Serious conversations about things that matter
A few weeks ago, I preached at an old church.
How old? 202!
Founded in 1813, The Sartinville United Methodist Church in Jayess, Mississippi, was having its 202nd Homecoming and they invited me to preach.
To get there, you have to know where you are going. It is well off the beaten path, miles from the nearest interstate, and not quite on the way to anywhere.
I think the best description of hell comes from C. S. Lewis’s image in The Great Divorce
Sometimes in the church, among the people of God, we perfect the art of hell. When we develop our camps, we move people from a larger, messy group into tighter, agreeing groups: Hymn-loving singers here; new song lovers over there. Liberals who like Obama and his healthcare plan over here; conservatives who hate the same over there. Southerners who prefer to see the rebel flag here; everybody else over there. Tithers here; cheapskates over there. Rainbow folk here; nice but not-budging-on-marriage folk over there.
As I’ve written these last few months about the issues that divide us, I recognize that there’s a pervasive cultural reality that has a great impact upon the way we relate to one another. That’s because it’s also prevalent in the church. It’s consumerism.
When we interact with others on a consumerist level, we turn people into objects and use them. We relate primarily on the basis of what we might get. We become a world of consumers with goods to be bought and sold. We run on greed —the desire to profit from each other by the transactions we have.
The church I grew up in was known as “a holiness church.” We didn’t handle snakes, speak in tongues, or cast out many demons—but we had our own brand of odd.
There was a lady who requested prayer on Wednesday nights for soap opera characters, going into great detail about the trouble they were facing. There was the man who brought his guitar to church and sat on the front row, hoping to be asked to play a special number. He was better than the rejects of “American Idol” ever thought about being. We had a Sunday school superintendent who thought we could improve Sunday school attendance by hosting a chitlin’ fry following church. (If you don’t know what part of the animal you’d be eating, don’t ask.)
