"the monastery" vs "the great commission"

i'm not sure if any of you had a chance to watch the show called the monastery on TLC this past season, but it was really interesting. they took 5 guys from all walks of life (a paramedic, a marine who got his leg blown off in iraq...) and all levels of faith (atheist -> one guy wanting to become an episcopalian priest) and placed them in a monastery deep in the desert with a group of benedictine monks for 40 days. they are required to do everything that the monks do, which is insane. they wake at 4 am for their morning prayers and spend up to 5 hours a day in church as well as most of the rest of the day working in silence. they are not allowed, for the most part, to even talk or the strange looking monk with the ugly sideborns will tell you to be quiet.

here is what struck me and sonia about the show. on the one hand, i envy these monks. i envy their ability to shed from their lives all of the useless baggage that we carry around (monetary things especially) and live a very simple life in pursuit of god. they pray, they chant, they sit in silence as a practice to listen to god. it really is pretty overwhelming, but i envy them. can you imagine a life without constraints, without having to go to work every day, without the internet, without starbucks and boba...but without people too?

so here is the flip side. these people dedicate their lives to seeking god, yet never have an outlet to fulfill a very crucial command of god, the great commission.

there was one episode where the participants were allowed to meet a guy they called a "hermit". he was a next level monk who had lived as a monk for many years in their community but had earned the right to live in solitude even from them. he lived in a separate house by himself, but still did everything that the other monks did. he woke at the same time, did the same prayers and chants, etc. but he rarely saw even the other monks.

the participants were asking him questions, and the skeptical paramedic (who is brutally honest, yet very sincere as far as i can tell) asks him what he is waiting for in life. the monks answer???

"to die"

and it hit me like a ton of bricks. sonia too. we hit rewind and watched it again...kinda like those train wrecks you're not supposed to look at. how lonely...he seeks god all his life but is unable to share that love and faith with anyone.

the story of the gospel is not one of solitude. it is one of community. jesus' last words to his disciples, his "swan song" if you will, was to instruct them to tell the world. shout it from the rooftops, preach it in the synagogues, take it to the ends of the earth. this is the heart of god. and this is the point of the design of the church. unless the church takes the message of freedom and shares it, the saving power of the gospel dies with us.

so do i judge the monks? nah. there are lots of us out here that will try for them. but do i think that this is what god wanted? i think he sees their hearts, and that what they want is to seek him and he is pleased with that. but i bet he wonders, every time they get to that passage of the bible, if they'll get it this time.

"aw man. maybe next time..."