I've been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to my youngest son lately. I was tickled and delighted to get to the chapters where Tom is in Sunday School, followed closely by his pinch bug episode in the church service. Since we often have such distractions in our house-church (our two dogs and two cats often attend), I have often had the steam let out of my sermons by such episodes.
But I am delighted to report that my children do not usually fall asleep or allow distractions to completely get out of hand. They have even reported to me that they enjoy my messages and learned something from them. And when we recently visited a local church, they quickly found that the sermons there were lackluster in comparison with mine. This does my heart a little good, though I am sorry for that pastor and his (very large) congregation. I think Mark Twain would agree with you, the Korean-American experience isn't too different from his... rather a waste of time.
Still, I agree with some other comments, that even mere socialization, without any spiritual awareness or growth, can be good for a soul. Eventually we look deeper and begin to see that some of those around us have something we lack. When that dawning takes place, it shouldn't be the occasion to start looking down on those who are still merely coming out of habit, but a time to start praying for them and seeking to help one person, one friend.
Even Jesus' own disciples followed him largely for human reasons. They "had in mind the things of men, not the things of God." But the Lord bore with them until they finally understood that his Kingdom was not a political movement, for example, and that he really was going to actually be crucified and die for their sins. Even after the resurrection, they still had doubts. Were they all that spiritual? Perhaps just a little more than Tom Sawyer.
1 comment:
Old Tom speaks again. It was a time of undivided devotion to the Lord, not unlike Hannibal Missouri of Twain's youth. I wonder with what singularity we will know his voice through the annals of history now that his journals had been made known after he had sealed them to the public for 100 years! Now we hear the voice of Twain, like an old grandfather, chiding us as if he were sitting at the hearth and we were warming our toes by the fine. Yet, if we could only hear the voice of Twain through a sermon instead of the smug voices of jamesian scholars who have long ceased to struggle with their sins and now are useless. But such things should and can never be in the conservative soul --- Twain was the only literary great to serve in the CSA. Let us rather take up the cause of Mr. Lee who wrote at one point : "Save in defense of my native Virginia, I never again desire to raise my sword."
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