Religious Performance, Onstage Now
It’s amazing what stupid things people will start a disagreement over. I get tired of it.
Currently, there’s an individual in our church who has really made a muck-up of a lot of things for a lot of years. Well, okay. There’s a couple of them. And I’m sure my turn will come too. In any case, the current fool recently brought me to an anger level I haven’t experienced since before I was born again. It’s a funny thing; trusting Jesus’ payment for your sins makes you a new creation, and you’re so thrilled with the freedom and the relative peace of that new life . . . and then, over the years, things get complicated again.
I’ve been through a few lessons like this in the last two years. I guess God’s trying to tell me I have to live my own faithfulness, and learn not to feel it so much when others aren’t faithful. Or even how others respond to my attempts at faithfulness, because it can be quite negative when it challenges their comfort zone.
It’s not supposed to be about me anyway. It’s just that we get this dog-biscuit mentality. “Look, Jesus, You said sit, and I’m sitting right here in my pew every week. You said fetch, and I brought that guy to church. How come I don’t get a reward out of this?†No cookies, and God’s a big meanie. Isn’t it supposed to be simple? Do the right things and get a blessed life?
No.
Life in Christ is simple, yes. But performance is actually complicated. I guess I see it differently because I didn’t grow up religious. “Do the right things and get a life of blessing†isn’t actually in the Bible, it’s in the culture. Like, hello. I was raised on that.
Do your high school courses, and get to go to university. Do your university, and get a good job. Do the right things, and get rich and famous, or become a world-changing guru of deep meaning, or whatever. Achieve and win the prize.
But I’d already wrecked my life by age 18. It was easy to reject performance in favour of “for Your name’s sake, Jesus, pardon my crimes, for they are huge.†(Ps. 25:11) Not for the sake of what I’ve done.
This guy at church has been trying to force a performance-based mentality (complete with his arbitrary set of rules) on my husband and a lot of other people for years now. The guy’s gone to some pretty delusional lengths to vilify my man for not complying. I’ve quit talking to the little monster for now, which has him wigged out. With him, it’s all about how things look. Heaven forbid someone see visible signs of a problem and get the “wrong†idea. This man’s existence consists of paranoia over what someone might think if something isn’t “right.â€
You have to pity a person like that . . . and then move on for the sake of reality.
