You all know how it goes. You're sitting in your favorite pew at church (third from the front on the left side) and you're staring up at the preacher, but instead of listening to his sermon you're thinking, How can that man be up there teaching God's word after what he did? Maybe he treated a member of the congregation disrespectfully. Maybe someone asked him to come to the hospital to visit their mother and he never showed up. Maybe it was something worse, something everyone knows but nobody will talk about. No matter what happened, the result is the same: because of the pastor's human failing, his testimony is no longer as effective to the people listening to him, and the people listening to him start to judge him instead of paying attention to what God may be trying to say through him.
I'm not trying to condemn one person or another, whether it's the pastor or the people in the congregation. I just wanted to describe what happens when humans participate in the work of God: in short, we screw it up.
There are two issues going on in the story above, and today I want to focus on one more than the other. The first issue is the fact that the pastor did something that was wrong, something that hurt his ministry. Obviously we can't expect this guy to be perfect; he is human, after all. Our history is littered with stories of our massive screw-ups, and it truly is only by the grace of God that we have made it this far. With that in mind we need to be constantly aware of our actions to make sure that they are always pleasing to God. We need to protect our testimony fiercely so that situations like the one above don't happen. Part of that means having the humility to admit when we are wrong and having the courage to ask for forgiveness from God and from those we hurt. We can't prevent every mistake but we can allow God to bring healing to the situation if we allow him.
But the person I really want to talk about today is the other person, the person in the congregation looking at Pastor Screw-Up at the front and wondering why he is still allowed to be in the pulpit. First of all let me qualify and say that there are some things people do that should cause their removal from a church or ministry, serious offenses such as child molestation, for example. The situation should be handled with grace and compassion for all parties involved, but the whole forgive and forget mentality simply does not work for every situation. So as I continue keep in mind that I'm not talking about those types of incidents.
As a young girl of fifteen, freshly called to the mission field, I envisioned scenes of happy children dancing and playing, and joyful missionaries working together for God's good. I don't want to say that the next eight years of my life beat the pulp out of those dreams because that sounds too bitter and jaded; what I will say is that the next eight years of my life were a rude awakening. Missionaries don't always work well together, and they especially don't always work well with the nationals in their host country. Children don't always dance around you with joy; sometimes they throw rocks at you and call you horrible names. And ministry and church leaders don't always make the best decisions or act in a Godly manner. Where two or three are gathered to do the work of God, there will be problems.
God can do amazing things through these people gathered in his name, don't get me wrong. I have seen the good with the bad, and I can tell you that God is doing incredible work through us humans no matter how hard we try to mess it up. And he can do even more things through us when we work together in unity. But many times those shortcomings and failures become distractions to us, and all we see are the bad things that are happening instead of the work God is doing.
A couple of weeks ago I went to a communion service. The hot climate and the church without screens sent an open invitation to all the nearby flies to come in and swarm the communion bread and wine as the pastor did his communion spiel. I have to admit that during my more human moments I was watching the flies buzz around instead of listening to what the pastor was saying. Were the flies more interesting than the sermon? Not really, but they were a distraction. That got me thinking about the actual Last Supper that Jesus spent with his disciples. It was hot there too, and I'm sure all the food attracted some flies, don't you think? When we talk about Bible stories we always seem to picture some gilded version of what actually happened. Like Jonah and the big fish? We almost never take the time to consider what the inside of that fish actually felt and smelled like. I bet at the Last Supper some of the disciples probably smelled bad. I bet some of their beards were too scruffy, and I bet there were flies swarming the food as they ate.
Then I asked myself, What would I have been doing if I were one of the disciples? Knowing my attention span there is a good possibility that I could have been looking at the flies sometimes instead of listening to what Jesus was saying to me. That sounds ridiculous, right? But how many times do we stop paying attention to Jesus today when he is trying to speak to us? You might argue that it would be different if Jesus were in the flesh talking to you face to face, but after hearing about how thick-headed the disciples were during their time with Jesus I can't imagine I would be any different.
Here's the point I'm trying to make: focusing on people's flaws instead of focusing on God's Spirit inside them is like looking at the flies during the Last Supper instead of listening to Jesus.
Behind the flies was God in flesh, sharing his wisdom and love with us humans. To focus on the flies was useless. And behind the nasty human nature we so easily see, there is God working through someone to share his wisdom and love. To focus on their failures is useless. It is a distraction from the good that God is actually doing. And we should diligently guard ourselves against all distractions. Yes, when we look at Christian leaders, we should readily see God through them. But here's the real question: when we look at our Christian leaders are we trying to see God through them? Or are we just looking for the next thing to gossip about and to judge? What do you think would happen if we decided to look past the people in front of us and instead tried to look at how God is using them?
Maybe it would be easier to think of it a different way. When people look at you, do you want them to see how you are messing up, or how God is working in you? This is easier for some people than for others. Thankfully I was blessed with sins that have become socially acceptable in our world (please note the sarcasm). Things like my judgmental, pessimistic nature, or the gossip that I so enjoy sharing. And also, luckily for me, my deeper sins, the ones I try not to expose, are sins that are very easily hidden. Having grown up in a Christian home and surrounded by a Christian community, I learned at a very young age which sins were acceptable to display and which sins I should keep to myself. But still, there is no foolproof way to protect yourself from exposure, and sometimes those sins come bubbling to the surface. Is that what I want people to focus on when they look at me?
And here's another thing. How can I look at myself as a Godly young woman who is truly serving God (I really do think that!), knowing how much sin is in my heart, but I can't give the same courtesy to the guy next to me who is just as Godly and just as sinful? Here's the conclusion I have come to. What we see in people is very much a choice. We can look at the crap in their lives that attracts flies, or we can look at what God sees, a perfectly created person who is worthy of love and a lot of grace. Maybe if everyone who is a part of a ministry or church looked at their brothers and sisters like that, our ministries would look entirely different.
So let's give it a shot! Let's look for God in every person we meet, and see if our outlooks don't change.
Here's the point I'm trying to make: focusing on people's flaws instead of focusing on God's Spirit inside them is like looking at the flies during the Last Supper instead of listening to Jesus.
Behind the flies was God in flesh, sharing his wisdom and love with us humans. To focus on the flies was useless. And behind the nasty human nature we so easily see, there is God working through someone to share his wisdom and love. To focus on their failures is useless. It is a distraction from the good that God is actually doing. And we should diligently guard ourselves against all distractions. Yes, when we look at Christian leaders, we should readily see God through them. But here's the real question: when we look at our Christian leaders are we trying to see God through them? Or are we just looking for the next thing to gossip about and to judge? What do you think would happen if we decided to look past the people in front of us and instead tried to look at how God is using them?
Maybe it would be easier to think of it a different way. When people look at you, do you want them to see how you are messing up, or how God is working in you? This is easier for some people than for others. Thankfully I was blessed with sins that have become socially acceptable in our world (please note the sarcasm). Things like my judgmental, pessimistic nature, or the gossip that I so enjoy sharing. And also, luckily for me, my deeper sins, the ones I try not to expose, are sins that are very easily hidden. Having grown up in a Christian home and surrounded by a Christian community, I learned at a very young age which sins were acceptable to display and which sins I should keep to myself. But still, there is no foolproof way to protect yourself from exposure, and sometimes those sins come bubbling to the surface. Is that what I want people to focus on when they look at me?
And here's another thing. How can I look at myself as a Godly young woman who is truly serving God (I really do think that!), knowing how much sin is in my heart, but I can't give the same courtesy to the guy next to me who is just as Godly and just as sinful? Here's the conclusion I have come to. What we see in people is very much a choice. We can look at the crap in their lives that attracts flies, or we can look at what God sees, a perfectly created person who is worthy of love and a lot of grace. Maybe if everyone who is a part of a ministry or church looked at their brothers and sisters like that, our ministries would look entirely different.
So let's give it a shot! Let's look for God in every person we meet, and see if our outlooks don't change.
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