At a social media lunch last year, I met an Anglican. There were 8 of us seated around a table, but she dominated it with a constant stream of strident patter, mocking Rowan, deriding Sentamu, attacking an apparently nefarious, but certainly boring document called the Anglican Covenant, telling us about the gay lovers of various Anglican priests she knew, so many troubled priests, so many troubled parishes. And oh, so much, so very much gossip.
That the lady was an Anglican, I had no doubt.
But was she a Christian? That wasn’t immediately apparent!
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Now if Jesus was reading this (which he is) he might rap me over the knuckles for my definition of a Christian. Or he might not!
When you become a Christ-follower, you begin to quieten down. It brings an interiority to your life. You begin to pray, for starters. Shut up and pray. You begin to read Scripture. Shut up and read Scripture. Someone else is now involved in directing the drama of your life, and you shut up through the day, and discern the plot he is writing in your day, your life, and carefully listen to his whispered prompts and stage directions. You become quieter.
That manic hour or two of exhausting, loud Anglican gossip about those in high places—what did this have to do with the gentle, mild, lovely Jesus or following him?
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Have you ever got entangled with a church lady? You know, who will come up to you with the brightest of smiles, ask you if you are going to an event you hadn’t heard of, and when you say you are, just to be nice, you find yourself corralled into serving the coffee at it. No Out now!
Or the very worst type of church lady like one I knew in my previous Oxford church. You know, whose life is the church. Who knows every shred of gossip about everyone, and shares it with you. Who worms out your weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which you share naively, hoping that you are so adorably special that surely she will not broadcast them. Oh but you thought wrong!! Who gets visibly excited, turned on and alive at news of who hates whom, who is upset by whom, church politics, who’s in, who’s out. Who knows everyone’s backstory, which she repeats with a patronizing air. Who’s in dire financial straits, mental health straits, marital straits, oh any old straits, oh how she worms out and shares these details with visible schadenfreude!!
That she is a churchgoer, one has no doubt. Why, it is her life!
But is she a Christian? Ah, that gives me pause. Would Jesus know her? Oh, on that great day, when all shall be revealed, we shall see. (All of us, writer and readers, no doubt will blush, at least a little!)
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Seek Jesus first. Seek righteousness first. Hard precepts. No wonder so many lose their way and become hung up on minor issues which bolster their own sense of superiority.
I knew a Christian who became convinced that he had a ministry of deliverance, and would eject demons if people had ear-aches, a fear of swimming, a fear of flying. Demons and deliverance: that was his obsession. He even founded a small, short-lived church and ministry around deliverance.
When I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, where homeschooling was immensely popular, I met people who were, perhaps, home-schoolers first, and Christians second. All their chatter was on the brilliance and virtue and superiority of home-schooling; it became a religion, displacing all the other quiet precepts of Jesus—love for the poor, for instance, or humility. And when it comes to moms, who—abomination!!–worked, well, charity flew out of the window!
A month or two after I recommitted my life to Jesus in 1989, I answered an ad for a Christian roommate. The woman who advertised, Barbara Magera, was the national secretary and spokewoman of Operation Rescue, the militant pro-life organization. She went to Randall Terry’s church. It was a good church, though Barbara, who became my roommate in Binghamton, New York, and many of the church members were continually in jail, for their disruptive shenanigans at the Democratic Party Convention, for instance. Of their commitment to Life and opposition to abortion, there was no doubt. And the church, Resurrection Life, was a sweet nurturing place.
But through the years, I’ve noticed pro-life activists become obsessional, consumed by hated and moral disgust of the abortion industry, become strident and self-righteous, losing some of the sweetness of Jesus.
Similarly, I have seen Christian friends become so consumed by hatred of President Obama and his policies that they will rarely speak or write of Jesus in social media, just tear down Obama. Oh they despise Obama, link after link, screed after screed—and I glance through these, and feel sad. Is their obsession with politics perhaps depriving them of the quiet places of reflection, renewal and sweetness which are found in the presence of Jesus?
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So what’s going on? Following Jesus is just not easy. When he speaks rhema words to me, I cringe.
Or who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (Mt. 16:24).
That’s tough. How much easier to just do a bit of campaigning!!
“I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God that which costs me nothing,” (2 Sam 24:24) David says. I have noticed that when Christians major on the minor, it is frequently on issues which cost them nothing. How much easier to deride Rowan, or Obama, or church ladies than quietly serve.
We tend to get strident in our areas of strength, or in areas which cost us nothing. Someone who built up an discipline of prayer and scripture will choose this topic when he’s asked to speak (as I do myself!!) but you won’t hear the same person speak about fasting, humility, or agape, if those are not his strengths.
Seek Jesus first. Seek Jesus first. That is the only way to continue a straight and joyful Pilgrim’s Progress in a world full of annoyances and distractions–Mr WorldlyWiseMan, Mr Legality, Giant Despair, the Slough of Despond, and Doubting Castle.
Jesus, hold my hand and be my guide!
Thanks Kate. Lord have mercy, indeed. I, myself, have been guilty of variations of this several, several times.
And welcome to my blog!!
“Seek Jesus first. Seek righteousness first. Hard precepts. No wonder so many lose their way and become hung up on minor issues which bolster their own sense of superiority.”
Love it! Describes so much of the noise in churches today. (And sadly, I'm so guilty of this too…) Lord have mercy.