How The Fifth Grade Glee Club Brought Me To Tears

            It happens every time. Every time I go to see either of my little ladies sing or play music I end up blatting like an eight-year-old girl. Not really sure why. Now my kids are fantastic – probably better than yours, but they are far from perfect. I’m not crying because of the power of their performance or the perfection of the timbre, or the amazing vocal range. I think maybe I’m crying just because they are my kids - doing the best they can – and because I love them more than I could ever even begin to express here (and I’m usually pretty good with words, so that’s saying something right there, isn’t it?)

Anyway - as I sat there again tonight silently with tears streaming down my face and watched my little ten-year-old lady sing God spoke to me very clearly. As I watched the several soloists come to the mic and do their thing, some were great (like my girl) and others just did the best they could with the gifts they had. When they would return to their places after their solos I noticed something really cool in common to every single one…

 

Well – actually I noticed a couple of things.

First – I noticed you can always tell the parents of the soloist by the camera phones that pop up as each child steps to the mic. Second – I noticed that as each child returned to their spot I would see them make eye contact with their parents, and then I’d see that smile of satisfaction when they saw that big smile on the faces of the people they loved. In that moment - they knew they were approved of, regardless of the performance. Tonight Jesus reminded me that my walk with Him has had some good performances – and some really bad ones – but He also reminded me that just as my love for Anna, and my acceptance of her as my child was not dependant upon her performance, neither is His love dependent upon mine. My walk with Jesus is just like every person reading this, if they are really honest with themselves. It is also just like every character in the Bible. Well - except for one. This journey has not been a climb toward dizzying spiritual heights, but a continuous, long lesson on love from the master, and a journey of exploration in to the recesses of my very own heart, to face the fear and darkness that still dwells there more than twenty years after Jesus took me.

 

The sin remains no matter how hard I work to get rid of it, and every layer I manage to remove only reveals a new layer of filth and gook for Jesus to deal with! On nights like tonight though – all that is OK. On nights like tonight my faith is renewed through my tears, as my God reminds me that my performance is not the deciding factor - anymore than Anna’s performance could cause her to cease to be my child. The fact that He is my father is my assurance that when I don’t know where I stand, I can look to Him and know I am safe. I am gently held by the arms of my loving Father, and dwell in His mercy and grace - not because of the greatness of my performance – but because of the greatness of His performance on behalf of all who cry Abba, Father. Who knows? Maybe deep down that’s why I cry.

FEED ME, Seymour, FEED ME!

            In an old classic favorite movie of mine, “Little Shop Of Horrors”, Rick Moranis owns a plant store that receives an exotic plant one morning that develops a serious appetite – for human flesh and when it gets the slightest bit hungry it cries out "FEED ME, Seymour, FEED ME!"

That movie came to my mind this past week as I was listening yet another teaching, like so many these days, being taught out of pulpits all around the developed world these days. In that moment I realized something. I realized that this is the tenor of far too many sermons and sermon series in our culture. I hear them talk about how God “wants” to bless us and how if we just have

enough faith and obedience that our lives should be a steady uphill climb to victory in every area, especially our finances, our morality, and our health. This school of thought has created a gigantic group of ill-informed Christians who believe if they put in their money and attend church services whenever the doors are open then they can feel good about “their walk” with Jesus and expect God’s blessings to follow. Unfortunately, this is a faith that dwells on self and not those we are here for, less on works and more on blessings, less on Jesus and our desperate need for Him and more on what we need to do to earn God’s blessings in our lives. It is a shallow, self-absorbed faith that determines success by the earthly blessings (or lack thereof). As I have seen somewhere before – that’s not the Gospel, folks – that’s karma.

            These theologically bankrupt teachings all seek to do the same thing – to improve people’s lives; which sounds like a good thing - however it operates from a flawed definition of the word “improved”. As Christians, isn’t growth in Christ what it really means to “improve”, and because of that we know that growing in Christ is not a life, nor should it be, of continuous blessing. I learned that when I was about five, the first time I heard the old adage, “no pain, no gain”. The Bible says that God works ALL THINGS for good to those who love Him and are called by Him. Growth through pain is a normal part of every human experience – Christian or not.

It is fairly easy to determine whether or not you are in one of these churches. When you go to Church this week and hear the teaching – when you leave ask yourself this one question – Was Jesus and what He has done for sinners like us the main focus of the sermon or was He hardly even mentioned? In too many of these sermons He has been taken out completely (or almost completely) and hardly anyone even noticed. If you listen for a month and realize this is true for your church, ask yourself this: “When I leave church each week am I thinking more about what I must do for God or more about what God has already done for me?” If it’s the latter then something is wrong.

            Even the witness of these believers is tied mostly to material or health or other blessings God has given to them and just comes off as bragging, and often when they are not being blessed physically or financially, then not only do they feel like a failure, but other believers, like Job’s friends, believe they must be doing something wrong and God is “correcting” them. Of course almost none of these “brothers and sisters” will say anything either way in the shallow, passive-aggressive

version of Christian love found in too many places these days. The Christian “love” on display in many of these houses of worship is like Facebook Christianity - 20 miles wide and four inches deep. In fact, we still have friends from a church we used to attend that will call us for help or to talk when they feel scared and alone, or are in need instead of people from the church because they many times feel judged (and rightfully so) by people there when hard times fall. These poor saints are not free to be who they are because they know that they will not be accepted by most in the congregation so they hide away, never experiencing the deep relationships, or the freedom that Jesus offered to those who get to live the true Gospel, in all it’s magnificent splendor. This is a Gospel that not only explains the sacrifice of the Son of God for our sins, but also our inescapable and overwhelming need for that sacrifice to be available to us every day of our sinful lives.

            We want to believe we are getting better, and sometimes we are, but we’ve already seen how “better” may not mean what we think, and since we know we are not made better by having more stuff, or better health, why do we believe that our stuff or our health are a sign that we are living right in God’s eyes? Think about this - if Jesus had believed this pervasive false doctrine of pay-as-you-go Christianity - then we would ALL be in a lot of trouble. Fortunately He endured pain and suffering for us – Doesn’t it only seem natural that following Him would bring suffering of it’s own – just because He knows that is what is “better” for us?” It does if we realize that He is good and He is smarter than us and knows what is best for us – whether it’s pain or pleasure.