It's Time Someone Sat Down and Figured Out How to Make Going to Church More Fun
BY ROBERT KIRBY SALT LAKE TRIBUNE COLUMNIST
Someone sent the following list of "funny" paradoxes found in the relationship between humans and God.
Funny how $20 looks so big when we take it to church and so small when we take it to the store.
Funny how big 60 minutes are serving God and how small 60 minutes are when playing golf, fishing or shopping.
Funny how laborious it is to read a chapter in the Bible and how easy it is to read several hundred pages of a best-selling novel.
Funny how we believe what a person or newspaper says, but question what the Bible says.
Funny how we can't think of anything to say when we pray and don't have any difficulty thinking of things to gossip about to a friend.
Funny how we need two or three weeks to fit a church event into our schedule, but have no problem adjusting for a social event at the last minute.
Funny, isn't it? Or is it?
While there is some truth in this list, I think the main idea behind it was to turn up the guilt factor in people. Simply put, it's lots easier for us to be jerks than saints. Big surprise.
It's no surprise to God. If the idea was that we find church stuff easier to do than this list suggests, maybe he wouldn't have wired us this way.
Seriously, it's not God's fault. Personally, I think it's the fault of people who come up with lists like this. If you want funny or weird, think about why some of these paradoxes exist.
Twenty bucks looks big in the collection plate because it is big to most people with bills to pay. And, frankly, if it's small when I take it to the store, chances are that it's also small enough that a rich church won't miss it.
Service vs. golf depends on your definition of service. The church definition is spending it on a pew. Frankly, nothing stretches an hour like listening to somebody explain Isaiah. A lot of people prefer golf for the simple reason that the average sermon is about as stimulating as letting a woodpecker work on your head.
Bible vs. the latest John Grisham novel. Lots of important stuff in the Bible, to be sure. But maybe some people read novels because novels don't continually promise readers that the author is going to show up pretty soon and kill them.
Maybe people are willing to believe what they read in the newspapers and question what they read in the Bible because they have read the Bible.
Frankly, anyone who doesn't have a lot of questions after reading the Book of Revelation isn't thinking hard enough.
Prayer is a bit trickier. I think more people pray than the author of this list gives us credit for. On the other hand, gossiping is easier than prayer. Probably for the simple reason that it's easier to get your friends to agree that Bill Clinton is a buckethead than it has been to get God to hit him with a bolt of lightning.
Fitting a church event into our schedule is actually easy, or doesn't church rip an entire day out of your week by telling you you'll go to hell for not showing up.
Funny, isn't it? Or is it? Come to think of it, maybe these paradoxes exist because church isn't.
Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby lives in Springville. The self-described "OxyMormon" welcomes mail at P.O. Box 684, Springville, UT 84663, or e-mail at [email protected].