Our Church Has Filters

For years, smoking has been suspiciously alien to human needs and physical health. "There are dangers here," all reports have said. But the tobacco companies replied, "No danger. All the harmful things have been filtered out!"

Every preacher will sooner or later, preach a sermon on "Love". It is the theme behind every theme in every sermon. All the Gospel is summed up in it. "God so loved the world."

But in reality, the Church has often lived a life totally un‑related to the kind of love Jesus talked about. So much of the time, we have gone around sputtering at, and spitting at, and clawing at each other, much like cats in the back alley.

Why is the Church at times devoid of love, when it is the proclaimer of love? Why is there more of a welcome sometimes, at the corner tavern, than in the Church pew? Why is there more sympathy from the man on the street, than from some committed church‑goers?

Perhaps we are dealing with people in a make‑believe world. We have heard the dynamite of the Gospel, but like the cigarette ads, we too have a built in filter. We filter out the really significant parts of the Gospel until what gets through is really kind of a sentimental, mushy, harmless emotional feeling. It is something that doesn't hurt us, but neither does it help us.

And so, Christianity becomes a kind of harmless thing that everybody believes in, but nobody does much about.

In Romans, Paul said that we are to be indebted to no one except the debt to love them. (Ro. 13:8) And we are to owe everyone more than we can possibly pay. Love is not only one duty to add to our other duties, it is the framework into which all other duties will fit.

Love is the most comprehensive of all principles. We need to bring everything we do and say before the bar of love!

There is a story about an old violinist. He was a poor man, but he possessed an instrument with the sweetest, mellow tones. As he played it, it always awakened responsive chords. When he was asked to explain it, he would hold his violin, tenderly caressing its graceful curves, and say: "Ah, a great deal of sunshine must have gone into this wood, and what goes in, must come out!"

Let us never forget that a great deal of love: the love of God, and the love of parents and friends, has been poured into these careless lives of ours. And we must let it come out!