October 20, 2008
Uninvited
Last Sunday my previous church held its 100th Birthday celebration and past ministers came from far and wide came to take part in the reunion. Noticeably absent from the presentations were some of the past ministers and staff who are living right here in the community…word has it they weren’t invited to participate. From the outside looking in, it appears to be a deliberate snub. I must say it’s an unflattering picture for Christians who are mandated to set aside differences of opinion on disputable matters. Jesus said, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matt 5:23-24 NIV)
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Gail;
-----I attended a little church yesterday where I saw very many of the faces I used to know at XYZ Church ten years ago. The hymns sounded more like that gone-by church. The directness, Scriptural relevance, and impact of the sermon was more akin to that old church. It was a breathe of fresh air to once again enter a sanctuary and worship a Holy God, rather than entering an auditorium to participate in its info-mertial.
-----While I was worshipping in that sanctuary, the auditorium across town was info-mercialling its 100th year anniversary. I could not help but think its celebration may have the correct location, but it has the wrong people. The worshipful spirit of what the XYZ Church had been for ninety years was picked up by this little church like a dropped baton. Nay! Like a tossed baton! And those picking it up are the remnants of those who built at that other location! So what was new and different celebrated as if being part of the old and traditional which it had tossed aside, while the old and traditional considered itself the new and refreshing by not celebrating its rightful hundred years.
-----I recently watched a program on the History channel called “Machines of the Gods.” This program convinced me that the principle of the contemporary church is even more traditional than Christianity itself. From time immemorial the priests of all the pagan gods and their temples of two thousand years ago had been engaged in using high-tech gadgetry to attract the masses by producing astonishing sights and sounds. During the greatness of Greece and Rome, ever new and improved gadgets were built which would open temple doors automatically, give motion and sound to statues, suspend model chariots in midair, and perform many other feats of total bedazzlement to the early A.D. simple minds. This high-tech stuff was meant to scintillate upon the imagination of the unwitting so they would flow into the temples engrossed in wonderment and surrender. Sound familiar?
-----I think it would have been much more apropos if this little church I visited yesterday had celebrated its one-hundred year tradition, while XYZ Church across town should have been celebrating its two-thousand year old routine. Those connections are just a bit more clear. Yet, all of our connections with each other in the Lord should be even more clear, and even more celebrated. Acknowledgment of one another, sincere welcome from the heart, they are less seen in technological gimmickry, and more in how we treat one another. May that always be warm, open, true, and honest.
Love,
Steve Corey
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