I Can Be a Real Jackass Sometimes

I really blew it today…. well, I think I learned some lessons so it wasn’t a total loss. I was at Sam’s club earlier today. I went there to pick up a box of scouring pads. The box contains like 496 million scouring pads or something and it’s like 8 bucks. Anyway, so I step into the shortest check-out lane. There were 2 customers (ladies) in front of me. The line was held up a bit. I wasn’t sure why, but soon saw that the cashier had a bunch of cash spread out in piles and was counting it. Apparently the lady at the front of the line gave it to her to pay for her cart of groceries. I could barely discern that she didn’t have enough cash to pay for everything. Immediately I thought, “Oh man. I’d hate to be her right now. I’d be so embarrassed.” I also started to think that it might be nice to just pay for what she owed and be the hero of the moment. Just then, the cashier told her she needed like $35 more. I was like…. I’m almost broke! I’ve got a twenty to last me all week, and that’s it. So I hesitated and waited in line, and pretended not to know what was happening up ahead of me. I then saw the customer at the register start to pull things out of her cart. The first item was a HUGE pack of sausage – chorizo, I think. As soon as I saw that I thought, “Well that’s a luxury item. She didn’t need that anyway.” Then I started to rationalize….. “Maybe God is trying to teach her to pay better attention to her finances, or at least know enough to keep a running total of her expenses while she shopped.” She was a slightly heavier woman, so I thought, “She’s certainly not starving. One less jumbo pack of chorizo sausage isn’t going to kill her.” All the while, the woman at the front of the line continued to pull items out of her cart. Just then…. in the midst of my rationalizing…. judging….. and contemplating whether or not to help this woman with a few bucks, the woman directly in front of me stepped forward and handed the lady at the front of the line some money. The woman looked a little embarrassed and said “she couldn’t.” The woman who gave her the few dollars just said, “Consider it a gift from God,” and that was the end of it. I stood there and felt so happy to see the Body of Christ in action, yet I was so completely ashamed of what a complete jackass I was. The kindly woman in front of me showed MERCY to the woman "in need."  What did I show?

What is church?

What is church? I believe church is the people of God BEING the people of God. The church is the bride of Christ. The church is the body of Christ - of which Christ is the head. The purpose of the body is to be a display of the life that is in Christ. Would you leave a dead finger on your hand?....sure you may try to revive it somehow....but ultimately a dead finger is good for two things....spreading disease and death, and being what it is - garbage. Garbage that should be tossed away - thrown into the fire. As God's people, are we alive? Are we a display of the life that is in Christ? Or are we dead meat rotting?

Are we being renewed? Or are we up to our same old tricks?.... anger…. malice…. gossip (we love this one particularly in the church don’t we? - though we attempt to mask it by calling it "sharing" or better yet - "filtering" through others).... slander.... jealousy..... immodesty.... lust.... greed..... sexual immorality.... witchcraft? Are we lazy?.... Slothful?.... Indifferent that we've made no attempt to get to know our neighbors, co-workers, and classmates in the hope that we might share the love of Christ with them in word AND in deed? When we gather, do we sit and “spectate,” only punctuating the proceedings (as Art Katz would say) now and again with our occasional amens? Are we given to passivity? We will be held accountable for our actions, and our inaction - - and honestly….that terrifies me….and it should. As the late Art Katz once wrote:

I am suggesting a prescription that is totally opposed to passivity. In the conventional situation, we sit inactive, and only punctuate the proceedings now and then by our "amens" or "hallelujahs." In the Body, however, this posture is altogether unacceptable. "When you assemble," Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:26, "each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation." That is how the life of the Body is expressed to the Body. But where are we ever encouraged to "each one having"? Rather, we have been compelled to a passivity, and to looking up to trained men to conduct the service. Furthermore, we are only too willing to pay the cost of it that we might be absolved from the spiritual responsibility of having to share a hymn, a psalm, a tongue, an interpretation, a prophecy, a revelation or a teaching! The Body is therefore emaciated, being inadequately fed. We cannot grow, and we are therefore limp, disjointed and anemic. We are left weakened if this life-giving provision does not come out of, and into, our midst. There can be no excuse to justify our inactivity and passivity. When we come together, we should have prepared ourselves already in the place of prayer, fully expecting that God is going to quicken and bring something through us.

So where are we? Are we living this life in Christ in word AND deed? Are we expressing life in the Body, and as the Body are we expressing life to the world?  Or are we dead meat rotting?... camped out in our beautiful buildings equipped with all the latest gadgetry a dying world has to offer.  Still think church is a building or a "service" you go to?  Still think a Christian is called to "GO" to church - (rather than BE the church)?