Sometimes I like to be tube-fed my spirituality. I like the way it casually oozes into me on Sunday mornings or in chapel at my small, Christian university or during the five-minute “Faithful Friday” readings from a well-meaning professor. Allowing the nutrients to pass through me, I sit. I wait to feel something about life again. I wait, craving fullness, disappointed when I can’t remember a sermon one hour after it was pumped from the pulpit. It must have leaked out of me, I think.
The Protestant Reformation was about a lot of deep, theological things. Things I don’t fully understand. I know that Catholics were tired of paying a lump sum to their local priest every time they sinned—a bogus scheme called Indulgences. I know that priests were corrupt, stealing money, sinning sexually, paying for power. But I know that the most important thing about Martin Luther and his 95 Theses was that people were demanding to feed themselves again. They were ripping out their mindless-spirituality food tubes, taking ownership of their soul’s health.
I believe that Luther broke free from the church partially because of its corruptness but also because he realized that it was numbing him. When Luther and his crew of rebellious Catholics spit boldly in the face of religious tradition in the 16th century, I guarantee they never imagined Christians in the 21st century who would return to lukewarm living on purpose. But in many ways, I think we have.
If I’m honest with myself, I am comfortable letting others do the hard work for me. I like it when my pastor researches recipes, prepares the meal, serves it to me, in 30-minutes, on a TV tray. It’s much easier than trying to sauté, poach, bake, stir, measure, or grill something for myself. While I know that meals in a tube don’t make me stronger, I still fight the urge to be a passive follower of Christ. Sometimes I make the effort, rustling up a nutritious meal for myself. But sometimes I still settle for mush through a tube.
