Honesty in Community

From my experience with the church here is a typical Sunday morning church foyer:

You: Good morning Brother Smith, how are you?
Brother Smith: I am doing wonderful, thanks. And you?
You: Oh great! The wife/kids/parents/friends/work/hobbies have really been keeping me busy but I wouldn't have it any other way.
BS: Haha oh don't I know it! Things get pretty crazy but life's greatest stresses are the greatest joys as well.
You: That is very true. Well I better go get my spot before someone new sits there. haha.
BS: haha, okay talk to you later.

If church was done through the computer you could pretty much copy and paste this conversation for every Sunday morning, and even Monday-Friday with your co-workers. "hi, how are you" "good thanks, and you?" It's almost like Pavlov's law, we hear the bell, our mouth begins to water and we spit out the answer before even thinking about it. But how often are you really "good" and how often do you really care how the other person is doing?

This is the thing, sometimes life sucks.

Sometimes our car breaks down. Sometimes we get in fights with our spouses/parents/coworkers. Sometimes we don't know how we are going to pay our next bill. Sometimes we can't get pregnant. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes life sucks!

We can all sit here and say "oh that' so true" but then we rarely admit it to anyone else. When was the last time you took more than 2 seconds to answer the question "how are you?" Recently I have been trying to give more time in answering and people get nervous. "Oh, are you sure? It took you a while to answer". Can you imagine what they might be thinking "crap Dan is having a horrible week and doesn't want to talk about it!" or even "crap Dan is having a horrible week and I need to get into my seat before someone new takes it!"

Or even when was the last time that you honestly cared how that person was doing? You are heading into a meeting, do you really have time to listen to someone give you an answer other than "good"? Do you really want to hear anything other than "good"? If we are being honest we will have to admit this is not something unique to Christians. This is apart of our western culture and we have brought it into the church without a second thought.

Here is my hope for the Christian community, that we create a safe space for honesty, that we encourage honesty, and that we display honesty.

Shane Claiborne wrote "the church is a place where we can stand up and say we are wretched, and everyone will nod and agree and also remind us we are beautiful." This I believe is a great picture of honesty in community. We are being honest with those around us that we are imperfect, we fail, and sometimes we suck. The community does not sit there and try to feed us a lie, that we don't fail or that we don't sometimes suck. The community responds to our honesty with honesty and agrees with us. They know us and see us and realize that sometimes we are wretched but being a Christian community they don't stop there. They remind us we are beautiful, that we are children of God, and that they love us. Where else can people go and find that kind of love and honesty? If they cannot find it in the church then we have failed somewhere.

So my encouragement to you is this. Take a few seconds and give an honest answer. Share your life with someone else and in return be honestly concerned for them and their life. Christ has called us to love those around us and it is almost impossible to do that if all we know about them is that they are "good".