The Royal Mask of Piety

It was a typical Sunday night. The air was warm and inviting to the people inside the building. In fact it seemed to call them like sirens to leave the enclosed confines and be baptised in the Spring sunset. But this was church and the people gathered were not only the committed...they were the committed religious. They resisted such temptations because they had an image to keep up and they had become the religious professionals. Their open gathering every Sunday night was held like a badge in the community evidencing that they were committed to God and proved that their devotional practice rose above the Sunday morning church attender. To God, they were the cream of the crop...faithful, studious, and devout practitioners of the letter of God's authoritative Word.

The usual assembly of familiar faces created a sense of comfortable acceptance and control. Everyone knew everyone...at least the religious faces they wore upon arrival. With a mask of worship and piety others admired them and God certainly looked upon them as the chosen ones. During the worship they proudly held their traditional hymnals and sang each song with a note of familiarity and pride...they were getting the words correct and even sang the parts with great harmony. They smiled at each other and felt right at home.

Then he walked in.

His more than casual clothing seemed irreligious. Doesn't he know that this is God's sanctuary and that His requirement was to wear our best? He walked in right off the street and then just sat in a pew by himself without a word. Chains from his pockets and tattoos seemed inappropriate and out of place. A leather coat and leather pants seemed at odds with the shirts, ties, and dresses of the faithful. The religious kept one eye on their hymnals and another on him. Their cross eyed facial expressions began to take the note of silent whispers among themselves about his identity and where he came from. To make matters even more fidgety, he was Hispanic. In an assembly of stayed white reformed middle age adults a twenty-something Hispanic carried a neon light that disturbed the religious air.

The looks continued but no one said a word to him.

The pastor started his sermon but no one was listening. The stares continued with a certain "nose direction" pointing upward. And then the pastor did the unthinkable...he started talking to the Hispanic man in the middle of his sermon. The night air became very thick and still and the religious piety feared for his life and their own. Could their be a gun or knife underneath those garments and chains? Please God protect him and us!

Now he is even making him stand out on the floor with him! He seems so irreligious and out of place...so common and unacceptable for such a place as this. Worry and uncomfortable tension cause the piety to sit wide-eyed and waiting.

He answers a question from the pastor and indicates that he is a missionary training to go to Mexico for full time ministry.

The smiles broaden across the crowd and the heads began to nod in religious approval. A collective "sigh" swung through the crowd as once again the piety felt at home in the sanctuary.

It's amazing how much love they showed him after the service was finally over!

The message from the pastor that night was on James 2:

If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, "Sit here sir; this is the best seat in the house!" and either ignore the street person or say, "Better sit here in the back row," haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted? Listen, dear friends, isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first class citizens with full rights and privileges. The kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. (The Message)

As the pastor, I planted the man as an object lesson.

In our religiosity, we have forgotten the Royal Law of Love and assumed the Royal Mask of Piety.

I think God must be sick.