"Today at the mall with my family, we passed a wishing fountain. I tossed a coin in and wished for an iTouch for Christmas. My younger brother, trying to impress my parents, said I was being selfish and wished for world peace. He tossed a quarter at the well, it bounced off the rim, and hit him in the head. You can't fool the wishing fountain."- MLIA
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." -Matthew 6:5-7
Jesus was a man of action, not of words.
In my English class, we just finished reading Tartuffe. Tartuffe is an old play written by Moliere about a bogus priest who has convinced a nobleman that he is truly pious. The nobleman, named Orgon, is in awe of this 'holy prophet'. However, the rest of Orgon's family see Tartuffe for what he really is.
We, as readers, don't meet Tartuffe until quite a ways into the play. But when we meet him, he's truly detestable. He flaunts his prayers out for all to see, purposefully.
Jesus said that we are to be revolutionaries. We are the Elect. We're supposed to evangelize. But, right there in Matthew 5:6-7, he says we should pray in private. Jesus says believers should congregate and worship as a church, but again we look at this verse and notice he is saying worship should be private. So, which one do we do? Anyone else getting some mixed signals?
Well, let's look at the context of the verse, because after all: context is key. This is in the Sermon on the Mount. People followed Jesus, this man they thought was simply a fascinating teacher and philosopher, up onto a mountain and sat, listening intently while he spoke. Hanging on his every word. Jesus main opponents in that culture at the time were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a council of Jewish religious judicial officials. The word 'pharisee' literally means 'sit together', if I'm remembering my New Testament project correctly.
The Pharisees LOVED to show they were better than anyone else. That they could keep the law the best, that they could be the most 'perfect'. Time and again they try to stump Jesus with questions to trip him up, and it backfires completely on them. Their authority is challenged over and over and over.
All right. So, we've got a call to be active and loud as Christians, but then Jesus tells us we are supposed to pray secretly and discreetly. Jesus says this as a reference to the Pharisees. Like I said, they loved to show they were 'better'. They would pray loudly. For them, prayer was not spiritual. Prayer was about the attention they received. Up until Jesus came, everyone said, "Oh look at those amazing Pharisees!" But Jesus shows up and says, "You guys have it ALL wrong. You've twisted up prayer!"
Look back up at that little story at the beginning of the entry. Go on, it's funny.
When we pray insincerely for things just to gain respect, it backfires. God sees straight into our souls. I know that gets said a lot, but it's true. He sees our nakedness and our true motivations. So when we're fake-praying, when we're hamming it up to look good in front of others, God gets insulted. We aren't praying to him.
We aren't even praying at all.
In Ethics, we just finished watching a great old movie called "The Days Of Wine And Roses" to correspond with our class discussion about addictions. Anyway, before we started watching that, I had been thinking a lot about the idea of 'church'. What is a church?
And when I thought about this verse in Matthew, I thought: "Wow, are we doing this wrong? Get together and singing loudly and acting all good... Is this right?"
See, my definition of church was:
A place for the enlightened man to rise above the sinful nature and to praise God. A place to separate one's self from sin, from the ugliness of the world.
Then I watched "Days Of Wine And Roses". The movie is about a couple that struggle with alcoholism. Joe, the husband, eventually realizes he has a problem and starts trying to sober up. However, his wife Kirsten, whom had not been drinking until she met Joe, continues to drink. And drink. And get drunk. She starts to resent Joe for sobering up, because she thinks he believes himself to be better than her. She runs away and drinks herself into oblivion. On their final confrontation in their apartment, a sober and deeply-pained Kirsten says that when she's drinking, the ugliness of the world goes away.
The way the movie ends is depressing. She leaves, refusing to admit she is an alcoholic. Joe is left with a daughter and the weight of knowing he caused her drinking. But he's sober. He's been working with Alcoholics Anonymous.
And so I had this thought:
The funny thing about the way people-- believers and non-believers alike-- perceive church is skewed and wrong. Christians and athiests see church as the place where those who have 'ascended' past the sin of this world to gather. That's not what it is at all! Church is Alcoholics Anonymous. People who believe are recognizing their problem (sin) and going not to 'rise above' the world but to beg for forgiveness and to try and get away from the addiction. A church is not a place for 'holier-than-thou' people like the Pharisees. A church is a place for the sinners-- the adulterers, the murderers, the liars, the greedy, the gluttonous-- to go to acknowledge they have a problem.
The congregation is the support group! These are all people saying, "I have a problem too, and I want out of it. I need to sober up."
In a nutshell, church isn't a place for people who go 'because they're Christians' (although that's commendable). A church is a place for a sinner to go, showing an entire group of people he is a sinner simply by showing up, and ask for forgiveness with Jesus. A Christian will mess up and slip. We are fallen. Sinful.
And I'm not saying that acknowledging you have a problem is how to fix everything.
Think of it like this.
1) Man wakes up one day, disgusted with himself for his sin. He goes to repent on Sunday.
2) Man sees another 200 people there, who are all there for the same reason: they are disgusted with their sin and need to praise God for his grace.
3) By coming to church, the man is telling everyone else in the congregation he is a sinner and needs help. 'I'm _____ and I'm an alcoholic.'
4) And thus begins the journey. A church is just like AA.
How does this tie into the whole prayer thing? That verse we started with?
Jesus says we shouldn't be Pharisees. Don't go out and pray loudly at restaurants so that people look over and say, 'Wow, he's virtuous'.
Because people aren't going to say that. People are going to say, 'Christians think they're so much better, when they're just as bad as us. What hypocrites.'
People can tell when faith is ingenuine. Especially with Christians. Christianity is a faith all about changing how you act. So by putting on these big pious displays in public, we're setting ourselves up for a fall.
But Jesus says we should pray quietly and discreetly. Because those big, gaudy prayers don't impress humans, and they especially don't impress God. God sees right through them.
In the end of Moliere's play 'Tartuffe', Tartuffe is exposed as a total fraud and brought to justice. All of his false piety backfires like a quarter off the edge of a wishing well, and hits him square in the head. False faith will only get you hit in the head with pocket change.
So, here's the full point: we have to change how we understand churches. Stop saying a church is place for 'Christians to gather'. A church is a place for sinners who want to be made whole, who desparately want to be sober! Going to church says, "I'm a sinner and I have problem! That's why I'm here!" And that means confessing that not only to God, but to an entire congregation. But those people are all there for the same reason you are! They're sinners who want to be made whole, to be sobered.
If you go to church because it's 'what Christians do', your faith is leaning very close towards the Pharisees'.
If you go to church each day to be held accountable and to openly admit you are a sinner, you're living Matthew 5:6-7.
Jesus was a man of action. He walked the walk. Talk was cheap to him.
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Talk softly and carry a big stick."
If we say 'talking softly' means being brief with words and 'carrying a big stick' means walking the walk, we've got Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, whom set the example for all believers on how to act.
I know some people are going to think this is cheesy, maybe even a little distasteful. But this imagery is far too powerful for me to avoid.
Jesus did indeed talk softly, living through action. In his actions, he LITERALLY carried a big stick. He was crucified on it. And He rose again.
Jesus was a man of action, who is the only person to ever successfully 'walk the walk AND talk the talk'.
Jesus was a man of action, not of words.
In my English class, we just finished reading Tartuffe. Tartuffe is an old play written by Moliere about a bogus priest who has convinced a nobleman that he is truly pious. The nobleman, named Orgon, is in awe of this 'holy prophet'. However, the rest of Orgon's family see Tartuffe for what he really is.
We, as readers, don't meet Tartuffe until quite a ways into the play. But when we meet him, he's truly detestable. He flaunts his prayers out for all to see, purposefully.
Jesus said that we are to be revolutionaries. We are the Elect. We're supposed to evangelize. But, right there in Matthew 5:6-7, he says we should pray in private. Jesus says believers should congregate and worship as a church, but again we look at this verse and notice he is saying worship should be private. So, which one do we do? Anyone else getting some mixed signals?
Well, let's look at the context of the verse, because after all: context is key. This is in the Sermon on the Mount. People followed Jesus, this man they thought was simply a fascinating teacher and philosopher, up onto a mountain and sat, listening intently while he spoke. Hanging on his every word. Jesus main opponents in that culture at the time were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a council of Jewish religious judicial officials. The word 'pharisee' literally means 'sit together', if I'm remembering my New Testament project correctly.
The Pharisees LOVED to show they were better than anyone else. That they could keep the law the best, that they could be the most 'perfect'. Time and again they try to stump Jesus with questions to trip him up, and it backfires completely on them. Their authority is challenged over and over and over.
All right. So, we've got a call to be active and loud as Christians, but then Jesus tells us we are supposed to pray secretly and discreetly. Jesus says this as a reference to the Pharisees. Like I said, they loved to show they were 'better'. They would pray loudly. For them, prayer was not spiritual. Prayer was about the attention they received. Up until Jesus came, everyone said, "Oh look at those amazing Pharisees!" But Jesus shows up and says, "You guys have it ALL wrong. You've twisted up prayer!"
Look back up at that little story at the beginning of the entry. Go on, it's funny.
When we pray insincerely for things just to gain respect, it backfires. God sees straight into our souls. I know that gets said a lot, but it's true. He sees our nakedness and our true motivations. So when we're fake-praying, when we're hamming it up to look good in front of others, God gets insulted. We aren't praying to him.
We aren't even praying at all.
In Ethics, we just finished watching a great old movie called "The Days Of Wine And Roses" to correspond with our class discussion about addictions. Anyway, before we started watching that, I had been thinking a lot about the idea of 'church'. What is a church?
And when I thought about this verse in Matthew, I thought: "Wow, are we doing this wrong? Get together and singing loudly and acting all good... Is this right?"
See, my definition of church was:
A place for the enlightened man to rise above the sinful nature and to praise God. A place to separate one's self from sin, from the ugliness of the world.
Then I watched "Days Of Wine And Roses". The movie is about a couple that struggle with alcoholism. Joe, the husband, eventually realizes he has a problem and starts trying to sober up. However, his wife Kirsten, whom had not been drinking until she met Joe, continues to drink. And drink. And get drunk. She starts to resent Joe for sobering up, because she thinks he believes himself to be better than her. She runs away and drinks herself into oblivion. On their final confrontation in their apartment, a sober and deeply-pained Kirsten says that when she's drinking, the ugliness of the world goes away.
The way the movie ends is depressing. She leaves, refusing to admit she is an alcoholic. Joe is left with a daughter and the weight of knowing he caused her drinking. But he's sober. He's been working with Alcoholics Anonymous.
And so I had this thought:
The funny thing about the way people-- believers and non-believers alike-- perceive church is skewed and wrong. Christians and athiests see church as the place where those who have 'ascended' past the sin of this world to gather. That's not what it is at all! Church is Alcoholics Anonymous. People who believe are recognizing their problem (sin) and going not to 'rise above' the world but to beg for forgiveness and to try and get away from the addiction. A church is not a place for 'holier-than-thou' people like the Pharisees. A church is a place for the sinners-- the adulterers, the murderers, the liars, the greedy, the gluttonous-- to go to acknowledge they have a problem.
The congregation is the support group! These are all people saying, "I have a problem too, and I want out of it. I need to sober up."
In a nutshell, church isn't a place for people who go 'because they're Christians' (although that's commendable). A church is a place for a sinner to go, showing an entire group of people he is a sinner simply by showing up, and ask for forgiveness with Jesus. A Christian will mess up and slip. We are fallen. Sinful.
And I'm not saying that acknowledging you have a problem is how to fix everything.
Think of it like this.
1) Man wakes up one day, disgusted with himself for his sin. He goes to repent on Sunday.
2) Man sees another 200 people there, who are all there for the same reason: they are disgusted with their sin and need to praise God for his grace.
3) By coming to church, the man is telling everyone else in the congregation he is a sinner and needs help. 'I'm _____ and I'm an alcoholic.'
4) And thus begins the journey. A church is just like AA.
How does this tie into the whole prayer thing? That verse we started with?
Jesus says we shouldn't be Pharisees. Don't go out and pray loudly at restaurants so that people look over and say, 'Wow, he's virtuous'.
Because people aren't going to say that. People are going to say, 'Christians think they're so much better, when they're just as bad as us. What hypocrites.'
People can tell when faith is ingenuine. Especially with Christians. Christianity is a faith all about changing how you act. So by putting on these big pious displays in public, we're setting ourselves up for a fall.
But Jesus says we should pray quietly and discreetly. Because those big, gaudy prayers don't impress humans, and they especially don't impress God. God sees right through them.
In the end of Moliere's play 'Tartuffe', Tartuffe is exposed as a total fraud and brought to justice. All of his false piety backfires like a quarter off the edge of a wishing well, and hits him square in the head. False faith will only get you hit in the head with pocket change.
So, here's the full point: we have to change how we understand churches. Stop saying a church is place for 'Christians to gather'. A church is a place for sinners who want to be made whole, who desparately want to be sober! Going to church says, "I'm a sinner and I have problem! That's why I'm here!" And that means confessing that not only to God, but to an entire congregation. But those people are all there for the same reason you are! They're sinners who want to be made whole, to be sobered.
If you go to church because it's 'what Christians do', your faith is leaning very close towards the Pharisees'.
If you go to church each day to be held accountable and to openly admit you are a sinner, you're living Matthew 5:6-7.
Jesus was a man of action. He walked the walk. Talk was cheap to him.
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Talk softly and carry a big stick."
If we say 'talking softly' means being brief with words and 'carrying a big stick' means walking the walk, we've got Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, whom set the example for all believers on how to act.
I know some people are going to think this is cheesy, maybe even a little distasteful. But this imagery is far too powerful for me to avoid.
Jesus did indeed talk softly, living through action. In his actions, he LITERALLY carried a big stick. He was crucified on it. And He rose again.
Jesus was a man of action, who is the only person to ever successfully 'walk the walk AND talk the talk'.
