As a kid, I used to read comic books. Okay, I still read comic books. I’m a fifty + year old man that reads comic books. You got me.
That doesn’t change the fact that when I was a kid, I read them too. I was a big fan of Batman, Spiderman and the X-men. I was always interested in the artwork and I also loved to draw. These comics were like a portal that opened up my mind and soul to a world of imagination of the fantastic and supernatural. Along with a mediocre storyline and incredible illustrations, there were a fair share of ads to go along with it.
There were X-ray glasses that at least hinted at the fact that you could see through walls, through people’s skin and yes, also people’s clothing. Weird I know, but comics were, and probably still are, marketed to middle school aged boys so…take it for what it’s worth.
I remember ads for sea monkeys which, as it turns out, were brine shrimp, but were sold as a new creature that lives inside of an aquarium. The artwork on the front appeared to be an alien species; a family of sea monkeys with and hopes and dreams but for $9.99 you could rip them from their tight knit underwater community and they could live right next to your “Etch A Sketch” and bean bag chair.
Finally there were ads for “Kung Fu” and “Karate” lessons. It boasted of an “audio visual” course that would teach you the finer art of defending yourself, a must for comic book readers, and promises that you’ll be a “master of self defense”. The “audiovisual” part of the course was a record plus a manual that you read while listening to the record. Yes, you will be a “master of self defense”, a black belt in karate (pronounced kay-rot-tay), after listening to a record, reading a manual and fighting no one.
Every time I got close to filling out an ad to order the Sea Monkeys or X-ray glasses, I would stop myself and say “There’s gotta be more to it than that.” If there was an alien race of Sea Monkeys, wouldn’t the nightly news have something about it? Certainly mom or dad would have told me about the “dangers of letting Sea Monkeys loose in the house” or I would have to sign a waiver or adoption papers or something right?
I bet a lot of people feel that way about the Church. I know I have at times. We make a lot of promises that seem reasonable on the surface but over time, it seemed like a bunch of hype with little payoff. It was not as advertised.
Things like “being in a small group will make you feel more connected” when all that happened was you feel more like an outsider than before. No one was talking about real struggles and it seemed like people were living in a fantasy world.
Joining a Bible study was supposed to answer the questions that you had about Scripture and God but it only gave you more questions and you are still plagued with doubt and maybe even a little suspicion.
Giving to the church was supposed to make you feel less selfish and more fulfilled because you saw how your money was going toward making the world a better place. Over time it seemed more like your resources were going toward a new smoke machine, a full service coffee bar and the Senior Pastor’s sneaker fund.
It was a costlier version of Sea Monkeys, X-Ray glasses and Kung Fu lessons.
It was costlier because your hope was set on the life change that would happen as a result of your involvement but it resulted in disappointment with the church and disappointment with God.
In my opinion, the missing ingredient to all of those promises is love. It is because of the Church’s failure to be a community marked by love that we were not able to make good on those promises. We probably shouldn’t make those promises to begin with.
The Apostle Paul wrote this:
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Cor 13:1-3
The tongues of angels, predicting the future and moving mountains seem like Sea Monkeys to me. These are all things we can’t guarantee. Love however…we can promise to move toward love.
Without love, it’s all noise and nothingness.
Maybe we need to stop making promises and start doing the hard work. To love as Jesus would means that we focus more on our community and the hurts of the city than building our own kingdoms. Loving other requires us to show mercy, forgive often and work toward living in unity together. This is hard work but it is also the mark of the follower of Jesus. It is a tough path but the path to life if fought for by loving sacrificially.
Let’s stop promising things and start loving through serving those who cannot pay us back, by showing mercy to those who would attack us and bringing unity where there is division. Let us do so without the promise of recompense or reward knowing that our reward is God’s joy.
“It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:7-8
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