This past weekend, I was talking with some musicians who serve at our church, about the difficulties of playing regularly in front of large groups of people, especially when you forget your parts up there. We were all sharing the little tricks everyone uses to deflect from the congregation/crowd/audience, the truth that you are lost or unskilled or ill-prepared.
For example, one of our guitarists, when confronted with a complicated chord, would simply raise both hands in a “praise posture” until the difficult section passed. Another talked about essentially playing “air guitar” up on stage, allowing the rest of the band to carry things.
But the funniest response was from a staff member, recalling a worship leader, who instructed choir members, that if they ever forgot the words during the service, that they should simply: “Smile and mouth the word ‘watermelon’ “. (Apparently when one mouths the word watermelon, the congregation somehow will interpret this to mean that you are really into it, and unless they can read lips, won’t be the wiser).
The Church is filled with people singing ‘watermelon’.
Every week, millions of people try for one hour on Sunday, to conceal their flaws, to deny their messes and to bury their failures. They frantically assemble the most presentable version of themselves, their marriages and their families, and try to hold it all together until they reach their cars. Despite fractured families, threadbare relationships and complete faith crises, they act as though they have it all and know it all and believe it all. They sing ‘watermelon’.
And in this perpetual process of trying to fool people around them into believing that they are super qualified, super religious, Super Christians, they actually miss out on why the Church exists; to be the one place where broken-ness is allowed, where inadequacy is celebrated, where inferiority is redeemed.
Do you ever go to the doctor and lie about your eating habits, exercise regimen or your symptoms, for fear of being scolded or embarrassed? Lots of people do.
The idea that we would withhold important information from the one who wants, and who is able to heal us is ridiculous, but the sad truth is that we would often rather be sick than be exposed. This is modern Christianity.
Friends, when we as followers of Jesus, are not authentic enough to come to the Church with all of our flaws and dysfunction and disappointment, we miss the chance to see God work as Healer, we underestimate the power of community, and we rob others of the opportunity of blessing us with compassion and restoration.
You may not be in a local church that encourages honesty. If so, you need to leave. It is not a Biblical community.
The faith we profess is not one of pretending or concealing, and most certainly not of self-sufficiency. It is the admission that we are, (as our musician friends), often lost or unskilled or ill-prepared. This faith is the open confession, that we are far less than perfect, seeking the only One who is.
So this Sunday, don’t put on a show.
Don’t try to fool anyone.
Avoid the temptation to fake it.
Admit your need and your longings and your screw-ups.
Stop singing ‘watermelon’.
