How does the world expect Christians to act? Should we care? Does it matter?
On Saturday night, I will be involved in a wedding. I do not know the parties, have never met even one member of the family on either side. I have not been involved in counseling the couple or setting the vows. I am filling in for a minister friend of mine who has been involved with them for some time. He had an unexpected surgical procedure this week and can’t officiate for the couple as he had hoped. He got in touch with me, asked if I’d cover for him, and the rest will be history after Saturday I suppose.
The young lady isn’t a member of my friend’s church, probably never will be. She isn’t in a position to do a lot for either him or the church financially. And there are some complicating factors in her situation. My friend was very open and honest with me, and so I got past any proclivities to doing the ceremony I might have had rather quickly.
My first conversation with the young lady (the bride) however has left me with an interesting pondering. She was so thrilled to find someone to help that she was profuse in her thanks. I tried to quickly quash this, as I am happy to help. But then she asked me a question and made a comment that has me still scratching my head. She asked, “Why are you all being so nice to me?” I gave her my best answer, that we were doing this in the name of Jesus. She said that she knew we were Christians, even ministers, but just didn’t expect “even us” to act this way, to give this much.
Is that how the world thinks? That even we Christians can’t love this much? Well then shame on us. It is the very job of the Christian to show the world love it doesn’t deserve. It is the job of the Christian to be the hands, the feet, the voice . . . the heart of Christ. Doing exactly that is exactly what “they” should expect from “us.” Maybe we have gotten to busy trying to figure out which pronoun fits whom? I don’t know, but if the expectations of the bride in Saturday night’s service are accurate, then Christians have some work to do. We need to change the expectation!