It's Saturday morning in the middle of a hot August summer, so my dad decides to cut the grass. Does he wear shorts and a cooler t-shirt or tank top? No, instead he puts on his favorite pair of purple polyester pants, the same ones he was wearing the night before, white socks, black shoes and an old white undershirt rolled up at the sleeves.
He was a Honyak, and fashion was as foreign to him as lawn jarts are to an Eskimo . Even my sisters gave up on buying him trendy clothes, because to my dad, nothing felt quite as comfy as those polyesters! He didn't care who watching him, he was comfortable, and that is all that mattered. I call this attitude: "what you see is what you get!" Honyaks for the most part are not trying to put on a show, nor are they trying to impress, because they don't really know how to. Image to them means little as compared to substance. What is interesting, in the bible the word "sincere" has the foundational idea of being a person "without wax." What this is in reference to is to the devious shyster merchants of the day who would seal up the cracks in their clay pots they were selling with colored wax to fool people into buying them. The wax made it look like the pots wouldn't leak. Then when the customer would go home and fill up their new jar with water, they would start to leak. They were scammed! So, without wax means you are person who is not trying to fool anybody - - you are the genuine article. Honyaks may be nerdy, but they are the genuine article. All Christians are meant to be sincere, without wax people as well. We are not to put on a show, we are not here to impress, but to reflect on the outside who we really are on the inside. A while ago I attended a funeral at an expensive, polished church for a fine Christian lady who lost an ugly 4 year battle to Alzheimer’s and chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis. In her last pathetic years of life, her hands were clenched into unusable claws as her memory faded into oblivion. Looking over the snapshots of her younger years there was no hint given to the broken women she was to become. Facing the bare truth of Adam’s fallen race stings. But instead of crying out for mercy and facing the naked truth of death, the funeral service was a charade. This, ahem, respectable and refined church did everything to ignore and even cover over the horror of life’s brokenness with plastic smiles and Christian euphemisms. From the layers of thick make-up applied on the corpse, to the preacher’s eloquent cadence behind the pulpit, starched white shirt and assured look of smug seriousness as he sits down in his velvet pew, they tried as hard as they could to muffle death’s stirring voice. Why was he so stinkin’ assured? Throughout the rest of the service we had to listen to campy songs where people listening were expected to be impressed when the singer hit all the right notes. Somehow lost in all the show was an exhortation by the pastor to cling to the hope of Christ’s resurrection. Why was he so assured? As a pastor myself, I chafe at the polished religious show we feel compelled to put on. Did Peter sit down in his newly washed cloak and speak in hushed tones while Matthew played the organ as the heart-broken family filed out of the freshly vacuumed Jerusalem colonnades? I know we live in America where buildings, pianos and power-point have become part of our way of life; but we have also lost something. I don’t know how to quite put my finger on it, but people have become plastic. Showmanship, polish and sweet sugary words have become the tools of our trade. The less mistakes someone makes, it is assumed the better pastor they must be. But a pastor was never meant to be a showman! I believe a pastor is to be an experienced guide into the comforting and yet terrifying presence of God. And you don’t lead someone to God through learned religious phrases. God is only encountered through unvarnished sincerity. That is where the dynamic effects of Honyak living comes in: weakness, need, fear, anger, desperation and great laughter are openly admitted and freely expressed. Honyaks do not need to perform on stage for religious critics; we readily understand our audience is before the divine Godhead himself. He already knows our thoughts from afar and remembers that we are dust, and Honyaks have no trouble admitting this. But this presents for us a very real problem: No one wants to follow someone that is quick to admit failure and weakness. Do they? We have been taught in conferences and leadership magazines that confident and assured leaders are the only kind of men and women people will follow. A weak man can’t grow a church. A person who openly admits their needs are in no position to disciple others, are they? Who would want a Honyak to serve when you can have a person that is ‘so stinkin’ assured’ to comfort hurting people? Oh well, I better go, I heard there is a sale at the local Good Will store on polyester pants!
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"Dad, what's a concubine?" How do you answer that? Especially if it is your seven year old daughter asking the question? My daughter decided to read through the bible when she turned seven, and when she came to Genesis 22:24 she found the word concubine. Oh boy -- she came to my room to have me explain it...and...uh...I...sent her straightway to her mom. For those of you who don't know what a concubine is, here is the definition: "A woman who lives with a man but has a lower status than his wife. A mistress." Now you know how to answer your seven year old daughter. I also bring this word up because I am currently reading a book about Martin Luther (the 16th century reformer), and during his day the Roman Catholic Church offered special indulgences and absolutions for people and clergy who broke the Church's morality laws. As long as they paid, they were let off God's purgatorial hook. It was also a great way for the church to bring in revenue and keep control over the peasantry. One payment in particular that the author highlighted, and I have never heard of before, was a "'concubinage fee' payable by parish priests to their bishops for the privilege of ignoring their celibacy vows." So if a priest wanted to have a weekend on the town, he would go to the local bishop, pay some cash that he probably got from that morning's offering, and received a certificate of grace to go and have a good time with a concubine of his choosing. He also probably got a devious smile and slap on the back from the bishop as well. Crazy, huh? What is interesting, this same type of behavior must have been prevalent in 18th century Russia because Fyodor Dostoevsky touches on it in his book Brothers Karamozov. He talks about how the church actually liked to be the arbitrator between God and man's sin because it gave them tremendous control and favor with the people. Listen to this statement in his book: "Did we (the clergy) not love mankind when we admitted so humbly its impotence and lovingly lightened its burden and allowed men's weak nature even to sin, so long as it was with our permission." In other words, the church knows people will sin, in fact they can't help sinning; but it's O.K. as long it is with the church's permission. As the author of my book says, "The 'deal' men struck with the institutional Church left them free to be religious without the burden of being devout." You know something, things haven't changed. In fact, in some evangelical circles, "concubinage privileges" are handed out all the time in the form of twisting the scriptures to allow same sex coupling, & ignoring scripture when hetero-sexual couples decide to have a family and live together outside of marriage. Pleasing people and sanctioning sin through bad or non-existent exegesis is the modern clergy's new way of gaining power and control. Instead of power coming from a top down dictate like a Church magisterium, the modern evangelical power comes from giving sanction to the cultural whims of the day. "If you tell us what we want to hear, you're hired, your books will be bought, and we will give you the power of the pulpit." Timothy calls this "tickling ears." For instance, when a popular ministerial leader like Rob Bell discusses his views on homosexual marriage and says, "I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs – I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are..." he is inferring that pastors who disagree with him are stuck on a ship to nowhere. He and teachers like him, love to give permission to a new ethic and morality, because the people he gave permission to will return the favor by giving him cultural popularity and power. Popular voices of culture (especially political progressives) love to be the new arbiters between God and man....and the curious carnal crowd will love them for it. Pastors, priests and church leaders are not called by God to give people permission to sin. We are here to be faithful witnesses...no more and no less. Deep down, people really do want to hear from God, even if they are violently against his truth the first time they hear it. If we don't speak truth, regardless if people like it or not, the peace and power of God will be forfeited - - his light will be snuffed out. If we are only here to make people happy, after awhile they will have no use for us anymore because that isn't our purpose. So pastors, teachers, and parents...speak the truth and don't give people permission where God hasn't given it. Never forget what God told Jeremiah in 15:19 - "If you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them." |
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