Another tactic of the devil is to focus on the witness of sinners in the Church in order to create disappointment in the hearts of Christians and non-Christians alike.
[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery (Guercino, 1621)[/featured-image]
While the fact that we are all sinners can be something appealing, especially to someone who feels unworthy to be a Christian, the devil takes the reality and twists it to his own agenda.
Museum of Saints
Often we have this false notion that the Church is somehow a “museum of saints.” It is as if membership in the Church automatically gives you enough grace to be “holier than thou” and makes everyone in it a canonized saint. This is actually a part of the devil’s tactics. He seizes on this false notion and inflates it.
What happens then is when someone within the Church is found out to be a sinner, it can create a sense of disappointment. Everyone wants to believe that there are good people in the world and this holds true especially when it comes to the Church. We want to see saints, living and true, because it gives us hope that there really is goodness in the world.
However, when someone we know falls, it can create a sense of despair because of our desire that everyone in the Church should be a saint. Screwtape explains the scenario like this,
Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like “the body of Christ” and the actual faces in the next pew…At this present stage, you see, he has an idea of “Christians” in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real–though of course an unconscious–difficulty to him. (Screwtape Letters, 7, emphasis added)
Screwtape encourages his understudy to focus on this aspect and create a sense of “anticlimax.” He further writes that it is to his advantage if “the patient knows that the woman with the absurd hat is a fanatical bridge-player or the man with the squeaky books a miser and an extortioner” (8).
We can certainly see this temptation active and alive in the world today. One only need to turn on the TV and watch a news program or even a sitcom where something is mentioned about the “priest scandal” that continually mars the Church. What the devil enjoys doing is making those in the Church look like hypocrites who say one thing but do another. This creates a large disappointment in the hearts of those who wanted the Church to be a “museum of saints.” Many have left the Church or continually dismiss it based on the fact that there are sinners within her walls.
Hospital for Sinners
Yet, there is a way to combat this “anti-climax.” Instead of looking at the Church as a “museum of saints” it is much more of a reality that the Church is a “hospital for sinners.” The Church is a haven for us that we can go to and be healed of our sins. Instead of being disappointed that everyone in the Church is a sinner, we actually rejoice in that fact and invite even more sinners to enter our Church. We see the Church as the place of salvation who provides a healing remedy that is available to everyone who seeks it.
We see this especially in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. While He was on this earth, He constantly dined with public sinners and tax-collectors. He wanted to draw them into His arms and not push them away because they were not “holy enough.” Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32 RSV-CE)
Jesus even uses the same analogy in reference to the Church being a hospital. He says to the Pharisees, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” (Luke 5:31 RSV-CE). This brings home the reality that yes, we are all sinners and that means we are in the right place. Being in the Church doesn’t automatically canonize us as being a saint, but it does provide us an opportunity to be healed of our many wounds.
That is why when we see sinners in the Church, it should actually be comforting. It makes us realize that we are not alone. Yes, there are “Saints” in the Church, but they are only canonized because they had the humility to realize they were sinners and needed healing. Saints are simply those who went to the Physician on a daily basis and asked for healing. They knew that they were weak and needed God’s grace to heal them and give them strength to resist temptation.
Takeaway Point #2: Do not be troubled by sinners in the Church. We are all sinners and a part of the Church because we desire to be healed by the one true Physician who can lead us to Everlasting Life.
***If you would like to follow-along reading the The Screwtape Letters, I suggest to purchase your own copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters
