October 08, 2008
Hush and Shush
During worship services the parents of a young toddler tried to keep him from speaking too loudly. The imp told his mom, “Don’t shush me mama. I don’t like to shush.” I know the feeling. When those of us in the pew make too much noise we’re told by the leadership to hush. On those occasions when I’ve been told to shush, I take courage in the Lord’s words to Paul, “…Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” (Acts 18:9-10 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Pardon me if I am being somewhat too daring, but I would like to clarify just a bit what I think your point might be. I think a young squab making such a statement to his mommy has earned a ferocious inflammation of his little rooster tail. I remember a few weeks ago at my cousin’s wedding one such youngster spewing similar cursings, and the image of burning tail feathers it brought to my mind. But this kind of savagery can not flow freely from the mommy called to be patient, persevering, kind, and gentle by the Holy Word. It instead must be the love for a corrected child kindly and patiently targeting the spot of the backside that will not be injured, but will be sorely felt with just enough gentleness to avoid blistering and enough perseverance to make a lasting impression!
-----If the mommy’s love is really for the child this will be done to help him shed the child he should not be and put on the child he should be. After all, is that not what the event should become all about, the child and his socio-spiritual good health. The Bible says to spank it into him. But the Bible also presumes to be speaking to parents who have spiritual good health, themselves. Those parents are wise enough to shush a child in a worship service, or during a wedding ceremony, where reverent silence is the social response of spiritual health. That parent would not dare heat the squab’s tail feathers for bursting forth at a Walt Disney movie, nor if the preacher had just stirred up a raucous laughter with a five-star wise crack. A healthy mommy knows when to shush and when not to shush.
-----I do believe there are times when the church leaders go, “Shush,” and all the people should go shush. But just like what comes from our precious, spiritual mommy, true shush comes from true spirituality. Now I do remember the hushing at the noise in the pew to which you refer. Whether or not the hilarity had been understood by the leaders of that time, the messages focused at the church were worthy of raucous laughter when examined in the careful light of the Word. Noises from the pew were appropriate! Spiritual mommy did laugh along. But not those clowns of the show! No! They could not laugh along, because they heard nothing funny, because they had not been reading their Bibles as carefully as they had been their Rick Warren’s.
-----So chortle on, giggly little squab. But mean no harm. Maybe mean only enough disturbance to cause some sorely needed scripture searching by the hushers-from-the-new-paradigm. And mean nothing personal. Though they neither know when to hush, nor when not too hush, they know Who to celebrate, if not quite worship. And that will do for me. I love them as my brothers. So I do sometimes patiently aim to spank kindly with only appropriate gentleness, and I suppose some perseverance.
Love,
Steve Corey
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