If you have been following these posts for the past two months, then you know that I have been holding before us a vision for what every local church is supposed to be. I believe that the goal of every church must be to so grow in Christ, so mature in faithfulness, so increase in love and wisdom and justice and peace that if any person was to ask you what you think heaven will be like you could someday actually say, “Do you want to know what heaven is like? Come and see. Come to my church and hang out with my friends and see the way we live, worship and serve together. Come and see.”
Now, I know that some of us have had such painful experiences with other Christians and felt such disappointment in churches that it seems both painful and laughable to suggest that the church is really, really supposed to be a foretaste of heaven on earth.
Just this past week, I received an email from a young pastor friend of mine who achingly told me of how the politics at his church have torn at his faith, hurt his family and now made him doubt his call. He ended his email with these words, “Christians are just plain out mean.”
This series has a been a kind of gut check for many of us, I know that. Recently, I have had three different conversations with people who have told me how they have felt hurt or disappointed by our church in general and me in particular. It’s painful to admit that even in a church where all is basically well, our humanness can be so apparent.
But the vision remains the same. So I believe that we are all called to continue to become more and more transformed so that in some small fleeting ways, but in increasing measure, we are the embodiment of Jesus Kingdom prayer.
But what do we do with our disappointment? What do we do when those who we have counted on to share our values, beliefs and commitments don’t.
- What do we do when the church overlooks us? When our brothers and sisters seem to forget us?
- What do we do with the Sunday morning saint who parties on Saturday night?
- The brother who is in an illicit relationship, the sister who is fudging the expense reports at work…
- The small group member who is gossiping, the choir member who is a slum lord, the elder whose anger is alienating his children, or the leader in the youth group who is cheating in school?
- What do we do with those Kingdom people, including leaders and even pastors, who so deeply disappoint us that they start to effect our commitment to being a Kingdom person, our experience of being a Kingdom community?
Well let me tell you what we don’t do. We don’t act like Pharisees.
Remember that Pharisees were those religious leaders who were trying so hard to be committed to God that they held themselves to an even higher law and distanced themselves from those who they thought didn’t measure up. To challenge people to their idea of righteousness they had a simple solution: We will all judge each other. We will all keep track of each other. And if anyone doesn’t measure up: Condemn them, cut them off, separate yourself from them so they won’t drag you down.
Now, some of us have experienced churches and groups like this. Often over sexual mores, but it can just as easily be about environment or social issues or particular doctrinal beliefs. If someone doesn’t measure up in my judgement, then I will have nothing to do with them, the Pharisee says.
It als needs to be said that today we live with a kind of reverse Pharisaism. Today, we say that nothing can be judged, that anything must be tolerated, that everything must be left to private decision and that any discernment that smacks of disapproval is then judged as intolerance. And those deemed intolerant are then judged themselves.
In Matthew 7:1-12, Jesus instead offers a different way. Not judgement, not toleration, but confrontation. Humble, prayerful confrontation. Which is what we will explore for the next few posts.
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