Jumpin through the
Hoops
June 22, 2008
Geneseo United
Methodist Church
Pastor Craig Ferguson
Matthew 23:15 15
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land
to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of
hell as yourselves.
In this passage Jesus is talking to the people who were considered most
holy in his day, and he cuts them no slack.
He jumps right to the point and calls them hypocrites.
Therefore, I thought it would be fun to make it a little more modern, and
to start off this morning with the top seven you might be a hypocrite list.
Top
Seven: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You might be a
Hypocrite lines.
1.
If your attendance at church depends on what time
your kids wake you up. . .
2.
If
you think church is only open for Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals. . .
3.
If
you tell someone they should go to church, but can’t remember the name of the
church you attend. . .
4.
If
you have a Bible on your nightstand somewhere under a stack of (those)
magazines. . .
5.
If
you consider the sermon nap time. . .
6.
If
you think a Tithe is something you wear, and the offering plate is a good place
to empty out your spare change.. . .
7.
If
you consider the communion wine the first shot of Saturday night. . .
Ok, that was fun, but it is also
scary to say there are people who fit into that list.
For a lot of people being a Christian is more about the image and what
people see than about who we really are.
For the Jews it had all been
about following the law; obey the laws and offer the right sacrifice at the
right time and they thought they were good.
Our understanding of Christianity
today has become very similar to what it was in Jesus’ day, follow a set of
rules and you’re good. Do the
right thing, and you get a free pass to heaven.
Tell me if these concepts sound familiar?
1.
Sit through a boring church service a couple times a
year, and you’re good.
2.
Do
the sign of the cross, Go to confessional, say the Hail Mary, take communion
you’re good
3.
Serve
food at a local shelter or build a habitat house, and you’re good
4.
If
none of that works for you then give a big offering and you’re good
5.
Finally
Get your kids “done” and they are good
(If you can’t tell, I am being
just a little cynical today)
It’’s scary that you know
what I mean when I say get the kids “done,” and it proves the point.
We think if we walk through the right set of hoops in life, it is like
slipping God a hundred dollar bill for a special seat at the heavenly table.
But Christianity simply does not work that way, and that is exactly what
Jesus was telling the Pharisees. A
set of rules don’t cut it. A set
of hoops don’t get you into heaven.
That phrase Jesus used caught me
as offensive, I don’t know if you heard it or not, Jesus called them, a Child
of Hell. It is almost as bad as when
Jesus told Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”
Now, no matter what you think about Peter, (he was a little rough around
the edges) or the Pharisees, they were all trying to be good, and do the right
thing. However, in both cases, Jesus
referred to their good intention as something that got in the way of their
relationship with God. They were so
worried about following the law that they missed the obvious. They would walk
past a man beaten half to death on the road because touching him would make them
unclean. (the Good Samaritan)
Unfortunately I think that is
exactly what we do today. We try to
jump through the right set of Christian hoops so that we look good to the world,
and we feel good about ourselves, but we miss doing what God expects of us.
Have any of you seen the T.V.
show Monk?
If he shakes someone’s hand he has to use a sanitary wipe, if he
sees something out of order he has to stop and put it in place.
When he brushes his teeth he has to boil his tooth brush, then brushes an
exact number of times on each side of his mouth.
Now, I don’t have those kind of
quirks, but only three weeks ago, while I was in the middle of an intense phone
conversation and driving. I had to
stop and fill up with gas, and with the ear piece in, I went in to the store to
pay, but I didn’t want to go to the counter while I was in a phone
conversation, so I meandered the aisle, looking for a diet soda.
Unconsciously I realized I had
straightened and pulled to the front a whole shelf of chip dip and snacks.
(that must have been a temporary flashback to my retail management days)
Needless to say in that moment I felt like monk, like the Pharisees,
needing to have everything organized and in place.
Don’t laugh to hard, because I
know many of you like my wife have a nightly routine of going through the house,
checking the doors, and making sure everything is in place and secure before she
can even think of going to bed.
That is what Jesus was condemning
in the Pharisees, the fact that the temple rules had become so controlling and
crippling to them. Things like, the
Sabbath being an excuse not to care for the poor or sick, the cleanliness laws
being an excuse to not touch or share food with someone.
Basically, by the temple law they had set themselves apart as better than
everyone else. And they did not
accept anyone who fell short of the full standard of the law.
Today that might look like a very
strict conservative church. A church
where you have to be a member to enter the door, where you have to dress a
certain way, where anyone who misses a Sunday or sins is not offered communion.
Now we don’t even come close to
that picture, in fact I think Geneseo is very open and loving.
But, this passage should help us to think about whether or not there are
things that a church does to set itself apart and close its doors to any group
of people?
Just like the poor, sick,
diseased, Samaritans and sinners of Jesus day felt disenfranchised from the
temple, are there groups of people today who look at the church like it has a
high fortress wall built around it with a moat filled with alligators between
them and the entrance?
To be honest, from the inside, it
is hard to understand what an outsider experiences.
While we feel very loving, they see cold eyes of judgment, and they
don’t learn any different because they are afraid to walk in the doors and
find out for themselves. Imagine
with me. . .
A person who has no previous church connection, maybe they have kids,
maybe they are lower middle class, or going through some hard times.
Whatever the reason, they begin to have questions about God and faith and
they feel drawn to seek faith, but they don’t know how, or what that looks
like.
(carrying on my cynical attitude,
we consider faith a private matter so no one has invited them to church)
But, if they decide to come to
church, where do you think they are intimidated first?
Driving toward the church, which entrance do they come in. where do they
park, and does my beat up car belong next to these shiny new vehicles?
If they built up enough courage to park, they venture toward the door and
wonder, which door should I use, am I dressed appropriately, what will everyone
think of me? After they walk in the
door it is an effort to find where to go, to look like they know what they are
doing, to find a seat, then to be fearful that they are sitting in someone’s
pew. During the service it is a
struggle to keep up, when do they stand, sit, pray, read, and which book do they
need. And imagine the pain of
singing a song that they have never heard and feels like it comes from the
Middle Ages. On top of that, when
asked to use the Bible, how do they use that book and not look like a fool.
(I think some of us feel that way)
With all this going through a
visitors mind is it no wonder that most people run out the back door as fast as
they can after the service. Without
knowing it, the church has built up so many hoops that we just jump through
every week, and we expect everyone to just instinctively know what those hoops
are. And whether or not we expect
that, they fell like it is expected.
These hoops of religious
expectation have no eternal value or consequence yet we continue them as if they
make a person Christian.
Now I might mention, if these
people had been invited, picked up, brought, and sat with, a lot of these fear
would have been avoided. If we would
show people what it means to be a Christian, and show them the hoops that we
have built in, they might just be more comfortable checking out what Christ has
to offer. By the way, 80% of people
who are invited by a friend accept the invitation.
In summary, Jesus critique of the
Pharisees was because their hoops shut people out of the temple.
Today we must ask ourselves, what hoops do we have that keep people out
of the church? Christianity is not
about hoops, it is about grace, and Christ crucified.
Let’s do away with the hoops and just worship God.
Amen.
