PETRA AND THE PHARISEES

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." Matthew 23:13

Last night we drove down to Jacksonville to see the Petra Reunion concert. For those who have never heard of Petra, they were one of the first, if not the first, contemporary Christian rock bands, coming out in 1972 and staying together until 2005. Not having a contemporary Christian station in our area, I first heard of Petra when I was in college, but they were a little too hard rock for my taste.

However, since we have become acquainted with a member of the band and since my wife is a long-time Petra fan, we made the drive down with some friends last night to see the concert at a church there in the area. We arrived at the same time as the band, and stood there with them as they unloaded their van and brought their instruments and other equipment into the church.

While we were standing there at the door, a young boy walked up to us and said, "You can't come in. The doors open at 6:00 pm." When our friend said, "We're with the band," he shrugged and walked back to the adults sitting at the ticket table.

After the band got their stuff into the church and began setting up, we all followed them in, where we were promptly stopped by the ticket lady. "You can't come in," she said. Our friend said that we were with her, and the ticket lady asked, "Is their name on the comp list?" "No, they're going to pay for their own tickets." "Then they can't come in." This went on for a while until tempers began to flare and our friend from the band had to come out and speak to the ticket lady.

We finally got permission to enter into the lobby and wait until the doors opened (which was a relief since the temperature outside had reached 100 degrees!). As we were standing there, a lot of people wandered by our group of 9 standing there in the lobby, presumably from the church. No one greeted us and no one spoke, so I wandered over and spoke to an elderly man who was guarding the door to the sanctuary. I asked him about the church, how many people went there, and their services. As he was telling me about this expansive sanctuary they had just built three years earlier, he said, "We've got to be pretty careful to keep this place looking nice. The members do a good job of not bringing in food and drink into the sanctuary. Our problem is visitors. They keep wanting to bring coffee from the lobby into the sanctuary, so we have to stop them."

Based on my experience at the concert last night, I was reminded of Matthew 23:13. In this verse, Jesus takes the Pharisees to task because they had put so many burdens and so many laws on the people, that they were actually keeping people from coming to God. And, to make things worse, not only were they keeping people from God, but they weren't entering the kingdom of God either.

I don't know anything about this church that we visited except for what we experienced last night. They may be a loving church. They may really be doing great things for God. They are very large (3,500 members), and are evidently growing, so I assume that the people are getting fed and are growing in grace, but I got the distinct impression that visitors were not really welcome, and that they were doing everything they could to keep others from entering. I just didn't experience the love of Christ from the host church last night, but thankfully, I did feel the grace of God through the concert and the message of Petra.

Other than the blessing we received from Petra, I left the concert last night with a warning ringing in my ears, "Don't be like the Pharisees! The Kingdom of God is for all, and you should always err on the side of grace instead of the law. So what if coffee spills on the carpet? So what is your church isn't a showroom? What is the purpose of the church anyway? To look pretty for a world going to hell or to invite those who are perishing to come to Christ?" I pray that our little church never reaches the point where the building becomes more important than the people or where rules take precedence over grace.