I was against the motion.
Now this doesn't mean that I think kids should be playing sports on Sunday instead of going to church, far from it. But I do understand how cause and effect work. That is, when the decision got made to have sports on a Sunday morning, it was only because they knew people would go to said sports that they became scheduled at that time. If the municipal sports leagues thought for one minute that nobody would go to the scheduled games because they'd all be at church, then nobody would schedule anything for Sunday morning. But, as you may have deduced, people weren't showing up for church, so alternatives began to get scheduled, and not the other way around.. This means that for us as Christians, when we look at the world we live in, we have to seriously wrestle with our expectations, and understand that we have missed the order that things come in. Most of us think that we ought to cancel sports, close shops and businesses, and make sure that there are no other viable options on Sunday morning. Because the things keeping people from going to church have always been, and will always be, that there are other options that are just too pressing and too important to pass up.
Well, uh, not quite.
The point that I was trying to make on Sunday, which I sincerely hope was picked up on, was that double-booking is both a smaller problem and a bigger problem than we think it is. Smaller in that there aren't real issues keeping people from going to church, but bigger in that people will always be double-booked, perpetually and forever. You yourself are double booked twenty four hours a day.
You and I, and everyone else, we understand that we have a few hours in the day where we have options as to what to do. We have choices to be made as to what we want to see, what we want to have happen, and what we want to get done. And when we do this, at every moment there are going to be things vying for our attention. All sorts of things. The illustration that I used on Sunday was to pretend that you are tasked with cleaning the bathroom, or emptying the catbox when you get home. When you get home, and you're standing in the bathroom, you think to yourself that there are possibly other jobs that you could or should be doing. All of a sudden, any other job, any other responsibility, will seem like a better job to do. Sorry, dear, I meant to get to the bathroom, but I noticed that dishes needed to be loaded into the dishwasher, that kind of thing. If you understand this issue on a micro scale, then you'll be able to understand this issue on a macro scale too. You'll be able to comprehend why it is that people don't head to church on Sunday morning, and why getting rid of alternate plans won't really help. It won't help because people aren't avoiding the church because their other options are so unskippable, but rather they're avoiding church because, in their estimation, almost anything else would be more pleasurable.
If we cancel absolutely everything on Sunday mornings, stores closed, businesses shuttered, no sports, kill the radio, kill TV signals, slow down cell service, throttle the internet, people still wouldn't show up if they already aren't. They would find something else to do.
You can't compete with the pillow, folks. You can't compete with the pillow, with walking the dog, with cleaning the house, if someone doesn't want to go to something, if they're looking for excuses not to go, then they will 100% find an excuse. No trouble at all .
So where does that put us? Well, the Gospel reading from Sunday tells us a lot about that. For Jesus, being fully God and fully man, he understands what people are all about. He understands what people are doing, what motivates them, and all that. And in the parable from Sunday, he tells us what it is that would keep people from the feast the king has scheduled. What was it that kept them from arriving at the feast? Well, not too much, to be quite honest. That is, they paid no attention, went off to their farms, and to their businesses. They went about their day-to-day, not caring too much about the message that came in, primarily because they had zero interest in going. Don't care, not going. It's dull, it's boring, I don't want to dress up, I don't want to buy a gift, these aren't even my friends, all that. And if you're the king, and you want these people to go, then you're not going to get very far by closing everything else down. They're not going because they're not interested, not because their day-to-day activities are so fascinating. That's not the issue. The issue is that they just don't care.
So, what to do, your highness? You can't cancel everything. You've sent the invites, and people aren't interested, so what to do? Well, this is the predicament that we are in in the modern church . We have invited everyone, we have made ready the space for them, we are preparing them to meet their king and Lord, and they aren't interested. The pillow is more captivating than the church service where they prepare to meet the Lord their God. So what to do? Not cancel sports on Sunday so they have no choice, but rather eventually to have sports on Sunday canceled because no kids are showing up. That's different, and it's a different take on the issue, on the problem. You can cancel whatever you want, and people would still sleep in. What you need to get people thinking is that church is so worth going to that they'd hate to sleep through it.
How is this miracle to be accomplished? Well, we have to get across the idea that this party is definitely worth going to. It isn't what you think it is, it's not the boring stuffy affair you're expecting, where everyone who is there hates the event, and cant' wait to leave. No, it's not that at all. For in the church, you will hear the most important, most exciting story ever told. You will hear about the presence of God almighty who took on flesh and dwelt among us, the story of God who decided that because we weren't going to come to him, he was going to come to us. And when he did, he cut through all the nonsense with which we insulate ourselves, and said to us
'I know and I understand who you are, and what you're all about. I know that you're only just barely getting away with it, you know. I know and understand that you're always on a razor's edge, only just getting by, only just escaping with your dignity intact. I know that if your friends, if your family knew what you really think, if they knew what you were really all about, they'd drop you like a rock. And you know that every time someone is revealed as being a deviant, being off centre, if they are ever found out to have gone against the narrative, or being strange or odd, then they will be destroyed by the machine. So you think you're the only one, the only one wearing a mask and getting by, while it's all turmoil and lies underneath. You think everyone else has it all together, and you're the only one desperately living a lie, one conversation away from being found out. But I, Jesus tell you that everyone else is living the same lie you are. There is none righteous, no not one. Nobody is keeping it together as well as they appear to be. Nobody has it figured out, nobody's got it cased. They're all as messed up and confused as you. So what you need to know is that I am here to give you meaning and purpose. All those things that you don't like that you did, I'll take that away. All the things you wish you had done, I will take the guilt upon myself, and nail it to my own palms. I can give you peace that the world cannot give, for the peace the world gives is very temporary indeed. It is lies, and it is deceit. But my peace is eternal, it is permanent, it surpasses all understanding. For a moment in time, for an hour, for a spell, you will not have to lie, and you will come away strong and powerful, you will come away blessed and forgiven, washed clean and anointed with the spirit. You will be given purpose, direction, a plan and a future.'
This is the party we are invited to. It might be worth sending an RSVP, and maybe not sleeping through.
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