THE MOUSE

The announcement did not involve a press conference, but it did resonate with high drama. It was made to me upon my return last Tuesday from Atlanta.

“There is a mouse in the house. I have seen it.”

Such news is not entirely surprising. Mice have been spotted in northeastern Kansas in the past. Our house is around 70 years old. Cold weather has arrived. If I were a mouse, I wouldn’t plan on riding out the winter in the back yard.

The complicating factor was, in 72 hours, 50-60 people were expected at our house for a party. Our fear was that one of our friends might actually see the afore-mentioned rodent. We also had a house guest coming for the weekend from Iowa. Would she see the mouse? If she saw it would she scream?

Snap traps and peanut butter were collected, and plans for the critter’s trip to Mousy Gloryland were laid.

It wasn’t until after the party that the traps accomplished their work. Much to our family’s relief, the rodent did not appear at the soiree. Blood-curling screams and social shame were avoided.

I guess we are not the only family in America dealing with a mouse in the house. We were told by friends who live in a fancy house in the suburbs that they trapped twenty-five mice in their basement. (Ooooooh!) Also, I saw a commercial on television for a fancy new mouse trap one morning last week while getting ready to go to work.

The trap in the commercial looked like an oversize can of chewing tobacco. It had a mouse sized hole on one side. The cheerful announcer proclaimed, “You don’t have to see it. You don’t have to touch it. You don’t have to deal with it. And, the mice are gone!”

Well, how about that! With this fancy device -no objection...I am going to buy one- you can kill the mice in your house, throw the remains away trap and all, and you don’t have to deal with the bloody mess that results from the snap trap. Cool!

It occurs to me, though, that we sometimes try to do the same thing in the Church. For over two centuries American churches have too often engaged in a prettified facade. We sweep our difficult situations and our difficult people under the rug. We allow them to go into the fancy mouse trap where they are disposed of in a way that we don’t have to see them, touch them, or deal with them. We sometimes throw them out...trap and all.

I don’t think we intend to do this...it is just our way of refracting the ministry of the Church through the lens of our tidy suburban, middle-class, American lives. The bloody, messy issues of sin and pain are easy to gloss over. Just like it was in the days of Jesus and the apostles, the Church is filled with a parade of screwed-up people dealing with tough situations. Sometimes we answer the call to deal with pain and sin compassionately and forgivingly by finding a sanitized way to pretend that it isn’t there.

That is one of the reasons I shared the full text of Wesley’s O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing in a recent rehearsal. In the tradition of Martin Luther, Wesley approached the tough issues of sin, death, repentance and forgiveness with straight talk and tough love. This is why his hymns will be loved and treasured as much by Christians 250 years in the future as they have been in the 250 years since they were authored.

Carlyle Marney was a Southern Baptist pastor who died in the early 1970s. A liberal maverick in a very conservative system in a conservative region, he was known as a no-nonsense straight talker. The story goes that he was called for an interview at the Myer’s Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Myers Park in the 1960s was the ultimate in gentrification: a silk-stocking Southern church. The pulpit committee arrived to the formal interview with the legendary preacher in their buttoned-down finest. Limo drivers waited in the parking lot.

Marney, by contrast, arrived late in cowboy boots complete with the evidence of his afternoon riding visit to a nearby ranch. A gentleman, he removed his ten-gallon hat and laid it on the conference table near one of the committee members. It was said that his lack of a recent shower was apparent.

Marney took charge of the interview and asked the first questions: “What are your goals as a church?” “What do you want to accomplish in the next ten years?” “What do you see my contribution being to that?”

After listening silently for about twenty minutes, Marney stood up and said, “I am not your man. I want to open the doors of the Gospel to people who are hurting. All you seem to want to do is gather more people who look like you, talk like you and think like you. You don’t seem to give a [darn] about anything other than counting your money. Real ministry is a dirty business. Jesus calls us to approach the ugliest parts of ourselves with love and compassion. I want to help people with broken hearts and empty wallets.”

As the committee sat in stunned silence, Marney walked out of the room, his boots trailing horse manure on the carpet of the well-appointed church parlor.

The best part of the story is that the leaders of Myers Park Baptist Church spent months in prayer and Bible study and then asked Marney for another interview. This time, he accepted the call and served a pastorate that was one of the most storied in American church history. As a part of his ministry, he created a support organization for pastors and church leaders called “Interpreter’s House.” The organization sponsored retreats for church leaders at Lake Junaluska, NC, where men and women in these high-stress professions could go to “deal with ugly things” in a place of acceptance and emotional safety.

As we approach the holiday season, there will be people in our community that are wrestling with painful and difficult things. Perhaps it is an addiction to drugs or alcohol. Perhaps it is a broken relationship that may end in divorce. Perhaps it is a serious or terminal illness for them or a loved one. Perhaps it is an area of sinfulness or selfishness that cannot be overcome by their efforts alone. Perhaps it is a crossroad where a heart is asking, “Is there anything to this God thing?” or “Is this...house, car, boat, HDTV...all there is to life?”

There is no question that they will come to us in our own congregation. Some are already there. The only question is, “Are we ready to get some horse manure on our boots and some bloody mess in our hands?”