"When Christians Are Unchristian" Midweek Lenten Sermon by Rev. Mary Iverson

When Christians Are Unchristian
Rev. Mary Iverson, Epiphany, Eagle Lake, MN
February 20, 2013
Matthew 23:1-3, 8-15 (The Message)

Six neighboring Lutheran Churches are joining together to ask a hard question of ourselves.  What are Christians doing wrong?  I’m certain that we have no choice but to ask this because we are at a crisis point in the history of Christianity.  Year after year, it seems like there are times in the life of Christians when they gravitate away from the church.  It’s a pattern that has been seen in many generations, when many young people drift away from the church.  So often the majority of young people would make their way back to the church when there was a wedding or when they had children to be baptized or in need of Sunday School.  While that was the pattern, the “drifting back to the church” hasn’t been happening for a large segment, as was once common.  When the young people reach their mid-30s, they are not coming back.  Numbers are down in every single Christian denomination.  This doesn’t just affect worship attendance or membership numbers.  It is shifting our entire culture because where we were once a Christian culture, we are becoming a secular society.
 
This shift is getting the attention of churches and church leaders.  Studies are being done and books are being written because we are losing a generation.

It is important to note that this younger generation isn’t rejecting Jesus.  They are rejecting organized religion.  And at least part of the reason they aren’t coming back to church is because they see in organized religions and in people who call themselves Christians a huge disconnect, as compared to what they know about Jesus and living a life of faith.  Quite frankly, they do not see the light of Jesus shining in and through us and think that church-goers act in UNCHRISTIAN WAYS.

I want to say this one more time:  many of these people who aren’t coming to church have a faith in Jesus.  And not only that, they want to help make the world a better place to live.  But they are rejecting the church largely because of the ways that people inside of the church act.

First, a story.  On January 25, Pastor Alice Bell and nine members of her Missouri congregation went out to eat at Applebee’s after worship.  Most restaurants assign the tip for the wait staff when it is a large table and Pastor Alice apparently had an issue with this.  When the restaurant tab arrived, she completely crossed the tip off the receipt and wrote a note to the waiter, asking why the waiter’s tip should be more than she gives in her tithe to God.   And then the Pastor wrote PASTOR along with her name.  I don’t think that God wants us to use our offering as an avenue to argue about a tip.  More than that, I think this whole incident represents what the younger generations sees in us…they see us calling ourselves Christians and not acting like it.  The St. Louis Applebee’s waiter showed the receipt with the Pastor’s snide remark to one of her co-workers, who took a photo of it with her cell phone and posted it on the internet.  And by the end of the week, it had been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people as it went viral.

Numerous comments were posted along with photos of the receipt – some from waiters saying that they can’t stand working on Sundays because so many church people go out to eat after worship and that we are least generous people they see all week long.  The pastor complained that the receipt was posted online and the person who posted it got fired and even more comments were shared about Christians – because this pastor did represent the Christian faith when she did something like that.  One person posted:  If you are going to represent Christ, act like Christ. Others called her a hypocrite.  We church goers are often viewed by outsiders as people who go to church and learn about Jesus but when they walk out of the doors of those churches, and don’t act like the Jesus we claim to love and serve.

A recent study by George Barna asked people aged 35 and under to provide positive and negative adjectives of Christians.  85 percent of people who consider themselves OUTSIDERS (living outside of the church) – 85 percent described us as HYPOCRITES and that is one of the reasons they stay away.

Hypocrite is a word that is included in the Bible.  It from a Greek word that means ACTOR.  He used this word thirteen times to describe someone who is two faced and phony and doesn’t live out their faith but pretending.

Jesus reserved his harshest words for religious folks, like us.  Jesus was frustrated that the church leaders were caught up in judging and tearing people down rather than lifting them up to God.

And today’s Christian Church has followed that same pattern.  And it is one of the ways we are UNCHRISTIAN and one of the reasons people are leaving the church in record numbers.  As the old saying goes, we in churches too often MAJOR IN MINORS.  We worry about whether people are wearing the right clothes to worship or if the piano is being played correctly and miss God’s call to act justly.  We fight about minor points in the Bible or complain about whether the coffee is strong enough or if the lawn is being mowed often enough and we forget about feeding the hungry and comforting the hurting and caring for the sick.  We are sucked into the minutia and it is unchristian when we have that be the focus of a church.

Preacher Tony Campolo was meeting with religious insiders and shared this quote .  He was talking about this issue of the church today.  Tony said:  “there are three things I would like to say today.  (One):  While you were sleeping last night, thirty thousand children died of starvation or diseases caused by malnutrition.  Second, Most of you don’t give a DAMN about it. What is worse, is that most of you are more concerned that I swore and not that thirty thousand children died last night!”

And if I quoted Tony Campolo as you actually said it (stronger word), you  would have gone home and said, “I can’t believe that the pastor from Eagle Lake swore from the pulpit.”  Why?  Because Christians get all fired up about little things like language.  But if we let people starve, oh well.  Those priorities that we have as Christians inside of churches is why younger people are leaving the Christian Church in record numbers.  Those outsiders think that we have our priorities all screwed up when we worry more about language or what we wear or fighting about what music is being played when people are starving and our world is in need.

That is the impression that the younger generation has.  That we get so bent up about little things and don’t seem to care about the bigger issues, like hunger and starvation and homelessness and treating people with justice.  And they call that UNCHRISTIAN and think, therefore, that we are hypocrites who have a huge disconnect between God’s message and the way we act.  
In Galatians, Paul writes about who we are as Christians.  He uses the image of putting on clothing to help us be more Christ-like.  We are challenged to take off  all that hypocritical, church in fighting that we do and clothe ourselves in a manner that would make us be authentic.  That is who God calls us to be.

We little choice about how we begin and end life, but we do have choices about everything in between.   “As God’s chosen ones, clothe yourselves with compassion (instead of judgmentalism), kindness (instead of back stabbing), humility (instead of puffed up pride), meekness and patience.  Bear with one another and if any has a complaint against another, forgive, just as Christ forgives us.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”

We have a chance to from wrong to right.  What would it look like if we treated each other with Christ-like love?    Thanks be to God.  Amen.