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I had a refreshing conversation with a friend recently. So wonderfully refreshing.
We were talking about how Christians in this culture have come to be known as the people who hate abortion and homosexuals. Forget the life-giving relationship with our Creator, we want to make sure people know what we’re against. We’ve painted ourselves into a corner and there doesn’t seem to be a foreseeable way out.
My friend then shared the most vivid, truthful analogy I’ve ever heard regarding the mess we Christians have put ourselves in. He said:
Imagine going to a job interview. You’ve got the nice, pressed suit. You’ve got the resume ready to go. You’ve got your list of references. You’re on. You’re waiting to to be interviewed by the boss when the secretary comes over and hands you a dixie cup. She says, “Sir, we’d like you to take a dump in this dixie cup. Drop a dooce. Number Two. We’re going to be evaluating all of our candidates based on what they put in this cup. Thank you.” So now, the resume doesn’t matter. The suit doesn’t matter. What you have to offer doesn’t matter. You’re not be evaluated on those things. You are, quite literally, being judged by your crap.
Wow. Bold. Brash. But isn’t it the truth? In this analogy, Christians are the nicely-dressed job seeker with tons to offer. What we have to offer, of course, is a life transformed by Christ.
The person doing the interviewing in this analogy is the culture–they’re inspecting our “refuse” (to put it lightly). They want to see if our “crap” is the same as everyone else’s or if there’s something different about us.
My friend went on to say that when we make our faith about anything other than Jesus, when we make it about abortion or immigration laws or politics or homosexuality debates or drinking (or not drinking), we give the culture “crap.” We give them exactly what they thought we would give them. Junk. Refuse.
As we ended our conversation he said to me in closing, “There’s got to be a third way.” Amen. There’s got to be a way to get out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves in. The only question that remains is how?
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So, what do you think? Is he right? I think so.
But how do we change or get around the perception that most people have of Christians?
My thought is that there is no quick answer. It will take a lot of real Christians representing the real Jesus before people start to see that we are about Jesus, not issues.
Be Real, Be Honest and Love People.
This is a difficult question. The problem is that Christians are human, so we inevitably have a lot of crap. I wonder if we wouldn't get a better picture of the "world v. Christian" relationship, as the world sees it, if we added to the analogy. What if the secretary told us, "We’re going to be evaluating all of our candidates based on what they put in this cup," and we respond, "What are you talking about? I don't poop," even though we just went No. 2 prior to the interview and feel the urge to go again. Then, we go a step further and say, "I'll tell you who does have a lot of poop, though, you. You have a ton of poop; I can see it and smell it and I think it's gross. Good thing I don't have that same poop."
ReplyDeleteI think "Christians" (in quotes) give Christians (not in quotes) a bad wrap because they're so busy pointing out others' crap and hiding their own.
As Christians, one approach can be, of course, to try to eliminate our crap, and Christ can help us with this. Unfortunately, though, we're human, and we all crap. (I think that's actually how the Message's version of Romans 3:23.)
Another approach--and this is one that I think a lot of "progressive" Christians fall into--might be to flaunt our crap and take more craps, just to show the secretary the freedom we have in Christ, but this isn't appropriate, either (Rom. 6:1-2).
In the end, I suppose there's a happy medium with an infusion of grace. We need to work on reducing the crap that can get us entangled in hypocrisy, but we also need to be able to recognize that Christ loves us, and the secretary, despite our crap, and we should work on mirroring that love, rather than on pointing out the crap.
Great comment!
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