The Morons of this World

I know an elderly lady, who is part of a very peculiar church. Look, I know that the King James Bible says God’s people are a peculiar people. The Bible even says that his people are morons. That’s the Greek word used when the English Bible says that “God calls the foolish of the world.” And the Greek word which the apostle Peter wrote, and which was rendered as “peculiar” in English, is a word that might be better translated as “purchased” because it has to do with belonging to someone as their possession. 

I won’t argue about whether the people of that church are a purchased people. I’ll just say they are truly a peculiar people.

The elderly lady attends a weekly service in a hotel meeting room with what is a small local segment of an international body, but worldwide they probably have less than 10,000 members. The attendance at the elderly lady’s weekly service varies between 3 and maybe 8 or 9.  Now, this lady can barely walk, but she must attend each week because the other two that regularly attend to make up the rest of the 3 are a gentleman of I would say about 70 and a woman probably in her early sixties. Those two are to be seen in each other’s company in public, but they apparently are not allowed to meet alone in the hotel meeting room without a third person in attendance because to do so would create the “appearance of evil”.  Who knows what they might be doing on the table during the pre-recorded hymn service!  

No, they must have someone else there or they cannot hold the service, and the elderly lady, old enough to be the mother of either of them, goes in case nobody else shows up to be that chaperone. I am not sure how that doesn’t give the appearance of evil also in this world of variable numbers of participants in certain acts, but evidently it doesn’t. Peculiar.

I sometimes give the elderly lady a ride to her church service. That means driving across town to pick her up and then taking her across the street to the hotel. The others in her fellowship are not able to cross the street to do that for some reason.  Peculiar.

One day I went to fetch her and the door to the meeting room was locked. I didn’t realize that at that time they routinely locked the door. Talk about giving the appearance of evil. What might you be doing behind the locked door of a hotel room? I wondered how interested people (hypothetically there might be another peculiar person interested) would gain access.  I asked about it after the door was unlocked and opened. I was told that they were doing that so that nobody would shoot them. Peculiar.

I don’t mind peculiar. I’m pretty weird myself. But what I do mind is that when I talk to these people for more than a few minutes, I gain a sense that they are fearful. Afraid of doing the wrong thing.  Afraid that they may not achieve the eternal life they are seeking. Afraid that their performance won’t cut it.  I don’t detect love, because you cannot give what you don’t have, and fear is what thrives in the absence of love. In fact, the Bible says that “perfect love drives out fear.”  Now, that isn’t peculiar. That is basic psychology.

The love of God is unconditional, and in that unconditional love he promises eternal life to those morons he has called. It doesn’t depend on them. They can’t earn it, nor can anyone thwart him. He describes this in Romans 8, a chapter that begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation, while everything in between is your story if you are among the morons God has called.