christianity

Doing What’s Right… As IF.

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Doing What’s Right… As IF.

A Meditation for Ash Wednesday

March 05, 2025*

By Pastor John Partridge

In Isaiah 58, I hear the prophet Isaiah use what I can only describe as a really dark sort of sarcasm. God says, “Day after day they seek me out and they seem eager to know my ways, as if the were a nation that did what is right.” The use of the term, “as if” is almost that same as my generation used as sarcasm in the 1980’s. We would negate entire sentences by ending them with the phrase “as if” or “not.” I think you understand, but as an example, we would say something like, “That’s really beautiful… not.” Or “The government of the United States is very efficient and productive… as if.” Isaiah’s complaint is that the people of Israel, apparently as individuals and perhaps collectively as a nation, act as if they seek God, but complain that God doesn’t seem to notice their fasting and humility.

But in response, God says that it isn’t enough to seem like you want to know God. It isn’t enough to pretend that following God is important. You cannot fast and pray, and, on the same day, commit your favorite sins, abuse and exploit your workers, argue, and get into fights. If you want God to take you seriously, your life must look like more than an act.

What God really wants from us isn’t a good religious show.

What God wants is to fight against injustice, to rescue the oppressed, to share what you have with the hungry, to shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, and care for your family.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.(Isaiah 58:9-12)

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Pastor’s Report 2024

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Pastor’s Report 2024

by Pastor John Partridge

Note: Every year, I am asked to present a report of the year for our annual Charge Conference. It’s really sort of a “what I did last summer” kind of report that asks, “What did your church do for the last year?” Long ago I decided that my answers should not be seen as any kind of a secret, and so I publish them here, and in our church newsletter. I’m excited about the future of Christ Church and its people and I hope that by talking more about it, others might learn about it, join us, and grow with us as we care for the people around us the way that Jesus cares for us. So, what follows is this year’s report:

As Christ Church entered 2024, we committed to keeping our mission statement in the front of our awareness and thus keeping our focus on our mission to reach out to our community and to use our gifts to do whatever we can to meet the needs of the people around us. Each church committee was challenged to regularly consider how the goals set out in our mission statement might be met in the context of the work being done by that group. As a result, some changes were made. Some of those changes were subtle and others were more visible, but even the subtle ones are having an impact.

One of our goals was to offer training to our members and leaders to better prepare and equip us to do the work of Jesus in our community. Toward this end we hosted a Bridges Out of Poverty training course which was open to anyone and advertised to East Ohio Conference churches as well as to our local Chamber of Commerce and local schools. While we might have hoped for more, attendance at this training event was good and was attended by both members of Christ Church as well as others from our community. Christ Church continued in our pursuit of developing a more active presence and ministry on the campus of the University of Mount Union (UMU) and, toward that end, several of our campus ministry team attended monthly training webinars hosted by the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO).  For several years, we had been hoping to partner with CCO in placing a campus ministry intern at UMU, but CCO has been challenged to find sufficient volunteers and, as of now, Christ Church has begun pursuing other options to establish and grow our presence on campus.

This year Christ Church continued to have a presence at the summer concerts at the caboose downtown where we gave out popcorn, water, and ice cream in exchange for donations to Habitat for Humanity. We also continued our collections in support of the Alliance Community Food Pantry, the Salvation Army, and the Alliance of Churches. In addition, with the growing number of children present in our worship services, we relaunched a monthly “Noisy Can” offering which has nearly tripled our regular giving to the Alliance of Churches bread ministry and the Salvation Army food pantry. Similarly, our increased focus on finding solutions for the needs of our community inspired our United Women of Faith to make a substantial $30,000 donation from the Martha Goldrick endowment fund toward the YWCA project which will provide temporary housing to women and children in crisis situations.  $15,000 was donated to the YWCA for immediate needs and $15,000 was invested with the Greater Alliance Foundation in establishing the YWCA Transitional Housing Fund to encourage wider community support of future needs.

As noted, we continue to see an increase in the number of children each Sunday and have now launched a second class so that we can better provide age-appropriate instruction. At the same time, our youth ministry through scouting remains strong and is reaching many young people and their families through our Cub Scout pack and two scout troops.

For some time, our members have been encouraged to be more invitational, and that message has begun to bear fruit as we have seen an increase in the number of visitors as well as several new members and regular attenders coming from those who first came as invited guests. Thankfully, we have only lost one current member to death or transfer and have therefore seen an increase in our membership for the first time in several years. We have also scheduled a new member class (and we anticipate that another may be needed after that) and so we hope that we will soon add even more to our congregation.

Overall, we are seeing positive changes throughout the life of our congregation, and it is our hope that we will continue to encourage those changes and the growth that they have inspired. I am encouraged by the things that we have seen in 2024, and I am optimistic that we will continue to build on the growth that we have seen. In sum, I believe that there is a bright future for Christ Church, its mission to the people of our community, and our place in the work of Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

Pastor John Partridge

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Innocence, Guilt, and the Judgement of God

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Innocence, Guilt, and the Judgement of God

October 13, 2024*

By Pastor John Partridge

Job 23:1-9, 16-17                   Mark 10:17-31                       Hebrews 4:12-16

Everyone has different habits when they watch television, and we all have our favorite things to watch. At our house, we watch a lot of police shows like NCIS, FBI, Castle, and Bones. In one of the shows that we watched this week, there was a woman who was convicted for a long sentence because she refused to accept a plea bargain. And, she had refused to accept a plea bargain, because she never stopped insisting that she was innocent of the crime. I didn’t see how that episode ended, but when I started looking at the scriptures for this week’s message, it got me thinking that this was exactly like the situation in which Job had found himself.

You will remember from last week that Job had done absolutely nothing wrong. But as we read the rest of the story, Job is the only person who believes that. Job’s wife urges him to curse God and die. Job’s friends come to sit with him, but each of them tells him that it would be best if he just accepted a plea bargain from God. They advise him that his situation, having lost his children, his wealth, and his physical health, makes it clear that he is guilty. Admittedly, the evidence against Job is all circumstantial, but to Job’s friends, and everyone else, the circumstantial evidence seems to be overwhelming. And so, their advice is to simply confess his guilt before God, whether he did it or not, and maybe God would be merciful.

But Job isn’t done. Like the woman on television, Job continues to protest his innocence, and he wants to make his appeal directly to God. But for Job, God seems to have gone missing. He feels as if his prayers are unheard. And in Job 23:1-9, 16-17 we hear this:

23:1 Then Job replied:

2 “Even today my complaint is bitter;
    his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.
3 If only I knew where to find him;
    if only I could go to his dwelling!
4 I would state my case before him
    and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would find out what he would answer me,
    and consider what he would say to me.
6 Would he vigorously oppose me?
    No, he would not press charges against me.
7 There the upright can establish their innocence before him,
    and there I would be delivered forever from my judge.

8 “But if I go to the east, he is not there;
    if I go to the west, I do not find him.
9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
    when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

16 God has made my heart faint;
    the Almighty has terrified me.
17 Yet I am not silenced by the darkness,
    by the thick darkness that covers my face.

Job is in search of God so that he can protest his innocence, but he is afraid of what he will find. Job knows the power and majesty of God and is terrified of what it might be like to be in God’s presence, but nonetheless, Job is not silenced by his fear and presses on to declare his innocence anyway.

The situation of Job is reversed in the story of Jesus that we read in Mark 10:17-31. Here, we find a man who claims to be guiltless… but when Jesus challenges him, we discover that he is not.

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth.

23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it isto enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”

29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Jesus tells the man that he lacks only one thing, and I have to say, we aren’t sure what one thing that Jesus had in mind because it isn’t hard to start naming things that he is missing. Certainly he lacked in humility, and it seems likely that he is lacking in generosity but, since the focus was on the commandments of Moses, the two most likely commandments that he is missing are two that Jesus didn’t mention, “You shall not covet,” and “You shall have no other gods before me.” If this wealthy man is innocent of wanting what others have, then he remains guilty of loving his money a little too much. When facing a choice between following Jesus and gaining eternal life, or holding tightly to his money, the man chooses money. For him, money had become more important than God.

But in the world that the disciples had grown up in, much like we often hear today, many people, even many of the teachers of scripture, taught that the rich had been given their wealth by God and that their wealth was a symbol of God’s blessing. And so, when Jesus says that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, the disciples absolutely freak out. They instantly ask Jesus how this is possible. If the rich are blessed by God and they can’t get into heaven, then how can anyone else get in? Even worse, if no one can get in, then what about the twelve of them who left everything to follow Jesus? And what Jesus tells them is that God’s math is different than human math. God’s system of accounting is different than the one that humans usually use. For God, it isn’t the rich that are blessed, it’s the people who have been faithful to God and who have done the things that God has called them to do. The people who have left home to follow Jesus, or who have given up family or wealth, or have endured persecution for the sake of the gospel will be rewarded even if they were poor. Despite what the teachers of Israel were saying two thousand years ago, and despite what you may hear from many modern televangelists, it isn’t about prosperity, it’s about obedience.

But we are not like Job. We are not certain that we have done nothing wrong. We understand that we get things wrong with some regularity. And, like the disciples of Jesus, we worry that we might not be good enough, that we might not have enough faith, and that God might judge us too harshly. And in Hebrews 4:12-16 the Apostle Paul offers us this encouragement:

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints, and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Paul says that when we read God’s word, we can feel it penetrate us and convict us of our wrongdoing as if it were a sword. Our sin and our guilt are laid bare for us to see where we have fallen short. But our God, our Jesus, understands how we feel and what we experience. Jesus set aside the glory of heaven, came down to earth, became one of us, lived among us, and felt the things that we feel. And so, God understands our weaknesses, our failures, and our temptations and knowing how badly we have failed, still offers us mercy, grace, and forgiveness in abundance.

Even when things go terribly wrong, even when life is hard, even when we worry about not being good enough, God never leaves. God watches over us and his eyes never leave us. No matter how badly we screw up, God never abandons us. Instead, God understands us. God understands what it is like to be human and offers us mercy, grace, healing, forgiveness…

…and hope.

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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Photo by Comstock on Freeimages.com

Life is Hard. God has Standards.

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A tsunami warning sign that says "Life is Hard"

Life is Hard. God has Standards.

October 06, 2024*

By Pastor John Partridge

Job 1:1; 2:1-10                       Mark 10:2-16            

I heard an interesting question this week and, that question boils down to, what did the people of North Carolina, Florida, and all the places in between do to make God angry enough to bring destruction upon them through such a violent hurricane?

Of course, the correct answer… is nothing.

However, this has now become known as the Pat Robertson Syndrome, which is named after, obviously, the televangelist Pat Robertson, who once said that God’s wrath would bring destruction upon this place or that place because the people there had sinned in some spectacular way. More recently, the Pat Robertson Syndrome is being applied to the media’s haste to label every single weather event as being caused by global warming. Sure, global warming is real, but sometimes weather is just weather.

The answer is… none of the people who have been harmed did anything to bring destruction and devastation upon themselves. Sometimes, life is just hard. But even when we acknowledge that life is hard, we must also remember that even though he loves us and is filled with love and grace, God has standards. And what we wrestle with is that sometimes God’s standards do nothing to make a hard life easier.

We begin this morning with a snippet of the story of Job. If you aren’t familiar with his story, Job was an honest man of devout faith in God whom God himself declared to be both righteous and blameless. But because Job was doing so well, Satan asked God for permission to torment Job in order to prove that Job’s love of God was only the result of God giving him good things. God allowed this to happen, and Satan took away all of Job’s wealth, and killed all his children. And still Job honored God. And that is where we join the story in Job chapter 2… (Job 1:1; 2:1-10)

1:1 In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

2:1 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”

4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Job lost his wealth, he lost his children, and he lost his health. He was covered in painful sores and could only sit and suffer. Even his wife told him to give up on God, but Job, who had done nothing wrong, held on to his faith in God. Remember that Job knew nothing about Satan’s requests to prove that Job’s faith was only a payment for the blessings that God had given him. Job only knew that he had done nothing wrong but lost everything anyway.

Life is hard.

And, as we read the gospel story of Mark, we find that following God, and obeying God, doesn’t always make life easier. In Mark 10:2-16, the Pharisees test Jesus with a question about divorce. You see, different factions within the religious leadership and the elites of Israel regularly argued about what conditions were needed to allow a married couple to divorce. Some said that infidelity would be required, while others said that nearly any minor offense was enough for a husband to divorce and abandon his wife. In general, everyone followed the guidance of Roman law, but this was a regular argument among the priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, and others. And so, they ask Jesus to weigh in on their ongoing debate in order to see on whose side he will be lend his support.

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh. So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus deconstructs the entire argument about divorce by saying that it is God that created men and women, it is God that puts married couples together, and it is only the hardness of human hearts that makes divorce necessary. If human beings weren’t broken and unfaithful to God, divorce would not be necessary. By that measure, Jesus says, anyone who divorces and remarries commits the sin of adultery. This is harsh. By the standards and measures of our modern culture, this is hard to swallow. But even in the first century, this was stricter than what any of Israel’s teachers, priests, and religious leaders were teaching.

But I want to be clear about something. I don’t think that Jesus is teaching that people who divorce and remarry are condemned by God. Instead, Jesus is pointing out that the human weakness in all of us often causes us to fall short of God’s standards and fall into sin. But this strictness on the part of Jesus is immediately contrasted by the compassion that he shows for the children. The disciples try to run the kids, and their parents, off, but Jesus invites them to come to him and explains that all of us should aspire to have the pure and honest faith that children have.

So, what have we heard today?

First, God did not send destruction upon the people of the American south.

No one did anything for which God has chosen to “smite” them or punish them.

But if we learn anything from Job, one of those things should be that even though we didn’t do anything wrong, sometimes life is hard. Bad things, sometimes horrible things happen, and we may not ever know why it happened or why God allowed it to happen. And when (not if) that happens, we should aspire to be like Job. Feel free to mourn and sit in a pile of ashes and pray. Feel free to sit and commiserate with your friends. Feel free to argue with God and protest your innocence.

But don’t give up on God.

Accept that life is hard and is sometimes flat out horrible. But through it all, God will never leave you even when it might feel like he has.

Second, we must remember that God’s standards are not our standards. Sometimes what God requires of us is harder and stricter than the rules that our culture expects. And sometimes God’s expectations are so strict that our culture cries out that God is unjust. Even so, we must do our best to rise and meet God’s standards as best we can.

The good news, as always, is that as the followers of Jesus Christ, we are covered by God’s grace.

When life is hard, God is with us.

When terrible things happen, God sustains us.

When we fall short of God’s expectations for us, God loves us and forgives us.

And we should aspire to be as faithful to God as God is to us. We aspire to have the pure and honest faith of children and rest in the arms, and in the love, of God…

…even when life is hard.

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*UYou have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601.  These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org.  These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com .  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Applied vs. Theoretical Christianity

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General George McClellan

Applied vs. Theoretical Christianity

In 1861 President Lincoln gave General George McClellan the responsibility of building and training the Union Army and he did so with excellence.  McClellan was a master of organization and so while he did an admirable job of building the Army and was popular with the troops, he was still removed from command less than a year later.  Why?  Because despite General McClellan’s skill as an organizer, he was described as “ineffective” when commanding the army on the battlefield.  Just as we see in science, where theoretical physics and applied physics are two entirely different fields of study, the theory of battle and the application of that theory can be, and often are, vastly different and require an entirely different mindset.

There is an old military adage that likely dates to a German Field Marshal in the early 1800’s that says, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”  And the reason that is true, is because theory and application are always different.  That means that an effective battlefield command must be able to adapt as conditions change, or as members of our Marine Corps often say, “Adapt and overcome.”

In the church, we encounter that same disconnect between theory and application.  Thinking, learning, and teaching about Christianity, are often quite different from the practical reality of living a Christian life or of putting “boots on the ground” and doing the things that we talk about on Sunday.  We see that difference in the hundreds of church growth books that are on the market.  It seems like every year someone else has a new book, with a new formula, that’s sure to grow your church ten percent in the first two months.  But those formulas are what worked for the author, and although there may be lessons that we can use, what worked in their church, in their city, at that time, has no guarantee of being effective in our church, in our city, at the time we decide to act.

But the second disconnect between theory and application is even bigger and it’s been a problem… well, forever.  Jesus called out the Pharisees for it when they criticized his disciples for not washing their hands.  Nowhere in the Law of Moses is handwashing required, only tradition required it.  But the Pharisees, although they knew the law better than anyone, gave gifts to the church but left their parents hungry.  They learned the law, they knew the law, the taught the law but they kept a tradition that broke the law.  There is, and always has been, a gap between knowing what to do, and doing it.

Our challenge, as the followers of Jesus Christ isn’t just to learn about Jesus, but to put “boots on the ground” and do the things that Jesus taught us to do.  It’s one thing to learn, and know, and even teach, about being generous, merciful, kind, forgiving, and loving, but doing those things is often another thing entirely.  We have not been called to be experts in theoretical Christianity, but to actively practice applied Christianity. Our calling isn’t to know things about Jesus, our calling is to be like Jesus.

Because knowing a lot of stuff about Jesus isn’t going to change hearts or grow our church.

But acting a lot like Jesus will.

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Vaccines, Bananas, and Christianity

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Vaccines, Bananas, and Christianity

Our current environment of pandemic has returned the word “Vaccine” as a regular term of discussion in ways that it hasn’t since the national fight against Polio in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Everyone is talking about the safety of the various vaccines available, when and where a person might be able to get one, whether they have started, or finished, the vaccination process yet, and how soon vaccination rates might it possible for our lives, and our churches, to return to something resembling the “normal” that we had a year and a half ago.  Vaccines are something that are designed to protect us and keep us safe.  If we are vaccinated, we hope that they will either keep us from contracting the disease or, if we do contract it, will prevent us from becoming as sick as we otherwise might have.

But as we think about immunizations, it might also be useful to remember that Christianity is not a vaccine.  Our Christian faith is not something that we take once, or occasionally, to protect us from evil, from misadventures, or even to protect us from God’s condemnation.  Bad things do happen to good people.  Christians are afflicted by the forces of evil.  And Christian faith means more than periodically showing up to church, or putting money in the offering plate, or memorizing Bible verses.  Instead, Christianity, and Christian faith, is a lifestyle to which Jesus calls us and, having accepted that call, it becomes a way in which we choose to pattern our entire lives.  Christian faith shapes how we make friends, how we go on vacation, the clothes that we choose to wear, the places that we choose to spend our money, the occupations, and careers that we consider for our life’s work and influences nearly every aspect of our lives.  Christianity is less about what we do, and more about who we are as human beings.  When we choose to follow Jesus, we announce our intention to pattern our entire lives upon the life that Jesus modeled and taught.

But while Christianity is not a vaccine, our churches, and their members, can, sometimes, act a vaccine against it.  While we are good about bringing our children, grandchildren, to church, and even occasionally inviting friends and neighbors, we often fail to “make the sale” and ask them to follow Jesus and become his disciples.  The result is that having come to Sunday school a few times, memorized the occasional Bible story, and otherwise had a “little bit of Jesus,” rather than becoming committed followers and disciples of Jesus, they become vaccinated against Christianity instead.  Rather than discovering a Jesus that is worth following, they spend their lives thinking that, like a flavor of ice cream, they tried it, but didn’t find it to their liking.

In my mind, it’s a bit like our daughter Lina’s adventure with bananas.  When we first met her in China, we tried feeding her bananas, she smiled, she liked them, and wanted more.  But one day, as we attempted to give her some bitter tasting medicine, we tried to hide it in a spoonful of bananas.  She could taste what we were doing and rejected both the medicine and the banana.  And after that single experience as a ten-month-old infant, she wouldn’t eat bananas again for almost two decades.

Too many of our churches, or their members, do this same thing to the children, grandchildren, and visitors that come through our doors.  They come to church, or meet church members in secular places, and come away with an experience that leaves a “bad taste” in their mouth.  And those bad experiences, whether they happened in church, at work, at school, or anywhere else, can prevent them from returning to church, or to faith, for decades, and sometimes forever.

As we celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Jesus, let us recommit ourselves to being true disciples who look and act like Jesus seven days a week, everywhere we go, and in everything that we do.  Let us live so that others will want what we have, and not be vaccinated against it, or are left with a “bad taste” that might keep them away.  After all, it was Jesus who commanded his followers this way:“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

I pray that we may be known for our love.

Blessings,

Pastor John

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