Effortless Effervescence

At my former church, we had a saying: “CIQM,” pronounced “sic em,” like what you say to an attack dog when you want him to make hamburger out of someone’s face. “CIQM” stood for Catch It Quick Missionaries, referring to how our pastor would send us missionaries (those of us who worked or volunteered full-time at the church and were part of the pastor’s inner circle) to confront someone who was “in sin.” “Sin” was basically not doing what the pastor wanted you to do, and if the person in question did not yield to the pressure we applied in the form of yelling, belittling, and threatening, we washed our hands of the situation and effectively shut him or her out of the congregation.

Let me assure you, I am not proud of this part of my past. But you need to understand where I’ve come from to understand where I am now.

Yesterday, Jen @ Conversion Diary wrote a very interesting post about selfishness and sacrifice. I love reading Jen’s blog, but this time, the most interesting thing about the post is the comments! Some folks are all, “Whoa, Jen, thanks for your honesty! This post really convicted me about my own selfishness. Blessings!!!1!” Other folks are all, “Dayum, Jen, you’re a big fat meanie. HATESTABKILL!!!1!” I was kind of blown away that such a touchy-feely post could generate such widely divergent points of view and some truly genuine antipathy. (I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering that I have, in my blogging career, managed to unknowingly offend countless readers and stir up sh*t storms the likes of which civilization did not know before the anonymity of the internet. However, I usually assume that I’m a Very Special Case, being impulsive, mouthy, and opinionated.)

Reading the comments on Jen’s blog inspired me to share a story from my early post-cult days, when my ex-husband and I were trying to figure out how to live without having “God’s” will for our every action spelled out to us by a mentally unstable, egomaniacal pastor. Having decided to leave the church staff, I was feeling adrift in a sea of WTF DO I DO NOW??? As I questioned all the things we’d ever accepted as right and true, my ex clung tightly to fundamentalism, afraid that if he admitted anything was wrong, the entire house of cards would collapse.

So there we were - spiritually traumatized - standing in line at Wal-Mart, when the man ahead of us said, “Excuse me, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to pay for part of this lady’s groceries?” He gestured to the older woman who was accompanying him; all of her groceries had been rung up and she’d just been given a total. “She has brain cancer and is on a fixed income.”

I answered immediately, without apology or qualification, “NO.”

The guy looked at me with horror and disgust baldly apparent in his eyes and repeated in disbelief, “No?” My ex apologized (as he often did when he felt I was being too blunt), saying, “We really can’t, we’re kind of on a tight budget, too.” The guy gave my husband a sympathetic smile, as if saying, “I’ll pray for you, buddy - your wife is a SHREW EXTRAORDINAIRE!” and returned to his friend’s side.

I wondered then - and now I’m pretty sure I’m right - whether that man approached us because my ex was wearing a T-shirt that said something on it about Jesus. I think he assumed that because we were Christians we owed him or his friend something. Guess what? We don’t. The only person I owe anything to is God, and if he wants me to pay for your groceries, he’ll tell me to.

You know how when you were a kid, and your younger brother stole your favorite toy or ruined one of your sweaters, and you tried to exact revenge on him in the form of a good, hearty beating, and your mom hollered at you, “Emily, I’ll handle it! You worry about you, and I’ll worry about Glenn.” (Maybe your childhood didn’t include frequent episodes like that, but mine certainly did!) Well, I think that’s how God handles stuff. We get all huffy and self-righteous about people who don’t do what we KNOW for SURE God wants them to do and God says, “Would you cool down and worry about your own stuff? I’ll handle this.”

God knew all the things that this guy did not know about me and my husband. He knew about the spiritual abuse, and how poor we were because we gave well beyond a tithe to our church and I was rarely paid for the work I did there every day. He knew that we’d have lost our house if I hadn’t received an insurance settlement for a minor traffic accidence earlier that year. He knew that we’d had to rely on the charity of others to get through the winter, that I hadn’t had new clothes (unless you call the secondhand stuff I pulled out of the donation box at church) for years, and that despite all of that we still made an effort to give cheerfully to people who had less than we did.

Was this guy right in judging me for refusing to give money to a sick old woman? No. But was I right in being so flaming pissed off at him, considering that he did not know any of the details of my life? No. We both could have cut each other some slack.

Often, Christians are quick to point out what a sinner someone else is. True, they might not be so bad as those of us on the CIQM team, but that judgement and self-righteousness is there all the same. We measure ourselves against each other, and find one another wanting. What we forget is that we’re not supposed to be comparing ourselves to one another, but to the model of Jesus. And guess what? ALL OF US ARE EPIC FAIL WHEN IT COMES TO BEING JUST LIKE JESUS.

As Jesus himself said, we’re missing the point if we’re trying to pick the speck of dust out of someone else’s eye when we have a huge plank sticking out of OUR eye. If we’re going to catch anything quick, let’s catch our own bad behavior - not someone else’s.