What kind of waiting room are you in?

When was the last time you were in a waiting room? What were you waiting for? Who else was there?

There are many places where we have to wait in line or take a number and wait in a chair: driver licensing office, bank, dentist, passport application, to name a few. Each place has its own vibe. For example, people waiting to renew their driver license are in a very different frame of mind than people waiting to attend a concert.

However, what if the church were a waiting room? What kind of waiting room would it be?

All too often we treat church gatherings like the waiting room for a job interview. We try to look as competent and impressive as we can. We don't like to show any weakness, failure, or struggle, so we paste a plastic smile on and tell everyone life is great, even if it's not. Sadly, this kind of inauthenticity leads others to fear vulnerability and robs us of deep community and love.

Author Tim Keller makes the great point that churches should feel more like the waiting room for a doctor and less like the waiting room for a job interview. Instead of trying to look competent and impressive, people in a doctor's waiting room assume everyone else there is sick and needs help. This is much closer to the reality of a church gathering.

Jesus agrees.

Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

~ Mark 2:15-17

For our purposes, there are two important things to notice in this passage. First, Mark makes a point of telling us there were many "disreputable sinners" among Jesus' followers. Second, those were the ones Jesus came for.

In other words, Jesus did not come for those who are waiting for a job interview - people like the Pharisees who were trying to show their qualifications and strength. Rather, he came for those who are waiting to see a doctor - those who are spiritually sick, know they are sick, and know they need help to get better.

PAUSE and REFLECT: What kind of room does your church reflect? When you gather with other followers of Jesus, are you trying to look good, and thus refuse to be honest about the condition of your heart and soul, or do you realize you're among those who - like you - need "spiritual medical attention"?

If you think about it, it would be asinine for a person in a cast waiting to see the doctor to tell everyone else in the waiting room, "There's nothing wrong with me, I'm perfectly fine." It would equally ludicrous in the church.

Perhaps we might not lean over to the person next to us in a doctor's office and ask, "What are you in for?" Nor should we necessarily do that with those next to us in church. However, we should recognize that we are all there for good reason, count ourselves among the disreputable sinners who follow Jesus, stop pretending life is all about "I'm living the victory, brother!" and start being more honest when we're in the valley of the shadow of death.

When we do so, it give others permission to do so. It also opens our heart to receive God's deep love and healing directly from God (who came for the sick) and indirectly through the care and compassion of those around us.

It is the doctor's waiting room - not the job interview waiting room - that allows the church to be God's healing instrument in the world, and your honesty and vulnerability about what room you're in is one of the greatest gifts you can offer those in the room with you.