The Ragamuffin Church - Part 4

We Don’t Do it for Show

It is human nature to want to look good for others. It seems to me that some Christian leaders and organizations (just like some politicians and political parties) seemed totally obsessed with image.

Notice what Jesus had to say about this:

Matthew 23:5-7 - Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.'

Matthew 23:25-28 - "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds.

It seems to me there are various ways the church has made an art of trying to look good. I want to list just a few of them;

1. Denial

People in church are discouraged from ever being too real. And this starts at the top. When preachers preach, you will very seldom hear them speaking of their own struggles and failures in their personal lives, marriages, as parents or dark temptations. If they ever do refer to any of these, it’s almost always in the past tense, with the emphasis on how THEY gained victory.
The result is that the “ordinary” people in the church soon get the unspoken message that there is no place or time to disclose their own sins and failures. So they never get ministry for their pain. (And there’s a helluva lot of hidden pain in the church!)
So, a couple who’s marriage is in trouble, will rather hide their torment in an effort to look good. Now they’re cut off from human comfort and spiritual resources and their marriage slides ever closer to destruction.
Paul says in Galatians 6:2 that we should “carry each other’s burdens”, and in so doing will be fulfilling the law of Christ. But when deny our burdens for the sake of looking good, they can never be carried by others.

2. Don’t Talk

Church members are regularly told either directly or indirectly: “Don’t talk!”
Again, this implies that certain things should never be revealed because it might result in the group looking bad. When church members are forbidden to talk about matters such as leadership decisions or how money gets spent, it encourages gossip. Because people cannot voice their opinions in a legitimate way, they resort to speaking to others in a hidden, negative and destructive manner.
In a church communication should flow freely. If it doesn’t it becomes an outright denial of Christian fellowship. People should have access to each other’s opinions and concerns. An inability to tolerate freedom of expression, honest questions and straight talk is a hallmark of an abusive system.

3. A Call to Unity

I have realized that many (if not most) times when leaders in a church call for “unity”, it just an effort to control things. Gene Edwards says, “Beware the leader bearing an inordinate dose of unity.”
No one ever wants to be accused of causing disunity in the church, but in reality it’s often just a ploy to bully people into submission in the name of unity.
So the issue is this: Is it Christian unity we’re looking for, or unchristian uniformity. Because unity and uniformity are not the same thing! If the call for unity includes people keeping quiet and unquestioningly towing the line, then it is not true Christian unity.

4. Phylacteries, Big Bibles and Special Voices

The Pharisees were big on doing things for the show. Check what Jesus said about it;

Matthew 23:5 - "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long.”

The phylactery was a little box that contained a portion of scripture, which the Pharisess fastened to their foreheads in order to publicly demonstrate their devotion to the law. So symbols of devotion became more important than devotion iteslf. It seems not much has changed.
Today we don’t wear phylacteries, but we do have modern day equivelants. For some it might be an extra large black King James Version. For someone else it might be lacing sentences with “Praise the Lord, brother!” Or perhaps it’s the “preacher’s voice” that many ministers take on the moment the get into a pulpit. I suppose they feel it helps them to sound more like the voice of God. For some it’s the clothes they wear to church.
I’ve realized that when we put so much emphasis on looking good for Sunday morning church, and put so much emphasis on setting the standard in the doing of worship, there is usually emptiness and death on the inside.

Jesus said about it:

Matthew 23:25 - "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

5. Places and Titles of Honour

Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees had a need for the most important seats in the synagogue. Now there’s nothing wrong with honouring one another, but the Pharisees demanded it. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see the prima-donna preachers today who demand honour – refusing to minister somewhere unless they get to fly first class, get paid a minimum fee, and have various other demands met. When I read Matthew 23 it seems that Jesus identifies people’s need to be great as being a source of false faith.
These Pharisees wanted to be greated as “rabbi”, which literally means “My great one.” In groups today “The great one” might be “Pastor” or “Senior Pastor”, or “Reverend”, “Bishop” or “Elder”.

Matthew 23:8-12 - "But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Unless a title is used to merely indicate a function, it sets the titleholder apart from the common people, and as we know there is no class system in God’s Kingdom. I personally think that a leaders need for a title in order to enhance his or her authority, is in direct proportion to a lack of true authority.

The Ambition of a Servant

People who flaunt their devotion, promote their position and push for power are doing so out of insecurity. A confident person doesn’t need to show or prove anything. So Jesus says “The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matt. 23:11). He’s not calling us to become doormats here, but describing the secure, God-affirmed leader.
A good leader can have ambition, and can have a high self-esteem. But he will use his ambition and self-worth to seek greater opportunities to serve. Not to be served. Jesus came to be the greatest servant of all.

John 13:3-5 - Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron.

We’re called to be like Jesus. We can be ambitious, and we can be successful. But our success will not be determined by how many people we control, but by how many people we can openly and honestly serve. You can’t wash someone’s feet when you’re standing on a pedestal.