People see the church in America today as fake, hypocritical, backwards to today’s society, narrow-minded, etc. The truly sad part is that, to some degree, I’d have to agree with them. I heard James Dobson say once that sometimes we can wear a mask that can hide some serious problems. I believe that one of the main reasons people view the church as irrelevant is because we wear these “masks.” We hide our true selves from the world in hopes to seem perfect and to make people think we have it all together.
I’ve grown up in the church subculture all of my life and I’ve seen this happen firsthand. I’ve seen Christians praise God on Sunday and Wednesday, and then go out and curse a cashier who they feel over charged them (usually by no more than $0.50). I’ve seen people who drive cars, with all sorts of Christian bumper stickers, flip off other drivers who drive a little too slow. I’ve heard pastors tell me that I should love my neighbor and then turn around and slander Muslims, homosexuals and “those godless liberals.” Brennan Manning once said:
The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyles. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
Hypocrisy separates Christians from the rest of the world. We end up alienating the people we are supposed to be helping. In his book The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne shares a conversation he had with a homeless man in Philadelphia. The two were having a lengthy discussion about Christianity. At some point, Shane noticed that the homeless man kept referring to the church as “they” and “them.” Shane pointed this out to his newfound friend and asked if he considered himself a Christian. The man said he could not be a Christian because Christians are people who have it all together and know what they are doing.
These views aren’t helpful to our cause of furthering the good news of Jesus Christ. If we are seen as hypocrites, people won’t want any part of what we say makes us different! If we are seen as perfect, people will feel too inadequate to pursue what we have.
I think that the American church wrongly believes that the Christian life is all about how well you can hide your sin. I, myself, hold onto that belief sometimes. I don’t want others to see what I wreck of a person I am. So I hide my deepest, darkest sins so others think I’m fine. Jesus has a few things to say about people like me:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Matthew 23:27
The Christian life is not about hiding. On the outside, we can look good and we can have everybody fooled but the truth is anything but that! The truth is that we are dead inside and unclean.
How do you pray? Do you lay it all out before God? Do you experience honest, open repentance? Or are you like me? My prayers can be vague and weak.
“Oh yeah God! I’m a sinner and I’m saved by grace!”
But if I never point out one sin when I pray, if I’m never open and honest with God, if I rationalized most of my sins so I didn’t have to ask forgiveness then what have I been saved from and what is so amazing about grace? I pointed out the sins of others so my sins didn’t look that bad in comparison. Sound familiar?
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Luke 18:9-14
If you pray and you compare your sins to other sins, you’re not really asking for forgiveness; you are making yourself feel better about your problems. If you pray and don’t ask for forgiveness, you aren’t justified. If you pray and you can’t point your finger on one sin you’ve committed that day, then what exactly have you been saved from? I think we’re so wrapped up in trying to be like Jesus, that we forget that we are a people who desperately need Jesus.
Despite our best efforts to hide our sin from God, the world and even ourselves, they’ve already been exposed:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139:1-6
Let’s go back to Shane Claiborne and the homeless man for a minute. The homeless man just told Shane that he believed Christians were people who had it all together and always made the right decisions. Shane answered “Then I must not be a Christian then.” I love that response! To be a Christian you don’t have to be perfect! In fact, Jesus doesn’t want “perfect people.”
And as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Matthew 9:10-13
Jesus. Wants. SINNERS!
He doesn’t want religious leaders! He wants tax collectors, prostitutes and heretics. The church is full of “perfect people.” What we really need are a few more wrecks. Martin Luther sums this idea up very nicely:
God created the world out of nothing, and so long as we are nothing, God can make something out of us.
People who think that they are already “something” are often sadly mistaken.
A favorite songwriter of mine, Derek Webb, once stated that he believes that the best thing that could happen to any Christian is that their deepest, darkest sins would be exposed on the 6 o’clock news. If there were huge screens that were devoted to exposing every secret that we never wanted revealed, then we wouldn’t [couldn’t] hide anymore! The world would see us as we truly are: a wretched and beautiful mess… just like everyone else. The truth is we are no different than other people in this world. We go through the same trials and tribulations. We fall down. We mess up. The only difference between the church and the world is that we just know a Guy.
This is my prayer for the Church (myself included):
I pray that we take off our masks.
