Christians should show more grace to one another

I STILL think about this letter I received

Several years ago, I took advantage of my friendship with an outstanding comedian named John Branyan to do a number of charity comedy events. I was the organizer, host, and wannabe comedian, and John was the star, every time. The dude could bring down the house with his physical humor and sarcastic observations.

We started out doing stand-alone comedy shows, and then morphed them into Christmas Spectaculars or Valentine’s Day extravaganzas. They were a lot of work, but a lot of fun, and as I joked with the audience then, it really felt good giving away other people’s money to some good cause. We ended up doing around 8- or 9-years’ worth of those shows, but I almost quit after 3.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the Monday after our Christmas Spectacular that we held on the previous Friday, which also happened to be the first day on Christmas break for me at school. I was there when Jen came walking in from the mailbox and handed me a letter that had come for me. I stood in our foyer and read it and my heart just sank.

Without going into the finer points of the letter, it was from a man who had brought his family to our Christmas show, trusting that since I was a Christian, I would be hosting a clean event, free from any of the grotesque or raunchy humor associated with Hollywood and the entertainment community. I had billed it, he reminded me, as “family-friendly.”

For a page and a half, he berated me for luring him in and creating such an awkward and uncomfortable evening for he and his wife. They had left at intermission and pledged that they would never come back, expressing gratitude that they had not gone with their original gut instinct to invite their friends to join them that night.

In case you’re wondering what ruined his evening, it all apparently centered around one “off-color joke” I had told that left him disgusted. In actuality, it wasn’t a planned joke at all. I had been talking with the audience about my recent experience with a kidney stone, and in the course of describing it, mentioned the stone making its way down my “uterus.” I didn’t catch myself at first until the audience started laughing. I had meant to say urethra, obviously, but said uterus instead. Embarrassed, I made some remark that I might as well leave the stage now that I had humiliated myself by telling everyone I have a uterus. In the course of those few brief moments, I had apparently uttered the word uterus three or four times.

The man told me in his letter that he was appalled, his wife was embarrassed, and they spent the whole evening trying to explain what a uterus was to their 5-year-old. He admonished me that he did not appreciate having to give a premature biology lesson to his child because he inadvertently took his family to a worldly comedy club that night.

In a word, I was devastated. I told Jenny I was never doing another one again. It didn’t matter how many times she reassured me that everyone else there thought the moment was funny. It didn’t matter how many times my mom and dad told me, “Peter, that guy could have easily told his 5-year-old that you said a funny word that wasn’t what you meant to say and people laughed at it, and that would have been the end of it.” It didn’t matter how many encouraging emails, thank-you notes, or positive comments I got from others. That one letter stood out above them all.

I wrote a short letter of apology back to the man, refunded his money, and then upon my wife’s advice, called Branyan to get his take on the situation.

Just like I’ve never forgotten that letter, I will never forget what John said to me. A guy who has worked a ton of cruise ships, been to comedy clubs around the United States, toured with Tim Hawkins and other headliners, John said to me in no uncertain terms: “Christian audiences are the absolute worst to perform for.” To be clear, John is certainly a Christian. His point was that while worldly people may just blow off comedians they don’t find funny, many Christians are notoriously sensitive, and exhibiting no grace or willingness to offer a brother or sister the benefit of the doubt, will take it as their heavenly duty to rebuke and admonish for even the slightest offense.

“They see it as their duty to God to discourage and demoralize fellow Christians who don’t live up to their expectations,” John counseled. “You have to decide if you’re willing to take that and press on or not.” His response encouraged me enough that, with the passage of a year’s time, we continued hosting our shows and raising money for cancer patients and special needs families in our community. I’m glad we did.

I’m telling you this story because of a video I watched online today (Sunday as I’m writing this). I have no desire to amplify it or increase its traffic largely because I found it to be engaging the very same kind of discouraging reproach heaped upon fellow believers that I received in that letter. The truth is that some of the points in the video were worthy of notice and attention. But the self-righteousness, the haughty condemnation was not.

Jesus prayed for unity in His church and among His followers, and He told them plainly:

John 13

35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

He is talking to His disciples not about loving worldly people, but about loving their fellow believers. The world would look at the way we care for one another, speak kindly to one another, approach one another with grace, concern, encouragement, and gentleness, and say to themselves, “That is a family, that is a community who love one another, and always have the other’s spirit and best interest in mind. I wish I had that.”

Be mindful of Christ’s instruction on how to treat His bride this week in your dealings with other Christians with whom you disagree. I don’t mean apostates, I don’t mean blasphemers, and I don’t mean false teachers. I do mean that these are difficult days, and the church of Jesus has never needed one another more than they do this hour. Let’s work to encourage the body and bless the Kingdom of God as we labor for His glory, not our own.

---

ICYMI

There are a lot of views on God out there. But if we are to think like Jesus, we should pay attention to what He thought and taught about God the Father. That was the topic of the message I preached this week. Check it out here if you’re interested…

I also wrote these articles that you might appreciate:

• This might be the biggest contributing factor to America’s coming collapse

• A word to Christians amid all the noise