Broom Fight In Bethlehem?

Monks battling it out with brooms at the birthplace of Christ?  Sounds like the opening for a bad joke, but it was actually a headlining story in last weeks news.  Apparently the "Church of the Nativity" built over 1500 years ago, at the site history claims to be the birthplace of Jesus, is maintained by monks and priests from the Catholic, Greek and Armenian churches.  Apparently, the arrangement for this historic landmark is that whatever space you clean, is the space you own. (Not a bad idea for those of us raising teenagers!).  The news story is that a fight of tremendous proportions broke out among the Greek and Armenian monks who began beating each other with the brooms they were using.  Palestinian security forces were called in to settle the dispute.  The irony of the story is that this historic landmark suffers a leaking roof which has been in disrepair for years and as a result has ruined much of the priceless artwork inside the church.  The reason the roof has not been repaired?  The three churches have been fighting over who will pay for it!  (According to the newstory I read, a deal has finally been brokered to address this).

Perhaps what this story illustrates best is what religion void of spirit will ultimately devolve into: broom fights over territorial rights.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer perhaps said it best when he wrote: "Christianity conceals within itself a germ hostile to the church.  It is far too easy for us to base our claims to God on our own Christian religiosity and our church commitment, and in doing so utterly to misunderstand and distort the Christian idea." While the ridiculousness of this story is apparent on many levels, it may hold the key to understanding why so many mainline denominational churches today are being forced to close their doors and turn their historic spaces into condominiums or posh restaurants. 

Churches have forgotten how to feed the soul.  In a culture that is perhaps the most spiritually hungry in centuries, the church is in danger of becoming the last place people will look for a spiritual meal.  The church has allowed political platforms, marketing gimmicks, and territorialism to replace that which originally gave it life: the Spirit of God setting hearts on fire with a revolutionary message of God's kingdom flourishing "on earth as it is in heaven;" a kingdom that transcends denominational boundaries, ethnic/cultural differences, gender bias, and most importantly of all, a kingdom that is not limited by the shortcomings and imperfections of each one of us. When we allow our focus to become territorial and political it is at the expense of that which is truly priceless: the artwork of the church - the spiritual choreography that orders our steps into a thing of beauty which dances hope and inspiration to a hurting humanity.

While it may be easy to throw stones at the men of God involved in this news story, weilding brooms for battles; perhaps we need to search our own hearts and ask where we have perhaps been fighting for territorial rights rather than surrendering to the Spirit.  Perhaps it's time for each of us to allow the Spirit to clean house and to lay down the broomstick battles we have been waging for an open heart of surrender to the Spirit which brings life and healing and which is the only thing able to transform the brokenness of each of us into a thing of beauty, a priceless work of art.