Lost with a GPS
I have a GPS for my car. Why you may ask? If you must know I am a terrible driver with an even more terrible sense of direction. My wee little niece even had to correct my wayward ways while driving her home. “You went the wrong way.” She tells me. Thanks. Kids are too honest. “Your car is a mess”, “You smell funny”, “What’s in your hair?” Thanks Cassie. Kids do keep you honest. The reason I don’t drive well, and get lost easily, at least my excuse is, that I got my driver’s license as late as I possibly could. Like at 18 years old. I got rides everywhere. Even when I was an assistant manager at my job my mommy and daddy drove me everywhere. I don’t know why I didn’t care about driving, I just didn’t. When you don’t drive you tend not to pay attention to where you are going, which results in a mid twenty something that has lived in a town all his life having no idea where he is. Ever. I am not proud of this but I have come to grips with it and accept it. I no longer care that people say I am a bad driver or get lost easily. Not when I have technology! I bought myself a GPS under the guise of a birthday present from my wife, who has an excellent sense of direction, by the way. The way I see it people should marry people who have opposite gifts. It’s a “two incomplete parts make a whole” sort of thing. The things I am not so good at she excels at and vice versa. We complete each other. She knows where she is going because she apparently drove out of the womb and straight to her crib without asking for directions and I still drive in circles screaming, “All the houses look the same! Who built this neighborhood? Does that guy look familiar? I could have sworn that we came in this way! Is that my house?” She also is very tidy and organized while I try to give her purpose in that aspect, a reason to clean as it were. But back to direction… I used to get lost all the time, but now I got this handy little device that suctions to my windshield and tells me where to go. Sometimes it tells me a little too late and I have to suddenly swing into a side street or go another block, but it usually gets me back on track. The little GPS is helpful sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t work right. Often it gets stuck at one spot on the map and won’t update to show you your current position. This often results in telling you to go right when it has always been left in the past. I almost trusted the GPS over my own instinct and past experience. Then I realized it got stuck, as technology often does, I trusted myself and still got to my destination. I now use it all the time even to drive to work or home which I do every day. I don’t need to but it’s a helpful little reminder. It does come in handy when I don’t know where I’m going, but I usually don’t need it every day. So I was driving yesterday and an analogy popped into my head. This little GPS with this map is like church. I am referring to the institution here, not the universal body of Christ on earth. It might not be right every time. It might even have the wrong map on the screen. I went to Las Vegas recently and used the GPS there and the next time I turned it on it told me I was still in Vegas! It had to reset itself to my home town. If I hadn’t have fixed it, I would have been in Caesars palace three days later calling my wife to have her pick me up! That’s how I see the church. It has got screwed up by people and institutions. It might be right sometimes but it might be stuck and if you follow it blindly instead of with your instincts and past experienced you might go the opposite direction. Before a whole bunch of church goers yell at me and tell me the heart is deceitful above all things and all that jazz, what about the fact that that verse was written in the Old Testament to people who did not have God inside of them and now we have the Holy spirit inside of us telling us what is right and wrong and which direction to go? Might it be God telling us that something seems wrong? I used to have odd feelings in church about church and kept pushing them down. I thought to myself that church seemed useless and boring and pointless, but kept reassuring myself this whole “church” thing was Gods idea and we should do this to be good little Christians. I finally came to a different conclusion. Now I see things differently. I don’t think the church is infallible. I think it might be stuck. Often. I think the people that lead it are often well intentioned, but the problem is that power and influence gets in the way. I was almost a licensed pastor and I remember that feeling of pride and power. I was young and was about to have a bit of pull within my little community. My family was proud. Their little twenty something son was going to be a pastor. Too bad we didn’t read the Bible too well. We would have seen the “pastors” and “leaders” were more servants than masters. Pastors have so much authority in churches today that it is scary. They have influence and pull like you wouldn’t believe. The church is not built up of believers following God together but one man at the top following God while the dedicated few follow him and the rest show up sometimes. This is a body not a democracy. Too many men got in power and decided things would go better if we changed direction a bit. People start following men instead of their instincts and past experience we get lost. We end up in a Burger King parking lot calling our wives to come so we can follow them. I was really sick ok? I was tired and didn’t know where I was going. But back to the point. We have been following a GPS that has been stuck and going the wrong direction for a long time now. Churches are putting more and more money towards bigger buildings and programs that have little to do with Christ’s teachings. They build skate parks in hopes to win some skaters to Christ. All they are doing is giving skaters a free place to skate. It doesn’t change their lives it just reinforces the mentality that they deserve free stuff and can do whatever the hell they want. They build swimming pools for the community, same thing. People might hear that a church raised the money for a community pool. They might get members to go to their church, but that seems to get more tithes into that church, not necessarily more lives changed. I heard a volunteer from a large church yesterday talk about another larger rival church and said they were actually good friends. They even got them a gift but she remarked how hard it was to get such a large church a gift. “What do you give the guy that has everything?’ She remarked. She told us they gave them a huge arrangement of flowers for their lobby. A very expensive gift, yet pointless. I’ll take the chance that I’ll sound like Judas and say, “That money could have been given to the poor!” The difference is I am not embezzling and that church sure doesn’t look like Jesus. If I remember right giving to the poor is giving to Jesus. Giving to the least of these is the same as giving to Christ. Is the “least of these” a multimillion dollar church building with a coffee shop and book store? They need flowers? Or do the poor need food? I’d be willing to bet that if you tell a non Christian about the amount of money churches waste on buildings and salaries and programs they would probably ask what it has to do with Jesus. Outsiders seem to get it better than Christians. Has someone else got a hold of our map? Does our map have lines pointing us away from “Love your enemies” and “Do good to those that hurt you” and instead pointing us to “Nuke the bastards”? Is the destination of “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” scribbled out and instead we have our own self built mansions on earth drawn in? What happened to “this world is not my home…”? There are many specific things or “destinations” Christ called us to but the main one seems to be “love”. Show love to each other and the strangers. How do we show love to our fellow believers? It seems that if we can’t agree on everything we separate ourselves from each other. We can’t get along if we can’t agree. It’s sad. We also rule over each other with leaders and clergy. The early Christian’s clergy were more like waiters. Now they are like royalty. I’ve heard pastors and leaders remark how blessed by God they are because the members of the church often give things to them. Is this God blessing them or is it the followers feel the need to give to the leaders? If we were living like we should be everyone would be sharing with everyone else, not just giving to the high man on the totem pole. What of loving others? There is a couple that goes to the church my wife and I used to attend. We were one of the first people to come into contact with them at this church. They are often short on money and resources, so my wife and I have given them money and gifts and rides to help them out. So has everyone else in that church it seems. They go to both services on the weekend and seem to go up to several people commenting on how they have no money or food. They are probably taking advantage of people, but it could be that they are not responsible enough and have learned to beg. I have had countless people comment to me about this couple and their ways. The pastor has had to talk to them about them asking people for money and even threatened to announce it to the congregation to not give them any more money. Without exception it seems like everyone I have talked to about them has had a bad opinion and says they won’t give them any more money. I can’t say I blame them but I still feel sympathy for them. Not necessarily because of their sob stories, but their problems with money management, lying, and overall poverty. I still think they need help but because they don’t really deserve it no one will give it to them. Since I no longer attend that church I don’t see them anymore but I know others that do and I don’t hear about anyone is helping them by giving them the tools they need to get out from under poverty. Is this “Love others as I have loved you”? Jesus saw you and your lying, stealing, whoring ways and he still loved you! While you were a sinner he loved you. Some people can’t handle money and we shun them. It is easy to give to the missionary and the sad kids on the slide show but you never have to see them. It is harder to give to people you are sure are lying or swindling and will probably never pay you back. Isn’t that what Jesus does? He knows we are liars and cheaters. He knows that what he gives us we can never pay back. And He gives it to us anyways. This should be our destination! To show people the unconditional love we have experienced! Instead we focus on the “scum” that is “liberals” or “homosexuals” or “pro-choice”. Instead of focusing on love we focus on our hate. We are known for our hate instead of “by your love for one another.” Where have we gone? I can’t say it is all the churches fault. There are many fallible people out there and we know everyone makes mistakes. So how do we turn ourselves around? How do we get back to the right track? I think we should refocus our energies. Stop focusing on the meetings and programs and buildings. Stop trying to raise money to erect bragging rights. The church I used to attend was so proud to have a church building and a youth building and a million dollar campground completely paid for. They said it was God blessing them. Let me tell you something, you can do a lot of things in God’s name and it not be God. People sell millions in drugs without God. Did God bless this drug dealer? People profit on peoples pain and problems by selling them harmful things or promoting harmful lifestyles. Did God help them? I am not trying to compare drug dealers with churches; I am making the point that just because you have prospered does not mean God is with you. There are plenty of God fearing people that are dirt poor and plenty of bastards that are filthy rich. These buildings are going to be around after the pastor dies. He is making himself a legacy. Why can’t we sell our stuff and give it to the poor? Doesn’t that sound closer to what happened when people encountered Jesus? They ran into Jesus and said” I’m going to right my wrongs and give to the poor!” Not, “I’m going to raise some money and build some multimillion dollar buildings and start lots of programs!” If you really feel called to “church” then go. I am not going to tell you to do something that God wants you to do, but if you aren’t sure, take a break. Don’t feel guilty just see if your GPS resets itself. Don’t ignore God just ignore religion and obligations. Stay home. Enjoy your family. Stop wearing yourself out going to several services or meetings a week. Start loving and serving the people in front of you. Instead of putting effort into taking care of a building or children in children’s church or the sound system focus on loving your neighbor. When we volunteer in church we put ourselves in a self serving cycle that is totally unnecessary. Think about it, if we didn’t have service would we need people to watch our kids? Or people to play instruments? Or people to run sound? Would we need ushers? Or meetings? Or curriculum? What if we stopped doing all the unnecessary things and did what is necessary? Which is? To love. We would love others and it wouldn’t be a chore it would be natural. It would flow out of us instead of us being pulled and guilted into it. How many more people would be loved because we simply came into contact with them? Instead of just helping the few kids in Sunday school who have heard it all before. So again I urge you, reset your GPS. Focus on the destination of love, and enjoy the ride.
