Those Pesky Chairs

You gotta love the guy that came up with "It's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic".

My quick Google search says it may have been one Rogers Morton (1919-1979), a U.S. Public Relations Officer (not sure what that officer does), who was quoted in the Washington Post on May 16, 1976 as saying:

"I'm not going to rearrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic."

In actuality, I think Jesus said it first when he told the religious biggots of his day "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." (Luke 11:39)

I love that scripture. In all frankness, it's probably because I have a strong measure of cynicism running through my veins. I find much of the pomp and circumstance we perform in church buildings on Sunday morning as not much more than window dressing. Tired exercises that mask a frustrating life of wondering why we continue to sin and act foolishly, yet we perform religious acts on Sunday in our best threads as if our lives are very near perfect.

What Jesus is saying of course to this highly "religious" man is -- you perform outward acts of traditional worship without a thought or concern of what's going on in your heart - and that is dead wrong (literally).

Why can't we be authentic and honest and quit doing pretend worship?

I attended a youth conference a few weeks ago and one of the senior ministers - a fine, sincere man - pleaded with the young folks to be more authentic and sincere than what they observe.

Kinda like - do what I say, not what I do I suppose.

Here's my take - it's fear. The legalistic fear that if we actually obey scripture and confess our sins, others will think less of us. And, we certainly don't want that now do we. For others, pride masks the fear, thus, they scoff at the notion they're fearful of something.

Having said that, I do see strong glimmers of hope all around me. Many missional and growing churches have this figured out. Smaller urban churches are based purely on the love and authenticness of Jesus -- and they are flourishing.

The Titanic (our body) is going down -- let's focus on what matters.