Wednesday, March 30

[Now that Lent and Easter are behind us, I am reverting to writing only once or twice a week.]

I am borrowing a text from Proverbs. “There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand," (Proverbs 30: 18).  Although not as poetic as verse 19, I have a list, too; not so much amazing as astonishingly useless or, at least, curiously pointless.

I noticed in a catalogue that one can purchase a banana slicer. It is a yellow, plastic container in which one puts a whole banana and closes the lid which then slices the banana for your P&J sandwich. How this is any more convenient or easier than an ordinary table knife escapes me. My knife has already been used for the sandwich. Why dirty more stuff?

Or there is now a key chain fob which serves as a device to roll-up-the-rim coffee cups for those contests in which I never win anything, not so much as a cookie. How hard is it to use your thumb? Or your teeth?

Then I bought a pair of socks which are labelled R for the right foot and a L for the left foot. Now I may be pretty groggy first thing in the morning, but putting on socks doesn’t usually elude my skill set. I am happy if they match and I have put them on right side out. Now I’ve got to worry that I may be putting the sock on the wrong foot, too?

I actually don’t have a fourth thing, but I trust that you can fill in the blank yourself.

The prophet Samuel spoke to all of God’s people, “Do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless,” (1 Samuel 12: 20 – 21). Now he was not, of course, referring to banana slicers, key chains or socks, but the useless nature of phony, religious promises and deceptive idols which do not have the living and loving Creator at the heart of life.

There is a lot of flim-flamery in some forms of religion. Christianity, too, can make its own idols, out of our buildings, our dogma, our traditions, our structures, our constitutions, our budgets, our pastors, our close-knit groups and so on. And although I am not saying that these are all useless, they are not an end in and of themselves either. Sometimes, they actually get in the way of following and serving the Lord with all our hearts.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God,” (Micah 6:8).