Two Faced Christians

For years I have witnessed with frustration Christians welcome visitors, even invite visitors, only to reject visitors who may want to join the Church. Its one thing to visit. Its another thing to join. So long as visitors keep a safe distance, we’re happy to welcome them. Just keep a distance.

Brethren, when Peter came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.

Galatians 2.11-16

Saint Paul was expressing the same frustration I feel when I see visitors treated like outsiders. It appears as if Saint James was conflicted about welcoming outsiders and actually wanting outsiders to join the Church. So long as they ‘fit in’ they were welcome.

For those parishes that have food festivals, it gets even worse. We want their money, but we don’t want them to join the Church. Welcoming visitors to the Church is much more than being kind. It means desiring them to join our family. There is a lesson to learn from Saint James.

Fortunately for the Church, the conflict between Saint Paul and Saint James was resolved. The Council of Jerusalem, once and for all, resolved that gentiles didn’t have to be Jews first to be ‘good’ Christians. You can read more about that in Acts 15, but it still has meaning for us today.

There are many ways we live our faith as Orthodox Christians. Many ‘things we do’ reflect how our faith meets real life. These are the cultural traditions of our faith. These cultural differences don’t express a difference in faith, but a difference in life experience.

One of my favorite examples is the different methods of sprinkling holy water. Greeks use basil while ‘most’ Russians use either pussy willows or a brush. It isn’t so easy to find bushes of basil growing in Russian like in the Mediterranean. It doesn’t mean one is right and the other wrong.

Back to today’s reading. Obviously, Saint Paul wasn’t taking about basil plants. He was talking about how we tend to live one way with one group and another way with another group. When these ‘two ways’ reflects hypocrisy there is a problem. Saint James was being a hypocrite.

When we greet visitors into our Churches, we must do more than ‘just’ make them feel like they can visit any time. We must make them feel they have a place to live here among us, even if that means some of the ‘things’ they do won’t match what we do.

So long as the ‘things’ reflect the true faith of the Church, both can be welcome in the Church. You see this is ‘small towns’ across America where a single Orthodox Church serves multiple ethnic groups. So long as life reflects true faith, then multicultural expressions are good.

Where we must caution ourselves is when ‘what we do’ departs from the faith of the Church. Cremation is one recent shift in practice that bothers me greatly. Our society has chosen to discard the human body, and too many of our people embrace it to ‘save money’ at funerals.

This is one case of ‘there is no place for that here’ when someone wants to join the Church I can get behind. Having visitors join the Church is not worth changing the true faith of the Church. Saint Paul often spoke about leaving old ways behind. Cremation needs to be left behind.

The other challenge with welcoming visitors to join the Church is the faith they leave behind. In more than thirty years of ministry, one constant I’ve learned is that EVERYONE brings baggage on their journey.

It isn’t being ‘two faced’ to ask new members to leave their baggage behind when that baggage reflects on old faith. Some visitors run from their churches seeking a new ‘perfect’ church to join. Many insist on keeping their baggage because their faith hasn’t changed, only their address.

It isn’t a secret that Orthodoxy embraces a ‘more strict’ way of life than most Protestant churches. Joining Orthodoxy for the ‘strictness’ is not the same as joining the Church for truth. Changing your ‘style’ of Sunday worship to include icons and incense can’t be the only change.

Here’s the rub! Life-long members of the Church are ‘just’ as guilty as new members at wanting a church for the wrong reasons. Many use the Church to maintain their ‘safe zone’ where they can be ‘who they are’ among a group of strangers. Anyone different is dangerous to safety.

If our ‘safe zone’ is about true faith, then it is good. When our ‘safe zone’ is about our ethnic club, it isn’t good. New members of the Church don’t have to become ‘Greeks’ first to be good Christians, any more than Gentiles had to be Jews first. That is the lesson for today.

Any group eventually develops a common way of life. That has been the nature of things since the beginning. So long as that way of life reflects the truth faith, then it should be encouraged. If that way of life reflects hypocrisy it must change.

More importantly, it is ok if a group has more than one way of life if both reflect the same true faith. Greeks can still be Greeks, and Russians can still be Russians. Both can welcome American to do more than visit. Both can invite visitors to stay and make a home in the Church.