What Would Jesus Say About Our Church Today?

imagined benevolence and Those Idiots At Church

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I was once asked what I think Jesus would say if he saw the church today, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

It would be easy to put my own opinions + desires onto Christ; my instinct is to say that he’d be out there flipping tables and driving out money-makers. That he’d be shaking his fists as celebrity Catholic speakers who, as Father Mike Schmitz has said, “would fly across the country to tell thousands of teens about Jesus but wouldn’t walk across their street to tell their neighbor about him”. That he’d be ripping the abusers in our ranks limb from limb. That he’d be aghast at the politicians who claim to be pro-life but arduously stand in the way of policies that support working mothers and their destitute children. That he’d wince at the priests who like to freestyle the consecration and roar at the people who spend more time arguing over liturgical music than they do loving their neighbor. That he’d basically loathe us.¹

But when I pause and pray about it—when I try to feel the spirit moving in the church today, as I know that it is—I realize what I actually think he’d say.

I think he’d look around at this ragtag bunch of misfits and sinners arguing over stupid crap and accusing each other of heresy, shrug his shoulders, and say, “yup. Sounds about right—these freaks are all mine.”

Jesus was used to a bunch of arguing ragamuffins. He was used to doubters + division. I think this chaos, in fact, is where he dwells.

It’s where he invites us to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, in ways that are seemingly small but extremely significant.

It’s so, so tempting to think that the church would be so much better if Those People would just leave. Of all of the warring factions we church members put ourselves into, I truly believe the most universal trait is this: that we’re all the guy in the bible going “thank God I’m not a mess, like those people.”

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

In some ways, this parable feels like a trick. If you’re a person who’s trying to live righteously, you’re intentionally choosing things that are more righteous (ie., choosing to tell the truth to your boss instead of lie to cover up a mistake). So, you do think you’re doing righteous acts, and if you didn’t, you would be changing your acts. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

But there’s a difference between thinking you’ve made a good choice with the help of God’s grace and thinking that you are not like other people. That you’re particularly special; that you’re particularly capable of choosing virtue.

Basically, that everyone else kinda sucks and if they just got with the program the church would be so much better.

There are valid critiques to make of our church, especially when they come to matters of orthodoxy. If I attend a church that’s improperly distributing communion or featuring racist homilies, it’s just that I would criticize it, admonish it, and try to make a change.

But most of the time, that’s not really what we do. What we do is wait until we’re with a group of our like-minded friends, then bring it up in this flabbergasted way—can you believe this? Those people! Insert eyeroll.

Note my use of the word we. Friends, I did this yesterday. There’s a big ole log in my very own eye.

There’s an emerging trend I’ve noted among the wandering Christian—a temptation to drop the Christian label all together. “I love Jesus, but I can’t call myself a Christian. I’m not one of those people,” they want to assure you, nodding towards the MAGA rallies. “I’m not like them.” They couldn’t possibly be aligned with such a mangy group.

(Or another way of saying it: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.”)

There’s a healthy form of daydreaming I do in relation to my work as a novelist. I’m a fan of the what-if mind wander; I love me a long car ride with a great playlist and no children asking me to open their fruit snacks. It’s how I do my best scene structuring and character development.

There’s also an unhealthy form of daydreaming I do in relation to my life as a Christian, where I play the church-would-be-so-much-better-if game².

Church would be so much better if we had a different pastor.

Church would be so much better if we ministered more effectively to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.

Church would be so much better if we focused more on evangelization.

Church would be so much better if we ditched the warbly 90s hymns and paid for musicians.

Church would be so much better if we had more stained glass and less felt banners.

And here, this nasty one that’s planted in my heart like a weed: Church would be so much better without all of those other people.

But church is those other people.

My annoyance at Those Idiots is what’s sanctifying me day in and day out. Because Those Idiots are not actually idiots at all. They’re people who bug me. They may even be people who are wrong, and doing wrong things. But they’re the church, just as much as I am.

So much of our lives is customized to our preferences these days. I can choose who I spend time with almost every minute of the day; I can choose who I follow on social media or who I let into my kitchen. But church is one of those rare times where I’m thrown in a room with a bunch of other people from different backgrounds and politics and incomes and cultures. It’s one of the things I love the most about the Catholic church, actually—its wild, unpredictable diversity. And maybe those people you’re sick of aren’t an obstacle to get around, but an invitation to love from the Lord. Those small or large annoyances at church, or within your church community, are small sacrifices you can make—small gifts of yourself that you can make to your community.

CS Lewis writes in The Screwtape Letters about the idea of “imagined benevolence”. His narrator, the demon Screwtape, writes that it’s quite easy for humans to love people on the other side of the world. But the people right in front of them, with their obnoxious off-key singing and insistence upon political ideologies one detests, are much harder to love. Therefore our malice, he writes, become real, and our benevolence becomes imaginary. We need to find a way to keep our benevolence the realest thing about us, bestowing it not to the imaginary archetype we have in our head or the person in a developing nation whose plight we share about on Instagram, but to the person next to us in the pews.

In other words, it’s a hell of a lot easier to be kind to an imaginary refugee in your head than it is to be kind to your sister, or child, or coworker.

And if you do need to make your voice heard—admonishing the sinner is, after all, a spiritual work of mercy, and invalid Masses should be stopped³—check the posture of your heart. Are you summarizing people in an unhealthy way? (Those crying whiners, those Vatican 2 liberals, those rad trads.) Or are you seeing each person as a Christian brother or sister—someone you have been commanded to love? Are you offering real solutions, or are you just stirring the pot and identifying how much holier, just, and Christian you are than Those Idiots?

The community of believers around you is made up of imperfect sinners. You’re one of them. And damn, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

And so we beat our breasts: God, have mercy on us sinners.

And what he’d say—or at least, what I hope he’d say—is, I do.

On My Nightstand 

• Goldenrod by Maggie Smith: After reading Maggie’s memoir earlier this year, I knew I had to get my hand on her book of poetry. A beautiful little book of verses that I’ve been savoring each morning.

• She Fled Ukraine for Israel, Yet War Came For Her Again: An absolutely devastating read about a Ukrainian refugee impacted by the terrorist attack in Israel. My heart is with all of my Jewish brothers + sisters and the country of Israel. I’ve seen way, way, way too many Christians straight up defending the slaughter of innocent civilians, including children, this week—too many Christians who have previously shouted at me that my “silence is violence” on their social topic du jour and prided themselves on their aesthetically pleasing activist instagram accounts refusing to condemn children being kidnapped from their beds because it’s a “complicated geopolitical issue” (which ownership of the Gaza Strip is! But terrorists out to eliminate Israel and kill all Jewish people are not!) It was a good reminder for me that Satan is always prowling.

• The Patron Saint of Unplanned Pregnancies: A beautiful tale of an unexpected mother.

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In case you missed these Letters:

• Patron Saint of Hot Messes - for subscribers

• Trigger Warnings and Taylor Swift - for subscribers

• In Defense of Paying Campus Missionaries - for everyone

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1. Isn’t it funny how Jesus has all of my opinions and preferences? He gets annoyed at all the same people I do! So convenient!!!

2. I also play this with my life—life would be so much better if…and that’s not a great game, either.

3. I would also say that there’s nothing wrong with wanting Mass to have beautiful aesthetics! It’s just when we allow those desires to overtake our love for nature that they need to be properly put into perspective. We can seek changes in Mass music in a way that’s loving, or a way that’s petty.