(…continued) Next, let’s take the objection concerning money. Here I might get a little defensive. Even Phil Robertson one time made a little jab at preachers about this one. Phil Robertson (1946-2025) is the bearded patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan. He is a good Christian man, and I once heard him say he even does a little speaking in churches. But he was quick to add, “I am not a preacher; preachers are those guys that are always asking for money, and that’s not what I do in church.”
Well, I like Phil Robertson. He is a funny guy and he is a good witness to his faith. But he is in the business of selling duck calls, and I have seen his displays at Fleet Farm, and guess what. He is always asking for money for those duck calls. Always. He has to, of course. He has people hired, bills to pay, materials to buy, and a building to keep up.
And so does the church.
Except the church isn’t always asking for money. We always take an offering, but in every church I have ever been in, you can let that offering basket go right on by without putting anything in it, and the ushers don’t say a word; and you are allowed to stay sitting right where you are, and nobody even gives you a dirty look. (But if you walked out of Fleet Farm with a duck call you did not pay for, you might be in trouble.) Once in a while, the pastor or someone from the council has to remind church members of their responsibilities, or inform them of particular needs. And granted, there are ministers that do talk too much about money. But even those ministers aren’t always doing that.
What most churches are always doing is being very generous, because that is what Jesus wants us to do with our resources. So, we aren’t always asking for money, but we are always giving it away.
Look at what we do here. We host the local Food Shelf and four days a week we hand out free food. Once a week we have the fellowship hall full of donated clothing, and people can take what they want for free. Once a month we make several hundred sandwiches for the homeless, and, we are the main source of support for an orphanage and school in Haiti. We are very generous in allowing the use of our space for weddings and funerals; even for people who have never given us a dime. Of course, we have to have some guidelines and some nominal fees for that, or else we would be swamped and have to quit doing everything else.
We are always giving something away. That’s what Christians do. Most churches are always very generous in many ways, even though they sometimes do have to ask for money.
Another reason people say they stay away from church is because church people are so judgmental. This charge of being judgmental is an interesting one. If someone says I am judgmental, aren’t they making a judgment about me? Of course, we all have to make judgments about others every day. Parents have to make judgments about their children’s behavior, teachers have to make judgments about their student’s performance, employers have to make judgments about their employees’ work, and so on. The Bible itself goes back and forth on this, sometimes telling us to discern well and make good wise judgments, other times telling us to ‘judge not.’ It all depends on what kind of judgments we are making and for what purpose and in what spirit.
In Romans 14, Paul addresses some differences of opinion about how to observe sacred days, and about what food should or should not be eaten by the new Christians in Rome. Paul says these are disputable matters, implying that good people of faith may disagree. Then he says “Let us stop passing judgment on one another.” He also adds an important caution, saying in verse ten, “Why do you treat others with contempt, for we will all stand before God’s judgment seat?”
In the church we always have to be making judgments about what is right and what is wrong. God calls us to live good and obedient lives, and it will always be a challenge to figure out what that means. And we want to get this right, for Paul also says in verse 12 “Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.” But, Paul adds, we must do this without treating people with ‘contempt’ so as to put a stumbling block in the way of a brother or sister; not as a church, and not in our daily conversations. We have a lot going on in our society these days, and there is an ever-widening cultural divide. We all have far too much contempt for each other. As a church, we are indeed called upon to make judgments on moral issues, but it must be done without contempt, even if we are being treated with contempt. (continued…)
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