Friendly Fire

(The following was published in the bulletin at St Charles Bible Church – May 1st, 2016, St Charles MN)

       I wonder who coined the expression: “Friendly Fire”. They should be shot! (Not true of course! I just enjoyed the play on words.) I do understand what the expression is meant to convey, but to victims of it, the idea of “friendly fire” is a fantasy—their pain from it is real.

     When the motor quit on our garage door, I found Steve’s name in the yellow pages and called him. Last Tuesday evening, he made a 7:00 p.m. appointment to discuss replacing the door. It didn’t take that long for us to make a decision about that, but when he found out that I was pastor of a church, he stayed at our kitchen table for an additional two-and-a-half hours, talking about his experience in the church he and his wife had attended. He was raised Lutheran but married a Christian girl whose family attended a church that he described as a “legalistic” church. He said, “I heard the same “get saved” sermon every Sunday, including some sermons that he felt were exactly the same from previous Sundays. When he and his wife were dating, there were lots of confrontations with “Mom” about morality, drinking, separation from sin, and attending church every Sunday, but her parents never discussed their daughter’s drug problems or admitted that they were having marital problems as well. When one of the church families went through a divorce, the church “shunned” them at a time when our visitor felt they needed the church the most. One Sunday, the pastor announced that he was “stepping down” due to some “moral failure”, and our new friend decided that he no longer needed to attend church—another casualty of “friendly fire”! (He now has joined the folks who show up when the pews are full—on Easter and Christmas!) I told him I was sad about his experience and that I felt that he had traded one extreme for the other. Mostly I just listened (while Jan served another cup of coffee), but I was able to share some of my favorite verses from John 14.

     I hope our conversation gave him pause. I reviewed with him a little of our recent messages on Jesus being the only legitimate focus on Sunday mornings. But I am still left a little “shell shocked” this morning, wondering how many I may have wounded by my “friendly fire.” One conclusion that I made for sure: “We must always mix our message about ‘transgressions to the Law of God’, sin, and repentance with Jesus’ message of grace and forgiveness. And we cannot afford an errant shot in our behavior that contradicts our message on Sunday mornings. (Maybe we need ‘weapons training!’) “Friendly fire” hurts, regardless of its intended targets. “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” II Cor. 3:6 (NIV)

   Pastor Jim B

  ’47 / ’56  St Charles  MN

Doris Jean H

’44 / ’55 Manheim PA