Holy Father Church

May 11, 2015
Holy Father Church 

               “We are all selfish beasts and without knowing quite why, we have so little
                insight into ourselves.” – Uncle Albert

We went to a Presbyterian church yesterday, one we were assured would ignore Mother’s Day, because, to paraphrase that Israelite without guile, the disciple Nathanael (John 1:46-57), “Can anything good come out of Kansas City?

It was dismally awful. The music was mournful; the preaching was somber. (The text was the tenth commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”)

What does he keep under his hat, our John?

     The music was mournful, but the Confession of Sin was like the singing of a National Anthem by a proud chorus of Montenegrins: “We have sinned, Almighty God, in thought, word, and deed. We have let the enemy put unkind, unholy, and unprofitable thoughts into our minds; we have failed to think the thoughts of love, peace, and righteousness Your Spirit would have given us had we asked. We have said things we ought not to have said, and withheld words of kindness, blessed reproof, and praise when they should have been said. We have been busy about many things that should not have occupied our time, and we have neglected to do those things that would have served others and pleased You. Therefore we condemn ourselves before You. We can only plead that Your grace and mercy be upon us, to forgive our sins, heal our broken places, and return us unto ways that are profitable to your kingdom: through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

It rolled off our self-satisfied tongues like that patriotic hymn learned by heart; then . . . silence. The lugubrious preacher had for this one moment the comic timing of a Henny Youngman – the right silence, precisely the right weight, timed to the second and: “God is merciful as well as just, ever ready to forgive us, his erring children. As far as the East is from the West, so far let the Lord put your sins from you. I declare it so: in the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.”

     So he declared, perfectly timed; but I was let down. Why? What had I hoped for? Maybe something like this: “God is merciful as well as just, but frankly today he has his justice hat on. Don’t just sing your sins. Go fix that shit. By that I do not mean the fog of ‘unkind,’ ‘unholy,’ or ‘unprofitable.’ At least try to fix stuff you’ve actually done.”

It was a Presbyterian Church. Surely, had he said that, the Session would have called an emergency meeting for immediately after worship. The matter of God’s resolute justice would have been referred to the presbytery. A task force would have been formed, the greatest talkers of each theological stripe brought together to speak the truth boldly (and hold hard to their heart-felt grudges against one another). They would “reason together,” precisely because they really wouldn’t want to have anything else to do with each other – sit down in one or another’s den and watch a ball game; picnic or play golf, certainly not drink a beer side by side by side along one long bar. Of course, they would do any of these things; assuredly they would! But at the end of the day what those bold theological hearts desired truly was to get their tongues into a conference room and really piss each other off. Then they could go home and whine to their poor spouses about how unjustly misunderstood they had been.

What the scholars call an “excursus”* :

I want sometime to write an apology for what I will call “transparent hypocrisy,” meaning more than the tacit acknowledgement that not only do we live in a fallen, therefore duplicitous world, but we are fallen and duplicitous as well. What others have seen clearly, what they would know as clearly, if they paused their talk to take one breath, idealists and ideologues alike would say loud enough all can hear (themselves included): “Here are the hidden rules I am playing by (and the ones I am making up as I go along); here is the spiritual, emotional, or cash credit I’ve accepted to take this position.”

Then, today’s sermon on the last commandment – could it become a true confession? - the sermonizer himself, the one croaking “Fidelity!” at his congregation, could he admit how long he has coveted his neighbor’s ass, how many times he has snuck into the stable next door to whisper in a soft, warm ear, to rub along its neck and down its back, along its flanks, as if it were one of his own. God be merciful. God forgive him the nights, the dark, the opposite of transparent hypocrisy.

     He says none of this, of course. Like all of us he hides his sin, how he does one thing while he says another. “Fidelity,” he says – how important it is that we hew to it, for strait is the gate and narrow the door.

     I shake his hand as we leave. “Thank you for that.” I, too, say what I don’t mean at all.†

 

What was under Calvin’s hat – and, therefore, always on his brain? For the R—rated answer, click here. Must be 18 years of age or older.

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* From the Latin excurrere , to run off course. In scholar speech though, as I understand it from my philosopher friend Tom Nashe, it means: “I am, you see, wandering away from the path we set out on, but watch how cleverly I am able to get back to it.”

† But then we are never more ourselves than when we are being truly hypocritical, homo
 sapiens bisulcilinguus.