The pastor at a church I was visiting made his pitch to the congregation: The expensive car he drives and the fancy clothing he wears are necessary to convince the weak of faith of the Lord’s power and presence.  How, he wondered, could he preach the goodness of the Lord if he is calling members of the congregation to pick him up on the side of the road because his hoopty broke down yet again?

That was about the time I began to squirm in my seat.
 
Did the minister really mean to imply that one's relationship with God was measured by the amount of stuff one had? Will only rich folks get to Heaven? Isn’t one major tenet of Christianity that all men have equal access to God? And if not, shouldn’t we then spend our Sundays working a second job instead of going to church? 

I would like to think that what the minister was getting at -- in his clumsy way -- was that even when the rent is due, the evidence of God's blessing is all around us. Alas, for the minister -- and even more unfortunately, for his congregation -- he only succeeded in illustrating a major cause of disillusionment with the church. There is a growing sense that the church has lost its way, that there is an overemphasis on material gifts rather than spiritual blessings.

As a friend put it, the church is pursuing the American dream rather than righteousness. More accurately, it is the pursuit of a distorted version of the American dream.

The American dream is one of liberty and equality before the law -- a place where individuals, regardless of their station in life, are free to realize their potential through talent, hard work and the grace of God (which is certainly a dream in which the church can and should most certainly share). Certainly a by-product of the American dream is that wealth, heretofore reserved for the privileged few, is now available to the many; however, its substance is more than merely enjoying the trappings of materialism. More importantly, without those principles found in Judeo-Christian faith, the dream of liberty is impossible. Individual freedom untempered by the acknowledgement of one greater than oneself and a sense of obligation to one's fellow man results in tyranny. And without that sense of obligation, Christianity becomes a means to fatten the wallet rather than enrich the soul.

I wish the minister could have been with me last Saturday.

More than 250 volunteers gathered at my church and packed fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, bread, vitamins, soda, diapers, feminine products and more into shopping bags to give away to the needy in our community. Our hearts were full as we worked to ensure that 75,000 pounds of food and toiletries made it into the hands of folks that were in need.  Saturday was a celebration of joy, love and compassion. It was proof positive that the Lord was at work in individual lives and in the life of the community.

And -- go figure  -- not a Mercedes was in sight.

What the minister missed is that the Lord's blessing is discovered not in what we have, but in what we do. Proof of the goodness of God will never be found in his fancy car, but in friends and church members willing to drop what they are doing and see him safely to his destination.

As I left that church, I thought of the minister's words, and a song I used to sing in Sunday school came to mind: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”  Perhaps there were other versions of the song in other parts of the country, but in Denver, I do not recall a chorus referring to folk knowing we are Christians because of our fly gear.