Hello,
I was driving into work this morning, listening to the Pittsburgh sports talk radio show that is always playing in my car. Being an aged player of sports….my current playing is pickle ball three or four times a week….I enjoy listening to the banter that goes on in the world of sports.
Today, the banter was about the Football Hall of Fame inductions, and the radio folks were debating the merit of the inductees. Where they really of Hall of Fame level? How about ….? And they listed folks who I knew and others I had never heard of.
Sometimes, it seems to me, the church is seen as a Hall of Fame. People look in its doors and expect to see folks who are on the top rung of the ladder of goodness and holiness. They enter its doors hoping to rub elbows with and to be counted amongst those who have their lives together. They believe that those with whom they are sitting and singing are the kind of people worth being around and to be counted in their number.
Evidence of this Hall of Fame image of the church is what people say about the church when they see the arguments that go on among church folks, and they see the lack of goodness and holiness in the lives of church-goers when they are not in church. “Hypocrites, the church is full of hypocrites,” they say. Like the sports radio hosts, people spend a lot of time critiquing those who go to church debating the worthiness of their place in the church. And even more evident of the church being seen as a Hall of Fame is when someone who is part of a church does something truly awful. When that happens people often judge the church as totally despicable, no longer worthy of attendance, participation, or affiliation.
Well, fact of the matter is that Jesus never meant the church to be a Hall of Fame. Just think about the folks that Jesus rubbed elbows with. They weren’t Hall of Famers…tax collectors, prostitutes, greedy, weak, confused, burdens on society, fishers, and failures. The truth is that Jesus ran into the most trouble with those who thought that the church should be a Hall of Fame: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the scribes. These groups of people were shocked and astonished that Jesus spent time and ate with sinners. And when a woman of ill repute came and anointed his feet, they said of him, “If he knew who she was, he wouldn’t let her do that.” He knew who she was!
I don’t know how the idea that the church is meant to be a Hall of Fame got started, but it certainly was not started by Jesus. The church that Jesus started was much more of a hospital for the hurting, a place where broken people found healing, and when healed sent out into the world to be people of healing. It isn’t always easy to be part of a church. Ask any hospital worker. Hospital work and life is often trying and hard. People tend not to have a great deal of patience when they are really hurting. People can be a bit self-focused when they are in pain. People can be a bit hard headed when they are frightened. As a pastor, I often have to remind myself that when the church is what Jesus meant it to be it is a bunch of sinners in need of forgiveness, not a bunch of angels perfectly playing their harps.
So, let me invite you to receive Jesus’ invitation to gather with him this Sunday in church. It is an invitation not to come and gawk at perfect Hall of Fame people, because you won’t find any of that sort there. It is an invitation to come as you are…tired, broken, bruised, confused…just like the rest of the people who are there, and in the presence of the One who is famous for his dying love experience the healing, wholeness, and hope that only he, Jesus, can give.
If the church was a Hall of Fame, you would never find me there. But because it is a House of Hope, I am there every Sunday.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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