The title of this blog post is also the title of, in my opinion, the masterpiece work of Michael Yanonelli. The youth ministry guru wrote this book about the messiness of humans, and the messiness of Christians in our pursuit of Christ. I am currently reading this masterpiece front to back, which I have never had the opportunity to do. As I often try to do, I will post thoughts here that come up as I am reading.
Today, I would like to discuss pretending (If you want to know why this comes to mind, read page 37 of Yaconelli's book).
The truth is that Sunday morning church services are full of pretenders. If you were to ask people at a church on Sunday morning, the vast majority of people in America are "doing fine," and "excited to be in the house of the Lord." As people leave the church building, its amazing that nearly everyone "was encouraged by the singing," and "was really touched by that sermon the preacher gave."
Now, I hate to by cynical (that may be a stretch, I hate to be too cynical), but it seems to me that these same people that are on fire for the Lord once a week are the same people struggling with drinking too much, swearing too much, eating too much, lusting too much, etc. These are the same people with family problems, marital problems, health problems, etc. These people have somehow been programmed to recite lines about how good everything is on Sunday when their world is falling apart.
Jesus never asked for such false optimism. Jesus asked for honesty. Think about the woman at the well. She tried to make a simple statement about having no husband, but Jesus called her to be honest, that she was living in a pattern of sexual sin and broken relationships. Jesus invited himself into her mess.
I believe that one crucial reason the church in America is fading today is that we are a church that stays away from the messes inside our peoples lives. You cannot clean a bedroom without going into the bedroom and getting the garbage out, and likewise you cannot help someone clean up their messiness if you never step into that messiness to help them see what they need to do. If you ask people to pretend to be holy, that is exactly what you will get; pretend holiness. But imagine if you stepped into their world, stepped into their mess, and loved them, and slowly helped them take out the trash.
One of the hardest parts of cleaning out a room is that you have to choose to get rid of things that you have had for a long time. Those things, as old and nasty as they might be, have in some way become precious to us. If you ask a person to clean out their lives, but don't step in to help them, they may not be able to part with some of their messiness. Alcohol may be tearing their life apart, but it won't be easy for them to part with it. They may realize that pornography is sin, and is a disgusting degredation of women, but they will still have a hard time parting with it. They may realize that cursing doesn't line up with Ephesians 4:29, but knowing that Scripture won't make it any easier to quit cursing. What people need is help. What people need are "little Christs" (that's what being a Christian is) who will meet them in the mess of their lives, show themt the way out, stick with them when they resist getting rid of the mess, love them when they hate you for calling them to change, and celebrate them when they are victorious along the way.
May we be those "little Christs"
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