All about "me"

“I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing

than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”

― E.E. Cummings

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Someone once posited a question

Can we ever do anything that is essentially selfless

Tough question

There are of course those moments when it is clearly

“all about me”

When I am striving, seeking, grasping

Looking for power, or wealth or, perhaps, affection, romance

Even love

But even when I think I am serving others….

Am I really?

Or am I doing it so I will look good, feel good, feel more worthy?

Am I doing it because it will earn me “points” with God?

I think this is one of the big problems with the church

We have moved from being a people for others,

To being people are fundamentally focused on us?

When we reach out

When we welcome people into our midst

When we do so much of what we do, to grow the church

Is it not really, to a great degree, about us?

“Hey look at us! We are growing!

We have young families!  We have a new building!

We are the spiritual hot commodity!”

I know we think we are doing it for God,

But I wonder

And I wonder if this is not why we struggle with inclusion

Why we struggle with the poor, the wounded, the addicted, the messed up

Because there is far less satisfaction in staying with the guy who shows up at worship drunk

Then in flaunting the person in successful recovery

Rachel Held Evans has it right in her book, “Searching for Sunday”.  She writes: So many “people fit right into church until… the divorce, the diagnosis, the miscarriage, the depression, someone comes out, someone asks a question, an uncomfortable truth is spoken out loud. And what they find is when they bring their pain or their doubt or their uncomfortable truth to church, someone immediately grabs it out of their hands to try to fix it, to try to make it go away. Bible verses are quoted. Assurances are given. Plans with ten steps and measurable results are made. With good intentions tinged with fear, Christians scour their inventory for a cure.

We must cure them, and way too much of the reason is, well

Us

I do believe that we have good hearts (bless our souls)

I do believe we want others to find peace, and joy, and wholeness

I just fear that all too often,

the “me” gets in the way

and we buy into a faith that is about us

and our individual salvation, and our blessing

the “me” gets in the way

and we find it difficult to stick with people whose response to our efforts

is “disappointing” to say the least.

Thanks God for those moments

When we are confident enough in God’s love

And grace

And blessing

To get past ourselves

And make it

All about

“him” or “her”

yes, that person right over there!