I went inside the building five minutes before service like a novice… I got cornered by several people who do not really know me who I do not care about, but I smiled and chatted and did all the good Christian girl things. One woman complemented me for being a “natural beauty” (makeup-less) and I tried to gently shut it down. I blamed my sensitive skin and praised my mom’s skin genetics and talked about how make up is such an art I wish I could do, while also being as graceful as possible. I just can’t play along all the time, you know? I’m not better than other people who wear makeup.
Did you ever look forward to getting married someday and going to church with your spouse? A couple in front of me reminded me of my old fantasy of my husband rubbing my back during church as we Christian-PDAed together. Now I fantasize about not living at home so I can never go to church again, not force my spouse to suffer too 😉
Do I even have to mention only one mic-ed woman could be heard during one specific part of two songs? The other woman was probably muted…
This is the second sermon in the series My Big Fat Mouth. I missed out last week- oh darn. The pastor opened the sermon with pictures of famous people (Roseanne, Charlie Sheen, 45, etc) who’ve gotten in trouble because of their words.
3 of the 10 ten commandments deal with words (3, 5, and 9). Belle, only the unsaved, undisciplined or uninformed use god’s name in vain. Definitely not me, in sexual ecstasy wanting another rush of “sinfulness” by breaking the rules of my upbringing and yelling “Oh god!” Definitely not that. Just the unsaved (not me, I did the sinners prayer and you can’t undo that apparently), undisciplined (again, not me, I do it on purpose), or the uninformed (bruh I know the ten commandments song. I’m not ignorant). I was surprised to hear him spend a few minutes telling people to not correct someone else's decisions to use god's name in vain as that would put them off god more.
He then talked about his personal pet peeve of the phrase god dammit and how it goes against god's character to tell someone god will damn them to hell. How this is against god's character is beyond me as god damns all sorts of people to hell, for literally any infraction. You lie once and never accept Jesus as your savior? Hell. You do not immediately obey your parents command and never say the sinners prayer? Hell. But definitely, god dammit is SOOO against god's character.
Oh fuck now he’s telling people to say “Jesus helped me deal with my stress” when a coworker is sharing their stress with you. I LOATHE religion in the workplace. I don’t even like a bookmark on our bookmark wall that has a Bible verse on it. If I share with a person at work that I’m in hardship, and they shut it down with any variation of jesus can help you, that would only further put me off!
The last commandment, don’t disrespect your parents (Exodus 20:12) is important because it pleases god (Col. 3:20), it’s right (1 Tim. 5:4), and you’ll “get a prize” (Eph. 6:2-3) if you honor your parents. How enticing. A “prize.”
“Unless they are telling you to do something that’s immoral- to respect your parents is through obeying.” Big surprise, no mention of abuse. Belle, different age groups show their respect differently *rolls eyes*. Kids must obey, young adults cooperate with their parents, adults must help them. Um quick aside, how does honoring and respecting your parents have anything to do with lying?
He went on an aside about how more adult children are living at home longer. I lost my ability to play along when asked the question “Why do they do that?” I said, “The economy.” Then he answered his own question explaining “we” are getting married later in life. No mention of WHY we are all getting married later in life. I was so pissed I whispered out “Because we can’t afford to get married.”
The older gentleman next to me whispered back, “Yeah you basically need a masters to afford to move out.” We shared a smile. It was a nice moment.
The pastor started to wrap up his sermon addressing child caregivers being condescending toward their elderly parents. This section was well done- no digs at either adult children or the old parents- just encouraging caretakers to take a breath and have more patience with people whose bodies are breaking down.
And then he went off about how hard it is to witness to your parents/family but it’s so important. I thought only god could save people…
The last point was on lying (convenient lies, cowardly lies, cruel lies, careless lies, and calculated lies, to be specific). He mentioned Potiphar’s wife lying about Joseph trying to assault her (Genesis 39). He didn’t mention the part where Potiphar’s wife assaulted or attempted to assault Joseph, then when he ran she hid behind her shame by blaming him for her offense. Talk about power imbalances! Talk about the assaults in the Bible!
Anyway, he rattled off a bunch of percentages about lying demographics (Catholics lie more than Protestants, etc.) but he didn’t site any sources and I’ve heard these states in previous sermons over the years, so I doubt the validity of them big time.
“A little lie is like being a little bit pregnant. Eventually, we can tell.” Um. Have you heard about this little thing called abortion? Pretty sure you have. Your metaphors suck.
“It always, every single time, impacts you.” All lying is bad bad bad and will hurt you blah blah blah.
“All sin separates you from god… from a practical stand point… but God says I hate lying directly.” So god apparently hates lying, and this is the only sin god explicitly says he hates yet The Church wants gay people and trans people to pretend IE LIE they are straight/cis. But god… hates that. Why doesn’t he connect dots like I’m so easily connecting dots? How does he not see this.
Then he joked about god killed two people who lied about tithing (Acts 5:1-11). Yuck yuck so funny definitely not terror inducing at all, especially since the tithing happened after the fucking sermon.
Apparently lying directly impacts your relationship with god. I better start lying more.
Now he’s talking about how we used to wash kids mouths out with soap (and now all we get are time outs whine whine) when they lied or swore. No mention of how this is a form of child abuse.
“Everything that is true doesn’t need to be said.” Uh, excuse me? What about lying by omission?! I was taught that was a sin. I hated myself over that explicitly. The pastor prayed, the last song was played while the tithe buckets went around and we were released from Purgatory I mean church.
The older gentleman wished me a lovely week on our way out of the sanctuary area. I had to kill time waiting for mom to finish cleaning up her Sunday School room and ended up running into an old high school friend. She introduced me to her Boo (Husband? Didn’t confirm) and told him I had been the first person to say hello to her the first Sunday she came to church in elementary school. That I had just walked right up to her and introduced myself and asked her to sit at a table with me.
Little Rachel had a hell of a lot more courage than current Rachel. But it was sweet to hear that and catch up a bit on her life. All in all, a pretty standard sermon. How this pastor is so privileged/ignorant/ignoring economics is beyond me as he did major in finance in college but he does and continues to blame “us” for being broke.
-Rachel