Not That I Am Ever a Jerk
June 23, 2007 by Veronica Mitchell
I am always nonplussed by statements like “If I were not a Christian, I’d be a…” The practice of conversion (or reformation for my fellow Protestants) involves profound changes of heart and mind and soul so that our imaginations themselves become baptized, and asking me to imagine what I would be like if I were not a Christian is like asking me to see without using my eyes. All this is a long preamble to say that the following is the closest I will ever come to making one of those “If I were not a Christian…” statements, and here it is:
Find me a religion with no a***oles, and I will join it in a heartbeat.
Yep. I’d pretty much take that as an irrefutable sign from God. I have spent lots of time in churches and in other faith and interfaith settings, and you can’t escape them. Mean people are everywhere.
There was the Sunday that JellyBean kept kicking off her shoes, so much that we finally gave up and left the shoes in the car so they wouldn’t get lost and we let her go to Sunday School in her bare feet, and one of the smug and crabby old ladies in the church looked at my little girl, looked at me and said in her haughtiest disapproving voice, “Are you too poor to buy your kids shoes?”
Or the time at our Jewish graduate school when I walked into the cafeteria to see one student sitting near a locked glass door, while another student banged on it, to no avail. The student outside found a way around into the cafeteria, and greeted us all by shouting, “People are SO F***ING RUDE!”
Indeed.
I could go on. The truth is that looking for a church or synagogue or mosque or what-have-you will be an endlessly frustrating task if your standard is “a place without jerks.” Jerks abound. If you keep a group very, very small, you might avoid them, but even then, it won’t last. There will be an argument about something: meeting times, planned activities, choosing a leader or, worst of all, redecorating, and the argument will reveal that sweet Susie Smith has always thought you were too fat and by the way, where did you find that loser husband of yours?
At some point in my life I just gave up on finding a perfect church. In fact, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t find the perfect church. Christians are supposed to love people, and I’m not sure it really counts when the people we love are, well, lovable. It’s the jerks who teach us who we really are and if that conversion thing really is happening in us.
So the next time I am sitting in the fellowship hall after worship, and the bitter old man next to me starts to rant about how the single, black mothers in my neighborhood are ruining the city, I will still hassle him (”ya know, God hears you when you talk like that”), but I will also take a deep breath and try to remember that Jesus loves the old fart and I am supposed to, too.
Because I strongly suspect I may be an old fart with my own issues someday. Ya think?
This is the type of thing, that when I read it, makes me want to stand up and give you a standing ovation in front of my computer! Of course, my husband and children just wouldn’t get it and might start wondering about my sanity.
That is exactly it! It is easy to love the lovable, something which I fail to be at least part of any given day.
I am living in the gospel of Luke these days. You sure brought the words from Luke 6:32-36 home in this post.
Kate
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Preach it sister! Amen!
You have hit upon something I have long thought. If a person is a jerk before they get saved, they become a saved jerk. The difference is that although God always loved them, they finally know that they love The Lord. The trick is for the rest of us to find it in our hearts to love jerks — saved or not. No church is perfect, only Christ. Isn’t it a shame to think that His Bride does not measure up?
great post and so close to what was tumbling around in my own mind this morning.
I, too, am always perfect. I have a painful problem - I LOVE my congregation (so loving! so supportive! so ideal in almost every way!) while really, really feeling alienated from the theology of the main church body. And I can’t figure out what my solution to this should be.
Oh how I adore thee Veronica. You are wise. And spunky. And definitely on your way to snarky Old Fartdum.
what is that quote about ‘I love you God, but your people are driving my crazy’? As someone who has not only spent her life in church, but has always either worked for one, or lived with someone who worked for one, I have seen that God’s people do not always behave Christ-like (as one friend once put it… “I thought your husband worked at a church, not a sorority”). But… God calls us all, the perfect (you and me, of course) and the old and snarky, as well as the young and bumbling, and the middle aged and bitter, and the self-righteous pricks of all ages (hmm… since I just called myself perfect, perhaps I belong in this group, instead). We all need forgiveness, no? Good thing we all know where to get it. Oh. and let’s start that church with no a**holes. i’ll sing in the choir.
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Ha! I love this post. One of our pastors once said that “the meanest person in the world is a mean Christian.” I think I totally agree with him!