Revelations from the Sanctuary Floor

Holy Graffiti

A few months ago, on a somber Saturday night in Lent, a group of highly trained, merciless, ne'er-do-wells snuck into the alley behind our sanctuary and re-imagined the paint job of our church. Their mothers would not have been proud of their handiwork. Among the anti-church slogans, personal tags, and plain old cursing, one phrase stood out.

"I know Jesus better than you do… . "

The next day, after worship, I found myself out in the alley, arguing with a brick wall. "What do you mean you know Jesus better than I do? You wouldn't do this if you knew Jesus."

"I know Jesus better than you do… . " the wall maintained.

I was not in a charitable mood that day. "Just a bunch of miscreants out to ruin the church."

"I know Jesus better than you do… . "

"How can you say that? I've given my whole life to Jesus. I've spent years studying so I can be a minister. I could be doing other things, you know. I'm smart. I'm talented. Apparently, I'm a little bit conceited too."

"I know Jesus better than you do."

"I go to church every week. I pray. I read scripture every day — almost. Can you say that?"

"I know Jesus better than you do… . " There's nothing more inflexible than a wall with an agenda.

"You misspelled 'better' you know. If I write about this, I'll clean that up because I'm nice. Okay? Jesus wants me to be nice. And what's with the ellipses? You have something more to say to me?"

You can be fairly certain you've lost your argument once you start ridiculing the punctuation of your opponent. The question posed to me that day by our articulate brick wall was not whether or not our graffiti artists, children of God that they are, know Jesus better than I do. Indeed, I hope they do. The question my single-minded partner raised is whether I know Jesus as well as God wants me to. My Sunday afternoon conversation convicts me on that charge.

We re-enact this conversation in the church all the time—at presbytery meetings, at General Assembly, in our seminaries, everywhere. The phrasing is kinder but the subtext is the same. "I know Jesus better than you do. I know Scripture better than you do. I know worship better than you do. And just for good measure, I know polity better too."

I imagine that to the outside world we look as silly as a minister quarrelling with a brick wall.

Sadly, these conversations don't move us closer together. Instead, they result in more inflexibility, each side wondering about the faithfulness of the other, each side thinking they're arguing with a brick wall.

What would happen, though, if we repented? If all of us repented? If we confessed that we don't know Jesus as well as God wants us too. We do it every Sunday in worship. It shouldn't rankle us to frame our sins of miscommunication as one of our failures of knowing Jesus. Of course, it's always hard to confess, but the logic in our call to confession on Sunday mornings makes it easier. We can confess so readily, we say, because the one who judges us is the one who died to save us from sin.

That confessional logic also makes it easier to be kind in our disagreements. We're forgiven if we're wrong. So let's stop for a few moments next time we find ourselves heating up over an argument and wonder, "What if they know Jesus better than I do?" Would we be kinder, more loving, more Christian? Would we honestly re-assess our own deeply held convictions? Would we allow, perhaps only in our private thoughts, that we might be wrong? Would we enter conversations with the honest possibility of being changed by the faithfulness of another and by the presence of the Holy Spirit?

I truly hope so.

So here's my prayer of confession for today. "Gracious God, forgive me when I mutter under my breath at the faithfulness of others, when I'm so frustrated that I think of my brothers and sisters as graffiti artists out to deface the church. Forgive me also the sin of pride, the notion that I'm right, that I have a sense of your entire truth. Free me from the inflexibility that hampers me from hearing your truth when it's spoken by others. I want to know Jesus better, so surprise me with messengers of his truth and love, and forgive me for the rude things I said to your last one, the brick wall."

And my prayer for you? That all of you would know Jesus better than I do now.

Casey Thompson is an Associate Pastor at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN.