bishop's perspective
Smokin' Sam and the sour old sisters
Sam was a pew man and I was the preacher. Sam smoked cigarettes. In fact, Sam smoked a lot. And I didn't like it one bit. I don't believe in smoking. I'm against it. It seems obvious to me that good Christian folk value their “sacred temples” too much to puff.
When I went to this particular parish, Smokin' Sam was chair of the administrative board. He was a leader in the church. I was terribly bothered by this and didn't know whether to tolerate his puffing or get him kicked out of office (legally or illegally). What compounded this problem for me was that Sam was one of the most dedicated Christian men I had ever met. He bore all the fruits of Christian discipleship. His commitment to Christ through the means of grace and deeds of mercy convicted me. He lived a powerful witness of grace, but he was a puffer!
We also had two SOSs (sour old sisters) in that congregation. Now they didn't smoke. In fact, they felt the way I did about smoking. They were against it. And against him. Oh, they said they loved him and only hated his smoking, but believe me, their attitude was full of negativity. What troubled me was that they were also faithful to the church. They never missed a single meeting (though at times I prayed we could have just one board meeting without them because they always fussed about something). So I began to wonder if I could get rid of these SOSs who didn't like our youth eating hot dogs in the fellowship hall since the aroma of onions drifted into the sanctuary during Sunday evening worship.
Well, all of this really got to stressing me out. Part of me was convinced these women really did love God. Maybe they suffered a personality deficit rather than a character deficit. Then I got to thinking that maybe Smokin' Sam had a great personality but a character deficit. Why, I got to spending more and more energy trying to figure out who had religion and who didn't. It was really getting through to me. This judging stuff was hard work.
Then one day the good Lord led
me to the scripture passage about the
wheat and tares growing together.
Jesus suggested to the disciples it was
a waste of time trying to distinguish
between the wheat and the tares and a
greater waste of time to separate them.
Jesus offered that God would finally
separate the good wheat from the
chaff. What a relief!
That day I gave up the judging business. I have no idea who has faith and who doesn't. I don't need to know – couldn't know if I wanted to. I leave all of this in God's hands. I figure if God can get the sun up every morning, then God can figure out the rest. I can't even get a firecracker to go very high. I have a terrible record of hanging out stars. In fact, I trust God so much, I just leave General Conference and all the conflicting opinions and differing perspectives for him to sort out. In the meantime, I've got my work cut out for me. I still have the Smokin' Sams and SOSs to embrace without judgment.
top
|
|
