Vain Repetitions

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who wrote, with respect to the supernatural, "seeing is not believing." As Dickens affirmed, when he fashioned the quivering, ghost-riddled Ebeneezer Scrooge, we are apt to chalk up what we can't explain to an "undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard.." We are more comfortable, generally, fitting the world into a pattern we find internally reasonable, no matter how much the perceived facts run contrary to our hypothesis.



Nowhere is this more apparent to me than in the way the modern church has adopted a pattern of accepted "Christianese," a set of vain repetitions to use in discussing our experience of God, and His Word.

Picture a men's prayer meeting. One man prays, "I just thank you, Lord, that I can let it all go on you, that I don't have to care about any of these problems, that YOU are my master, and YOU have taken care of everything and I just have to get out of the way, Lord."

And the group mumbles assent, and affirmation and amens.

.. churches would claim to follow God's word, but, in reality, they serve an approved extraction from the whole; they dish up a special denominational sauce that only mixes well with certain parts of the Word.

Then picture the next man praying, "..Lord, wicked men have opened their mouths against me...they repay me evil for good and hatred for my friendship... Lord, may their days be few, may their children be fatherless and their wives widows..may they be closed with disgrace..may their sins always be before the Lord, that He may cut off their memory.."

And the group pauses, chairs shift, and an awkward silence announces that this prayer doesn't fit somehow. It's not approved. Perhaps there is even a little awkward conversation afterwards. The second man is rebuked. He is just too angry. "God is about love," he is told, and "forgiveness."

The second man asserts, "I was just quoting the 109th Psalm."

"But we don't think you're interpreting it correctly," someone says.

"I wasn't interpreting it," the man says. "I was just quoting it."

Back to the prayer meeting:

First man: "I want to thank you Lord for taking away my desire for beer."

Second man: "I want to thank you Lord for giving us wine to make our hearts glad."

First man: "Thank you Lord for your kindness and mercy."

Second man: "..and Thank you, Lord, for your justice, for calling hypocrites 'vipers' and 'white washed tombs.'"

First man: ".. help me to understand and serve my wife..."

Second man: "..and, Lord, please encourage my wife to obey me..."

The point here is that most reasonably Biblical churches would claim to follow God's word, but, in reality, they serve an approved extraction from the whole; they dish up a special denominational sauce that only mixes well with certain parts of the Word. It's almost as if the Bibles of America have dim gray type indicating passages that are to be read but not pondered.

In John 12, we are told "...then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment..."

We read this passage, but we keep it at a safe distance--in the Holy Land, two thousand years away. Can you imagine a Baptist pastor having his shoes removed by a woman in the church, that she might anoint his feet with ointment, and wipe them with her hair?

It's a loving image, in the abstract, but in reality, if it were staged in a contemporary living room, it would seem beautiful to some, strange to others, and vaguely scandalous to quite a few. I think we understand much of the Word, refracted through a Victorian prism that falsely shades away an intimacy, and an honest affection, that is improperly called sin. In an age full of abortion, divorce, and sexual indiscretion of every sort, the faithful need to be on guard, but not to the point of preaching a false purity. We have heard tell of some Christian families who have decided their daughters will not even hold hands with the opposite sex until they are married. Not even hold hands.



I suppose my question would be: would washing the house guests' feet with their hair be allowed?

There is a real danger in creating our own gospel, in formulating a code of behavior that has no support in the Word, that strives to demonstrate a holiness that was never called for by God, and that--indeed--makes a mockery of true holiness.



It's difficult enough, in other words, to know and ponder and follow His law, without inventing crazy requirements of our own.