ON FILLING DIAPERS IN CHURCH

“Sorry pastor – it seems like just about the time you begin your sermon, Niilo fills his diaper.”  I’m sure it was offered as an explanation as to why his Mommy or Daddy would take him out for a few minutes about that time each Sunday.  I’m sure they didn’t want me to think it was me or something I said or their infant son’s commentary on my preaching skills (or lack of them).  We had a good chuckle over it. 

But the more I thought about it the more it occurred to me that the situation is a rather earthy metaphor for what happens – or what God wants to happen – each time we gather in his house to hear his Word.  Bear with me, and think about it. 

All through our week the world in which we live gives us all kinds of stuff to try to digest:  gender identity and sexuality controversies, being told in subtle and overt ways that our worth is measured by what we have or earn or do, running out of time because there always seems too much to do and too little time to get it done,  trying to balance work and family, as well as trying to balance earthly and spiritual concerns, and more and more and more. 

And our world offers no end of temptations to gratify our sinful nature and its desires.  It seems that everything God has forbidden is accepted, defended, and even celebrated by our culture.  And the more we are exposed to that, the more our Christian conscience can become desensitized.  The more that happens, the easier it is to stumble and fall and rebel and choose that which God forbids. 

And there is also the guilt we carry inside of us – guilt for what we have done and not done, guilt for having neglected family for work, guilt for disappointing our God or ourselves, guilt for knowing less of the Word than we know we should, guilt for having failed to keep the personal spiritual commitments we made when we last sat in God’s house.

A Bible verse comes to mind that has a curious connection (at least in English) to that baby’s sermon-timed diaper habit.  Jesus said,   "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.”  (Luke 21:34)  The Greek word Jesus used there for is κραιπάλῃ.  Pronounce it “craipalay.”  The meaning of the world comes pretty close to the slang expression “crapola” – all that stuff that clutters up life and wastes both time and energy and distracts us from spiritual and eternal things.  Isn’t that we bring with us to God’s house on Sunday?  Hasn’t that been building up all week – or since the last time we came to God’s house?

How are ever going to sort through all of this and be able to do what Paul calls us to do?  - “Test everything.  Hold on to the good.  Avoid every kind of evil.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)  How will we find strength to resist temptation?  How can we unload the guilt that weighs us down?

Isn’t that what God’s Word does?  For that time on Sunday morning (worship and Bible class), we have the opportunity to sit at the feet of our all-wise God and listen with our ears and hearts and minds as he helps us sort through it all.  And the more we do that, the less oppressive and confusing all that stuff of the world is.

And what of the guilt? That load inside gets released when we stand in God’s house, confess it all to him and then hear him assure us with the pastor’s voice, the written Word and the Lord’s Supper that the guilt is gone – forgiven and forgotten by our gracious God. 

Worship isn’t just what I render to God on Sunday morning.  It isn’t just about what he gets from me.  It’s also very much about what God does to serve us on Sunday morning and what we get from him.  That, quite simply stated, is to unload the guilt and help us pass that stuff that’s not good for us and get better at passing it up in the future. We get what he came to give us:  forgiveness, instruction, resetting our hearts and minds for the week ahead, and strengthening us for the challenges that lie ahead. 

So, when we start to hear our God speak to us in his life-giving and life-changing Word, just let all the stuff go.  Let the guilt go.  Let the confusion go.  Unload the preoccupation with the stuff that’s weighing you down in your walk of faith.  It appears that little Niilo has it right!