Adding

 Okay, remember how I mentioned Pierre Berton's 'the comfortable pew' on Sunday? If you don't remember that, I'd like to mention that in his recollection of what he didn't like about going to church as a child was that he was hungry in church. Not that unusual, of course, but what was unusual was that he was hungry because he wasn't allowed to eat anything before he had Holy Communion that day. That is, Holy Communion had to be the first thing to pass his lips that day. 

Okay, but why?

Who asked you to do that? It wasn't God, you know. And so too, we have seen twitter users recently claiming that for Lent they're going to stop using twitter, and then when they inevitably get on and tweet more than they ever did before, they remind everyone that lent isn't about giving something up, guys. It's about spiritual discipline, and so on and so on.

Okay, but why? And who asked you to give up twitter? Or anything?

The thing is, as a Christian, you have to think about what it is Paul wrote in our Epistle reading from Sunday - you have to discern what is pleasing to God. It's tough to do, you know, to work out what it is that God wants, and it's all the harder when you are listening to two voices on the topic. And it's not necessarily the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. In fact, frequently, it's God on one shoulder, and you on the other. You may very well conflict with God based not on what the devil wants, but based on what you want. And that's tougher. 

By and large, that gets so conflated that you end up evangelizing not with the pure Christian gospel, but instead the Gospel as filtered through you. And that ends up being a major problem, given that you are going to present to the world a Christian faith that is very particular to yourself, and likely not as particular for the person to whom you are presenting it. And that makes it a very difficult sell. The reason it's such a hard sell is that if the faith that you are bringing to someone is the faith about you not the faith about Christ, then you're asking people to believe in the idol that you've made for yourself.

It's so easy to fall into as well, these extra steps that seem so good and so necessary. Don't drink any wine, don't dance, no playing cards, no staying out too late, no dating, all this stuff that seems so good and helpful but in reality is a barrier to the faith. You will find, over and over again, that people will disagree not so much with the faith of the scriptures, but with the extra steps that you show to them. You will show them that Jesus loves them, he cares for them, he dies to forgive their sins, but then you add to it with your cool fun political takes that don't belong. And that's the hard part. It's hard to admit sometimes that the thing you add is what actually subtracts from the appeal, but we all have to understand that sometimes things are just right, and that if you add anything to it, it can only get worse.

This is evident in film, of course, where you have a classic film, like Ghostbusters or Psycho or whatever, and someone decides to remake it. Some films are so good that nothing can be added to them without making them worse. The only question in making those films is to ask 'if it is different, then your changes made it worse. If it is the same, your film was unnecessary.' Even the original filmmakers come back and work on their projects again, if the project was any good in the first place, it will almost always turn out worse.

Part of what you have to understand, and it's hard, is that you are an ambassador of Christ. You are there to represent him as your savior. And if you represent him as your savior but with certain strings attached, all you'll do is to hold him back. You won't make it good or better for everyone if the Lord exclusively works within your paradigm. Instead, you will present to them a very small God indeed. A God that is exclusive to you.

One of the things that the Israelites learned was that unlike the nations around them who worshiped very small gods, the Israelites worshiped a God who seemed to know that other nations existed. A God who made moral pronouncements that affected the nation within as well as the nations without. A God who was truly and genuinely concerned about the welfare not just of one people, but of all people. And every time they tried to put strings on that, the story got worse, the same that we do. But God does call them back, to repentance, to clarity, and to his word, so that they can see that in its purity, the grace of God is sufficient.