A Chapel Message I Remember

I was privileged to attend a Christian university where I sat under hundreds of chapel messages. Although I don’t remember the content of each message, some still stick in my foggy brain almost two decades later.

In one of these memorable messages, the speaker challenged us with these words:

You seem to come to these chapel sessions with a magnifying glass, looking for things that are wrong. When I was in college we came to preaching services with a bucket, trying to catch all the goodness we could.

Regardless of the generational comparison (which one might argue had at least a tiny tint of a rose-colored lens attached to it), these words convicted me then and still challenge me today.

It Seems We Want Perfection

Before we are willing to proclaim any goodness about someone or something, it seems we want perfection. Whether it’s a sermon, article, social media status, or a living and breathing human, we want the words and actions to be perfect before we concede to any goodness in them.

If a sermon only makes application to one group of people and not another, we call it shortsighted and assume the speaker doesn’t think broadly.

If a social media post heralds the merits of one profession without mentioning another, people assume the writer is incredibly narrow-minded and myopic.

If a person cries against the injustice towards people group A, it’s assumed that they don’t care about people groups B through Z.

We want all the bases to be covered. We want words to be spoken that meet everyone where they’re at and don’t leave anyone excluded. We want action taken that is at once just, compassionate, careful, and bold. And we’re quick to retract our praise of one aspect of a person’s character if they present another trait at odds with the popular view of the day.

Use Discretion

This is not a call to stop thinking. By all means, use discretion. Call out evil when and where you must. But call out the good too.

We are so afraid to call out good things because we’re afraid someone will come along behind us and say, “Well, actually, it’s not good because of __________.”

And then our cover will be blown. We will be exposed as (gasp) people who are not omniscient, people who get things wrong, people who have to apologize. Completely unacceptable labels, of course. Also completely accurate.

There is only One who wears the labels of omniscient, perfect, and unchanging. We are not him.

But Use a Bucket Too

God has given us abundant blessings in this life. But we live in a fallen world. The purest gifts we experience from this life are still tainted with sin. All creation groans while it waits for its redemption, so even as I experience the beauty of dappled light in the woods behind my home, it is not as it should be—and one day will be—when Christ comes to reign.

I experience beauty through others. People use their presence and written/spoken words to communicate things they feel strongly about, truths they want to be heard. Sometimes it is beautiful; other times it is the opposite. Even the most true and beautiful communications are imperfect.

Are we depriving ourselves of blessings by trying to be the one to point out the errors? The one labeled as “having the most discretion?”

What if we approached people and their messages with buckets ready to catch the good rather than magnifying glasses eager to scrutinize and point out the bad?

I’m consistently challenged by how Paul speaks to believers in his epistles. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul has stern words for the Corinthians; yet he begins by saying that he always thanks God for the grace at work in them. Even as Paul boldly confronts the Corinthian believers, he calls out the goodness of God’s grace at work in them.

And isn’t this what God does for believers? He knows our deceitful hearts better than we ever will and calls us to turn to him in repentance. But he also rejoices over us with singing. He loves us with an everlasting love. He says we are his treasured possession and his beloved children. If the perfect, holy God can respond to his imperfect creation in love, what excuse do we have not to respond to each other in this way?

May we have true wisdom to discern evil, and godly boldness to commend the good.

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