The weak ones

She walked into the sanctuary just as the choir was warming up for its pre-concert rehearsal. Taking her seat in the front pew, four rows behind me, she clasped her hands up to her chin and sat, rocking with pleasure at the warm-up exercises. When the warm-up was finished, she clapped and called out, “Bravo! Bravo!”

I went over and sat next to her as the choir ran through the opening measures of “My Jesus, My Savior, My Song in the Night.” Excited, childlike, loquacious, she expressed amazement how God had brought her here just in the nick of time to hear this choir rehearse.

“I am a lover of music. I love music. I love singing. This should have been me, forty years ago. My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist. After eleven years of lessons, I told her I didn’t want to do it any more. I wanted to sing. But I married a man who said, ‘No more singing.’ That was hard. But finally he left, and now I live with four cats, and I want to sing again. I will go back to school for it. This choir is fantastic. I can’t believe God brought me here just in time to hear the rehearsal. I can’t stay for the concert; I have a play to go to. But this is so awesome. That should be me up there….”

After rehearsal, she followed the choir into the fellowship room, where pre-concert supper was laid out for us. She had a program in her hands. Waving it above her head, she approached each table, asking for autographs. At each table she told her life story, her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her determination to succeed in spite of it, her artistic longings, her need to go home and feed her four cats before going to the play. At each table she clasped her hands to her chest and shouted, “You are awesome! You sing like angels! God brought me here just in time to hear you!” Joy shone from her eyes.

Each table treated her with quiet toleration, signing the program and nodding, not looking in her eyes, not asking questions, smiling but not speaking, hoping she would leave soon to feed her cats.

Our table breathed a collective sigh of relief when she moved on to the next group. It was difficult to be bombarded by such intensity of feeling and by an imbalance of boundaries and social etiquette. Throughout the rest of the meal, eyes rolled and mouths twitched when she was referred to. There was an implicit understanding of humor, pity, and disdain.

I wanted to weep.

I wanted to stand up and say, "Do you know who was just at our table? This woman is God's special care. The weak ones--they are his special love."

I wanted to say, “Do you remember whose name you carry? Are you the people of whom the Bible says, ‘You have the mind of Christ’?”

I wanted to ask, “So do you think this is how God acts toward us when we come in front of him with our weaknesses, our petty demands, our list of failings, our dreams for the future, our craving for love? Do you think he kind of looks away while we're talking, embarrassed, hoping we'll be done soon? Does he roll his eyes after we leave, and all the angels around the throne snicker?”

I didn’t say any of that. I kept my silence.

It is easier to write about it in a blog here, than to frame words to confront people I don’t know very well about a violation of God’s heart. A violation I freely confess that I have participated in during my life, many times over.

Who was the hypocrite: they or I?

But the pain I felt, sitting at that table, was I think a small, bitter slice of the pain in the heart of God.