Sit Down

As one number of everyone's favourite Brando-Sinatra musicals sings "Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, you're rockin' the boat!" It isn't too illogical a request to make considering we are all in the same boat. One standing above the rest can throw the balance.

If you've read the gospels you'll notice that Christ handles every sin he encounters with easy grace and scarce anger. That is except for hypocrisy. Hypocrisy entails a dishonesty that chafes like sand. In Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel he paints a picture of the church. He says:

The pious fellowship permits no one to be sinners. So everyone must conceal his sins from himself and from their fellowship. We dare not be sinners.

The church has fast been accumulating the barnacles of a bad rep to its pious planked hull. Possibly because we have forgotten the truth of Morton Kelsey's correction, "The Church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners."

We do not go to parade or flaunt. We go to heal. True too, after your renewal, it is acceptable to pass from hospital to gymnasium, in hopes of spiritual brawn. However, you must resist the reflex to flex and flaunt your alleged gains. Lording over the diligent rowers will only propel them to despair. The truth is we are all unclean. Were it we could bring ourselves to admit it.

Casting Crowns asserts there disapproval of "rocking the boat" in their song "Stained Glass Masquerade" asking listeners,

Are we happy plastic people under shiny plastic steeples, with walls around our weakness and smiles to hide our pain, but if the invitation's open, to every heart that has been broken, maybe then we close the curtain, on our stained glass masquerade.

Their is forgiveness and love in the confessional to Christ, but there is freedom and fellowship in the testimony to our brothers and sisters. I am not all pessimist in blogging you know. Chances are high that there are plenty in your church that would be happy to listen, forgive, and accept you. Could it be that those that are so repulsed by the mention of sin are so because it has taken or is taking a toll in their life?

The problem with churches is they are full of people and people are full of flaws. The great thing about churches should be that everyone is willing to machete the vines and brush until the oasis is reached and in some places this is the case. Where it is not. Sit down!