Friday, March 30, 2012


Sam Spade Goes To Church


(Author’s note: this article is entirely fictional.  Any resemblance to real people in real churches is unfortunate.  To be read with a Humphrey Bogart accent.)

It was a Sunday much like any other Sunday.  I didn’t expect anything unusual to happen, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that when you think nothing will happen, that’s when it probably will.  Still I was lulled by the normalness of my Sunday routine so much I didn’t notice the visitors.  Not right away, that is.

I stepped up to the platform just the way I do every Sunday morning, and started arranging my notes on the podium.  “Good morning,” I said to the congregation, smiling as if I meant it.  “Good morning,” they all responded as if they meant it too.  For some, it was just the normal routine; others may have actually thought there was something good about the morning.  It didn’t make any difference to me; I had stalled them long enough to get my notes in order and was ready to go.

“Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark,” I told them, then watched as they did as they were told.  That’s when I saw the visitors.  Our church isn’t the big kind where visitors might pass unnoticed, but it didn’t matter, these people would have been noticed anywhere. They stuck out like a sore thumb that had suffered a brief but close encounter with a large and fast-moving hammer. 

A lot of people don’t wear their Sunday Best to church any more, but these people must have looked for their Sunday Worst.  Not only were the clothes not nice, but they weren’t fresh, either.  They were wrinkled and dirty, as if they’d been wearing nothing else for a week.  Judging from the distance others kept from them, they must have smelled that way, too.

The kids looked dirty and scared, and didn’t know how to sit in church.  We offer services for kids in another part of the church, but these adults kept them where they were, sitting close as if they were afraid to let them out of their sight.

I make it a practice to stick to my notes, so I didn’t say what was on my mind.  I faithfully read what was on the paper in front of me, and even tried to put some inflection into it, the way I would if I meant what I was saying.  But even as I prattled on about Jesus Christ and the love of God, I was deciding in my mind how I was going to handle the problem these people were to me.

Like I said, I’ve been in this business a long time, and I knew what was coming.  “Pastor, we’ve got a problem and we need some money.”  They’d need gas, food, maybe a place to stay.  I’d seen it all before and was tired of being used.  I rambled on about the love of God, but inside I was hellfire and brimstone.  All I needed was some small thing to set me off.  I was a bomb with a short fuse, and I knew they were the match.  None of this showed as I smiled and talked on and pretended to mean what I said.

After the final “Amen” I worked my way to the front door where I always stand and shake hands and everyone tells me what a fine sermon I gave and we all smile as if we mean it.  Our visitors waited until there was a lull, the way these people always do.  I was ready for them, and they weren’t getting any money out of me.  Not today.

The woman was holding one child, the other two hid behind her and the man, close, as if afraid that if they let go someone bad would get them.  She had tears in her eyes, but that didn’t fool me.  I’d seen tears before.  What I hadn’t seen was the twenty-dollar bill in the man’s hand.  He slipped it into mine as he shook my hand and said, “Thanks.  We just needed a place where we knew we’d be welcome,” then hurried out the door.  I looked out in time to see out of state plates on their car as they drove off.

I thought I’d been in this business long enough to know what it was all about, suddenly I felt like the King’s own fool.  Then I remembered that He doesn’t call many wise, noble, or honorable, but uses the foolish things to shame the wise.  I looked for someone to give that twenty to.  It was time to do something foolish.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Praying Like an Atheist

Some of the things I wrote were intended for a general audience; others were specifically for Christians.  This one is for Christians who pray because they're supposed to, even though they don't think it accomplishes anything.

Praying Like an Atheist

The bottom line is one of the two: either prayer changes things or it doesn’t.  Personally, I’m offended by statements like, “Prayer is good for the person praying,” or “Prayer changes the heart of the one praying.”  Yes, these are true statements, but they are the bare minimum of what you can say about prayer.  Based on these statements, any concerned atheist might recommend prayer as being good for one’s mental and emotional health.  I’d like to think we Christians expect more from prayer than atheists do.  Sometimes however, based on the prayers I hear, we don't.
Suppose your teenage son came to you looking for some money.  “Dear father, I’d like to go on a date,” he says, “and if it’s your will and doesn’t conflict with your plans for me, I’d appreciate some help financially.  If there’s some reason you might not think it best for me at this time to have money for a date, that’s fine.  Help me to accept your will with grace, and give me wisdom to understand.  Give me the grace to go on a date without money, or help me to understand that I should not go on a date at all.  So long as I’m pleasing to you, dad.  Your will be done.  Thank you.”
As a father, I’d be likely to give this kid money just to shut him up, except it sounds like maybe he doesn’t want to go on a date and I’m the excuse he’s looking for.  If I did give him the money, he’d actually have to take the girl out!  What does he really want?  His requests seem contradictory.
Seeking clarification, you tell your son, “Just tell me what you want.”
He responds, “Dad, I want $30.00.”
Now that you know what he wants, you can respond intelligently.  “You want $30, go get a job.  In my day....”
You’ve probably noticed, however, that children don’t ask for things in a round-about way.  They simply say what they want.  Why might that be?  Duh!  (Duh is a theological term, based on the Greek word 'du' which means duh.)  Your kids tell you what they want because they really want what they want!  More than that, they actually see a connection between asking for what they want and getting what they want!  Like every other parent, I sometimes (pronounced “usually”) say no.  But at least hearing “No” lets a child know where he is.  A vague non-request is likely to receive a vague non-answer.
Many Christians pray prayers, publicly at least, that are not prayers at all.  These requests are so safely couched in terms that give God the option of doing anything or everything - or nothing - and still answering the prayer, that I wonder if God even listens.  These prayers don’t actually ask for anything.
I think safe prayers are prayed by people who don’t believe God answers prayer, but are afraid to admit it.
Look for a safe prayer in your Bible.  You will find pleading, argument, complaint, and urgent intercession, but no prayers that give God options A through D.  The safest example of prayer you might find is the “Our Father.”  Why is it safe?  Because it is a generic model prayer, rather than an actual prayer.  It is not the result of specific needs or wants, so does not express specific needs or wants.  Which makes it safe, and likely explains it’s popularity for repetition.
Look instead to Elijah’s example.  God tells us to praqy like Elijah, who  "prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.  And he prayed again, and the sky poured rain.... (James 5:17-18)”  That’s a bold prayer, held forth as an example of how God answers the prayers of His people.  Not only was it a bold prayer, but God answered it clearly.  In part because He could understand what Elijah really wanted.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Taking out the Trash

I've been writing columns for twenty years.  Some of the things I wrote were - I hate to admit - filler.  Something to write because there's space for it to be written and a deadline for the written space.  Some of the things, though, were pretty good!  And hopefully, some of them were helpful as well.
Being something of a digital saver, I've got hundreds of these old articles stored up.  Perhaps I should have trashed them long ago, but now I'm going to take out the trash in a whole 'nother way.  One article at a time.  I do this in the hopes that you may find something of value in them.
My intent is to create something of an archive to make them searchable by topic - don't know how to do that yet, but I'm hoping the learning curve kicks in as I work on these things.
To start it all off, here's an oldie from 2001 that I've remembered with some pleasure:

THE DEVIL CAR

     "Dad, would you like to buy that brown car?"  "Thanks, but I don't need it."

     "Dad, I'll sell you that brown car cheap."  "Thanks, but no."

     "Dad, if you want it, you can have that brown car for free."  "Sorry.  No."

     "Dad, I have to get rid of that brown car.  Will you please come get it?"  He even gave me a ride there, I think to make sure I'd really show up.  Then, of course, I wouldn’t have another way home, either.

     First, he popped the hood.  This is a three-step procedure in which you pull the lever under the dash, then block it so it doesn't release, then use a screwdriver and pry up the front of the hood.  I think this is a marvelous technique and should be copied by Detroit as a battery-theft deterrent.

     Then he added water to the radiator.  Then he added transmission fluid.  Then he added oil.  Then he didn't add anything to the power steering pump.  He said it was useless.  The radio works well enough to annoy you.  The ashtray falls out.  Staples hold the ceiling liner in place.  The tires are okay.  As long as I have it, this will be called the Devil Car.

     It is a hundred-mile drive.  In about ten miles, the hood started bouncing.  At thirty miles, it was overheating.  I drove by Spaldings wrecking yard.  If I had another ride home, the car would have gone no farther.  By the time I drove up Sunset Hill, it was starting to shift on me.  When I stopped to add transmission fluid, I found a tool still blocking the hood release lever.  At least the hood stayed in place for the last 30 miles. 

     At what point do you say something is beyond redemption?  The Devil Car seemed like a good candidate for the honor.  The thing is, I was already the owner, and had brought the car from Idaho.  It cost $120 just to get it titled in Washington!  I had to at least try to do something with that investment.  So I started tinkering.  Very few dollars and a little time, and it's not overheating any more.  Tighten a few loose bolts, and the transmission no longer leaks.  Same somewhere else, and the power steering works.  Six bucks at U-Pull, and the hood pops open and the ashtray doesn't.

     So I repeat: at what point is beyond redemption?  And what if that something is a person?  I would like to suggest to you that we often give up on people too quickly.  We look at people, and we judge them good or bad.  Sometimes, intelligently, we observe them, watch their actions and attitudes, and accurately assess their character.  Then we judge them.  We may even judge them correctly.

     The thing is, in Jesus Christ people have a new owner.  He holds our title in another place.  And we are bought with a price - He has an investment in us He wants to protect.  So He starts Tinkering.  Tinkering is tinkering with a capital T.

     God has a remarkable record with wrecks that appear beyond redemption.  Father Abraham lied and hid behind his wife.  Moses was a fugitive murderer.  David was an adulterous murderer.  Jonah was a mean old grouch.  Peter denied Jesus three times, Thomas refused to believe, and Paul persecuted Christians.  God made something wonderful out of each.

     Sometimes we look at a person and think he’s beyond redemption.  Sometimes we think that way about ourselves.  Maybe under the current ownership they are.  But if you change the title, the new owner is called "the Redeemer," and He's pretty good at what He does.

     I've been thinking of a personalized license plate for the Devil Car.  See if you can figure it out: DVLNOMO

www.stevemclachlan.com