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Reputations
Barry Moore's sermon from 5.23.10

We’re going to bounce around Scripture a little bit today but the crux of what we’re going to talk about is loosely taken from today’s Pentecost reading from Acts that Jeremy read for us a few minutes ago. So, if you haven’t already forgotten it, try to keep it in the back of your mind.
When I was in high school and college I experienced a dilemma that I think everyone goes through. I still struggle with it actually, so I hope that you all deal with it. Do y’all ever do that? Have a problem and just hope against hope that someone else is having that problem? Not to be mean just to know that you’re normal and not crazy?

I didn’t start noticing this dilemma until I was in the 7th or 8th grade. As I’ve spent a majority of the last two years hanging out with kids, I’ve realized that this problem has started occurring earlier and earlier for our students which I think poses another problem all together. The dilemma is that of reputations. And not just reputation but reputations plural.

In the reading from Acts, on that Pentecost the apostles are gathered together waiting for instructions when the Holy Spirit descends not as a dove but as tongues of fire that rest on their heads. They all start speaking different languages and all of the people gathered accuse them of being drunk. So right away, day one actually, Christians are developing a reputation. Peter stands up and assures the Jews gathered that they aren’t drunk and begins the first of his many sermons. But this idea of reputations really stuck with me this week as I read and re-read our scriptures for today. So that is what we’re going to spend our time working on tonight.

When I was in high school I had three distinct reputations that I was trying to manage. I had my church reputation as a regular member of my parish and my youth group. I had my community reputation with my non-church friends at school (some of them went to church but not my church so they weren’t ‘church friends’). I also had my public reputation with the people at my school and in my neighborhood that I didn’t really consider friends but I knew who they were and I hoped that they knew who I was. And since my opinions of people usually start forming before I’ve even spoken to them (I think we all do that?) I knew that I really needed to focus on maintaining that reputation too.

In college it was the same kind of thing, only the names were changed.

I sat down this week and used my mental time machine to go back and jot down the things that I wanted each group to associate me with... What I wanted them to think about me.
I wanted my church friends to know that I was committed to being involved at church, that I’d be there every week and I’d worship and I’d pursue God every Sunday and Wednesday night. I really, truly, wanted to treat others as Christ all the time and I wanted to make sure that people knew that about me. I wouldn’t directly tell them but I’d actually try my best and hope they saw that.

I wanted my non-church friends to know that I was a loyal and true friend. I wanted them to know that I had clear values and that I usually wasn’t willing to compromise them. I didn’t necessarily tell them what those values were exactly but I made sure they knew that I had them.
As for my public reputation, thats where things seem to get tricky. I like to think that I’m a pretty funny guy sometimes. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew that, even if they didn’t know me. Sometimes this worked and I’d feel like my reputation increased with my peers. A lot of times this was at the cost of my reputation with my teachers and other authority figures, but when you’re 16 you don’t really think about stuff like that. I wanted my peers to think I was cool. I wanted to be popular, and when I gained what most people would consider a good level of popularity, I wanted to be elite.

By the way, popularity (especially the elite kind of popularity) doesn’t often mesh up well with “treat others as Christ”. Just as a little point of fact.

So, three distinctly different reputations to uphold... how do I decide which one to focus on. Easy! I choose which reputation to uphold based on two things: geography (Am I at church? Am I at school? Am I at a party?) and my present company (Are these my close friends? Are these people who are more popular than me that I need to impress? Are these people my priest?)

Every once in a while though, the inevitable would happen. I’d have a collision of social circles. The first time that I remember this happening was when one of my good friends started dating a girl in my youth group. I remember so well when Carlos started dating Christin. You should have seen the look on my face when Christin showed up with him at another friends house. You should have seen the look on my friends faces when I completely changed the way I’d been acting as not to let Christin in on the fact that I wasn’t as perfect as I’d tried so hard to make my church believe. If I’m honest, both Christin and my friends probably thought I was being totally weird.

I know that we’ve all had these experiences. Yes, this happens at school a lot, but it also happens at work. Believe it or not... it happens at church. Every Sunday.

Whenever our social circles mesh and collide it seems like we have to maintain several different reputations at once. Is there any social situation more stressful than bringing together friends from different circles? If you’re married, think about your wedding. I’m getting married in six months and I couldn’t be more excited... but I’ll be honest. I’m terrified of bringing my family (that I love) and their friends into close proximity with my friends (that I love) while entertaining Morgan’s family (that I love) and meeting all of their friends (that I don’t know but would probably love).

As we get older it seems like these situations happen less often but I don’t feel like they’re ever going to go away entirely. So we have to learn how to deal with them. And what better way to learn than turning to the Word.

A quick scan of scripture for references to reputations may bring you a few surprises. I generally assume that being overly concerned with what people think of me is unhealthy and leads to me worrying about things that I really need not worry about. But scripture (in several places) says otherwise.

Proverbs 22:1 says “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favour is better than silver or gold.”

That one verse was more challenging to me this week than anything else. A good name is greater than great riches. Now, I think there is a difference between valuing peoples opinions of us and over-valuing peoples opinions of us. There are some people who just aren’t going to like us. It’s part of the deal. And some of those people are really good people, some of them are jerks and need to seriously look in the mirror and re-assess how much room they have to talk but some of them are ok. None of us are going to be liked by everyone but we should strive, as Proverbs says, to have a good name.

In the Apostle Paul’s first letter to Timothy he talks a lot about leaders in the church and what kind of qualities they should have. Interestingly enough, this is part of our daily office readings for this week. Lets look at chapter 3, verse 7. Paul is talking about bishops in particular here but I think it applies to all of us. He says we should be temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, gentle, and “Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.”

Outsiders. Listen, because this is the whole point of what I’m saying: The person we are around non-believers (outsiders as Paul calls them) is SO important. THAT is our witness MORE times than NOT.

The person we are around non-believers is the way we project Christ.

The person we are around non-believers is the way we project Christ.

That is our witness.

So, what can you do to make sure that you are your best in front of non-believers (which is pretty much all the time by the way). Even at church. So many people walk through these doors with questions about who Christ really is and how he relates to them and part of the information that they gather on a Sunday is the way YOU and I act, the people that WE are HERE.

For the most part, I think we’re on our best behavior at church. You don’t see a lot of people bickering and fighting, you don’t usually see people being taken advantage of or left out. Typically this is a place where we put our best foot forward.

Shouldn’t you always put your best foot forward? Couldn’t you really help yourself out and make your life a lot easier if you only had one reputation to uphold and that was the reputation you have here, at church? The reputation that is you on your best behavior?

So, here’s a little technique to help you start eliminating the parts of your life that contribute to a reputation that doesn’t give non-believers an accurate image of Christ:

Ask yourself these three questions constantly:
1. Is this something I would say or do at church? By at church I mean inside these walls.
2. Is this something, as a Christian, that I would want my kids to do or say? (If you don’t have kids then ask, “Is this something that I would want my parents to know I was doing or saying?”
2b. Is this something, as a Christian, that I would want said or done to my kids?
3. Is this something that I would say or do to (or in the presence of ) Christ?

I want you to try to honestly answer “yes” to all of those questions for one hour tomorrow. Just see how it goes. If you succeed then try another hour. Get to the point where you can go an entire day without answering “no” to any of those questions. Then try a week. It’s gonna take work but you’ll be amazed at how much better and easier life is when you only have one reputation to uphold.

In your worship leaflet today I asked you if you’re “willing to compromise your reputation in order to spread the love of Christ.” I really should have phrased it differently. I should have said “are you willing to eliminate the unflattering, unhealthy, un-Christian, aspects of your reputation and embrace you at your best to spread the love of Christ.” So, if you have a pen just scratch that out and make a little edit.

Now, if we can all say “yes, I’m willing to eliminate the parts of my reputation that don’t glorify Christ”, and align our public reputation, our community reputation, and our church reputation, we only have to worry about ONE. Just ONE reputation. And how beautiful would it be if we all put our most Christlike foot forward all day, every day?

How beautiful would it be if we could love the guy at work who we complain about every day when we get home?

How beautiful would it be if we could not let traffic put us in such a bad mood that we take it out on our family when we get home?

How beautiful would it be if we could end each day by saying “today I reflected Christ on everyone I saw”?

I promise you it would be contagious.

And we can do it. WE can do it! It’s just a matter of pausing and saying, “the person I am is the way I project Christ.”

The people WE are is the way we project Christ.

Lets pray.

Heavenly Father, thank You for sending your spirit, God. Thank You for giving us the strength to go out and spread Your love every day. I pray that we not take that strength for granted God and that we use it. And I pray that when we feel like we don't have the energy to do the things that we know glorify You and the things that we know You want us to do that You would give it to us. I pray hat you woud give us the ability to, even if we dont youse words, reflect You on the people that we see and the people that see us. I thank You so much for this community I thank You so much for this opportunity to come together and worship You. And I pray that as we leave this place we dont walk out and leave our Sunday hat here, God that we take our Sunday reputation with us weherever we go. We love You and we thank You for today and It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen