vague sense that this is “as good as it’s probably going to get”.

Jesus addresses this issue of apathy in the “lukewarm” Laodicean church (Rev. 3:14-22).  Each of the seven churches is commissioned to overcome an aspect of opposition.  Some, like the church in Smyrna, faced imprisonment and death- understandably some things to overcome.  Just a few verses later, however, the Laodicean church is commanded to overcome lukewarm apathy.

Really??

I was stunned as I read this again this week.  Jesus addresses apathy as if it is as substantial a foe to the church as physical torture.  Bravely facing loss of property and family strikes me as noble sacrifice.  Facing apathy strikes me as…normal.  But apparently, fighting each of these is considered a worthy fight with a promised victory- if we acknowledge the enemy and engage in the battle.

The Greek word for “overcome” is “nike”.  Long before the advent of the immortalized “swoosh”, Nike was the Greek goddess of victory.  She was typically depicted triumphantly standing with her foot on the neck of her enemies.  Consequently, Jesus’ invitation to the churches to “nike” is a statement declaring his supremacy- over persecution, over culture, and even over world government.

I love that.  Apathy is not some state of “normal” into which we must resignedly settle; it is a very real enemy that we are invited to nike.  It rouses me out of the discouraged lethargy that wants to creep in and inspires me to fight.  And wonderfully, fighting is not a strain and struggle- it is simply worshipping, asking the Holy Spirit to fill me, and attending to the primary business of getting my soul “happy in the Lord”, as George Mueller puts it.

So this is one of the battles we’ll be fighting here inside and outside of the Church.  When I become aware of the attack here, I'm purposing to stop the walk down the slippery slope of my thoughts and connect with the Lord instead.  I’m glad to be aware that this is a very real battle, not a normative state we settle for.  And I’m even more glad that nike-ing is something promised- for us, for the church here, and for the city.