"Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.”
“I am not worthy.” I’ve heard those words before.
Usually, those words come from the mouths of husbands who have not been to church in years and they sound something like this, “Pastor, if I walked into the church, God would cause the roof to fall in.” It is a bit of humor that covers the actual words, “I am not worthy.”
Why do not people feel worthy? Why does not the soldier feel worthy? I do not know, the bible does not say.
Maybe, the soldier is a cruel slave owner and in some way contributed to the illness of a very valuable slave. Perhaps, because of that, he feels guilty.
Maybe, the soldier is not cruel at all, but considers the slave one of his family and cannot stand to see him suffer. Yet the soldier feels unworthy to approach God because of his occupation and the violence that it entails.
Maybe, it is simply because he feels as if he is the wrong race. He is not Jewish after-all. Maybe, he does not feel like he belongs in the synagogue he has helped to support.
Maybe, he has killed many people as a soldier, and perhaps, he has at times killed the wrong person.
Whichever possibility is the real one (if any of these), they all boil down to the same muttering of truth, “I am not worthy” to be near you Lord. “I am not worthy.”
“If I entered your church pastor, lightning surely would strike me dead, and probably you too,” he said when I invited him to come to church with his wife.
We laughed. I told him to come anyway,
“No one bites…well almost…just stay away from the babies.”
I thought it was an exquisite joke, but, he did not laugh.
“Pastor, have you ever been in the military?” he asked.
“No, but my younger brother is,” I answered.
“There are some things you just can't understand unless you’ve been there.”
“Give me a try,” I said.
“We were guarding a crossroads,” he started. “We would check people as they came through to make sure they weren’t armed. It sounds boring, but it’s not. Enemy combatants who are hiding arms are either highly nervous and dangerous, or they try to ambush you.
One day, I was a ways off from the crossroads, protecting the whole scene. I could see that one of those nervous and dangerous types was approaching. I was ready to fire when he made a sudden move. He did. And, I did. Shots were fired.
Turns out, he wasn’t the nervous and dangerous type, he was just the nervous type. I won’t say too much more about it other than two innocent people ended up dead that day.
So pastor, what does God think of soldiers who kill innocent people? I’ll still send in my church envelopes periodically, but I won’t be coming. The church is not a place for people like me.”
In other words he said, “I am not worthy.”
In quite a different way, I once heard of a confirmation student who refused to come to her confirmation service, though she completed all of her course work. No one knew why she refused to be confirmed, until years later when she revealed that she didn’t have a nice dress to wear and it broke her heart to ask her struggling parents to buy one.
Again, “I am not worthy.”
There are so many reasons why people cry out, “I am not worthy.” There are so many reasons why people voluntarily build a wall between themselves and the church…and in so doing can involuntarily build a well between themselves and God.
What would Jesus do in such a situation, where someone voluntarily closes themselves away from God’s people? What would Jesus do if they needed help?
You already know the answer, so before I state the obvious, I would like to point out another truth that I see in church.
I have seen the glances that are flung toward the people who do not feel worthy to be in church. I have heard the rumblings from church people when someone who does not fit the mold wanders in. Heck, I have probably thrown some of those glances myself.
Of course, I have also seen lots and lots of welcome and care given to these very people; lots of it. There are always people like the Jewish elders who were thankful for all that the soldier had done for their community.
But, one thing to always remember (as I was taught in a psychology class) is that for every negative experience that we have, it can take 20 positive experiences to overcome the negative one.
It is hard enough to make the decision to come to a place that is uncomfortable for you in the first place. It is hard enough to have faith that all will go well with you. One comment or sideways glance can destroy your courage…your faith.
However, one day many years ago, one man’s faith was not destroyed. His fragile “I’m not worthy” faith was not harmed. As he sat at home next to his ill slave, the slave was suddenly healed. The soldier asked, and it was given. The soldier sought and he did find. He did not feel worthy for good things to happen to him, but Jesus provided the good things anyway. His faith was honored, and his hope was fulfilled.
That is the way God works after-all, giving grace and healing to the unworthy. Going the extra mile for those who do not even know where the mile is. Going to the cross for the unworthiness in us all.
Christ’s church, after-all, is not a museum honoring saints, it is a hospital for sinners. As clichéd as that statement it, it points us to the truth of the eternal one who died for us all. It points to the one who cares about the unworthy. It points to the one who can see the faith within the unworthy one. It points to the grace of Jesus Christ, the one whose name we wear upon our forehead, a mark given at baptism to last for eternity.
“You are right, I’ve never experienced anything like that, but I swear I am no better than you. There is a reason my clerical shirt is mostly black with just a tab of Christ’s white righteousness. You can always come church,” I told the soldier. “But, even if you can’t come, is it OK if I still come out to you?”
“Of course, that’s OK pastor,” he responded. Sometimes faith is found among “the unworthy” of the world. It is amazing the places God’s grace can reach.
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