Things I am Tired of
Excerpt from 2 Timothy 3:14—4:5
“For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires . . . .”
Reflection by Lillian Daniel
I am tired of hearing people say stupid things in the name of Christianity. I am tired of nutty pistol-packing pastors who want to burn the Koran. I am tired of televangelists who claim that natural disasters are the will of God. I am tired of Christians who respond to the pain of disease with a lecture about behavior. I am tired of preachers who promise prosperity.
I am also tired of people who say that they are privately spiritual but not religious. I am tired of people who have one bad experience with a church and paint the whole of Christianity with that brush. I am tired of celebrities who criticize the church for being patriarchal and homophobic but do nothing to support the churches that are not.
I am tired of people who say they want a church like ours but cannot be bothered to attend one. And I am tired of people who criticize churches like ours and go somewhere else.
So I resonate with the angry words from this letter to the early church. I feel like I live in a society where the stupid and simple in spirituality always trump the depths of a complex faith. We are a people of itchy ears, who depart from sound doctrine in favor of easy answers.
Perhaps I am really just tired of myself. In criticizing others in their faith, I hardly live up to the best in my own faith. Perhaps the people who irritate me the most are exposing my own false doctrines.
Prayer
God, guide me toward true doctrine, not of my own making but of yours. Keep my focus on the one who died on the cross, and not on the little mini-god I have created in my own image. Amen.
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