I went to a church today.
I don't go to church services much these days. When I do, it's not at the place I used to consider my "church family". I've worked out most of my differences with most of the people there. I'm glad about that. I really liked those people, and I miss them. But not enough to subject myself to certain intolerances and discriminations by certain people within that body of believers. No thanks. I've never been one to "throw the baby out with the bathwater", so to speak, but in this case, one can only take so much before you throw everything out the window, including the towel.
So after months and months, maybe it's been a year, I don't know, but I went today. I've been to this church a couple of times before and I really liked it. But today, it just irritated me. I won't say the name of the church, because they are new, and "finding themselves", so they don't have a pastor, and they have a different guest speaker every week. So I think it's hit and miss sometimes. I'd say today was a "miss", at least for me.
It was your typical older man, suit and tie, with a conservative mindset to match. He had is radio voice on, and his calculated mannerisms. And of course, his sermon is one that is heard across churches throughout this contenent. Patriarachal guilt mostly, about how we must remember to put God first, and church first, and bible college first. But no, we ignorant and silly people continue to seek education with the focus of making money, and our focus is on our jobs, and our possessions and our outfits (said the man in his spiffy suit). We hope for this and we hope for that, but we forget about our great hope in heaven. And he pulled out story after story to drive the same point home over and over again. It was so redundant, I started to mentally check out.
Just another typical sermon, by a typical, white, middle class conservative male. Nothing new or interesting here.
(Cue the adult voice from any Charlie Brown cartoon)
But I became especially irritated when he mentioned the young person who died by suicide from Providence College last year. He mentioned speaking to the parents of this young person, and how even though they had wave after wave of blackness overwhelming them after they lost their child, they still had that ultimate hope. Ok, if that IS true for them, then I am glad, because I can't think of anything worse than losing a child, and especially losing one that way so I'm glad they found something to hold onto. However, what irritated me was that this kids death was minimized by the speaker. If we're gonna talk about hope, why can't we look at why that person lost their hope? Or even generally, what causes someone to lose all of their hope? There is a gap in the church's knowledge of WHY this happens. We can't always fill that gap with pat answers like "maybe he didn't trust God enough" or some other such corn starch filler. We may not know why people choose suicide sometimes, but I can guarantee you, there is ALWAYS a reason. Maybe he had a mood disorder, maybe he lost a friend, maybe he was failing school, maybe he was molested, or maybe he was verbally and emotionally beaten into the ground for years and just couldn't take it anymore. NONE of that was addressed or even acknowledged. Not only that, but even the grief of the parents was minimized to the pat answer of their "hope in the Lord". Not only was it minimized, but it was exploited by the speaker, to provide drama to a very mundane sermon. Shame on you!
There's nothing wrong with holding onto hope in the Lord. Sometimes, it can feel like that's all you have, and that's when it really counts in your life. I've definately been there. But "Reverend Lovejoy" didn't inspire any of that (or anything else) in me. I wonder if anyone else felt that way?
There is an article about this tragedy
(about the boy who died by suicide, not the sermon).
You can view it here:
http://www.christianweek.org/features.php?id=62
I just wish there were more people offering sermons that actually mean something. I'm so tired of arrogant fluff. I have heard a few good sermons, but they are few and far between. *sigh*
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