TV

I will start this post off with a caveat, I do not agree with everything on the show Glee. In fact there is quite a lot I don’t agree with. If you need to, please re-read this sentence a couple of times, so that the point sticks in.

Now to the good stuff.

Last night’s episode touched on some huge issues that the church needs to know are out there. In a nutshell, one of the main character’s dad had a heart attack and was in a coma, and it wasn’t looking good at all. This young man happens to be a homosexual and an Atheist. His friends tried to reach out to him and let them know they were praying for him.

His response went something like this – I love you guys, but I don’t need or want your prayers. WOW. Let that sink in. He didn’t believe prayer could do anything or that God could do anything to heal his dad.

I can speak from personal experience that prayer / God changes things and heals people. I’ve seen it happen at least twice to people very near and dear to me.

Flash forward further in the episode. The school gym teacher comes against the leader of the glee club due to her stance on the separation of church and state.

Here’s a homework assignment. Find separation of church and state in the Constitution. Go ahead, I’ll wait……………..

Oh that’s right. It’s not there. The Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

That’s it. The whole notion of separation of church and state came from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to some concerned citizens. This letter has been twisted and mangled into such a crazy mess that now we can’t sing songs that mention Christ at Christmas (although you can’t spell the word without His name) because that would be an “establishment of religion.” Give me a break.

When asked why she’s such a curmudgeon, she states that when she was a little girl she prayed and prayed for her mentally handicapped older sister to be healed. When she wasn’t, she prayed harder and harder and harder.

She finally came to the conclusion that “no one was listening.”

How sad. I believe God always answers prayer. Often times it’s not the answer we want to hear, but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t answer. But how are we, the church, reaching out to people feeling this way? How are we showing God’s love to them? Are we getting our hands dirty and putting ourselves in situations where we find ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to be His hands and feet?

Throughout the episode, this young man’s friends keep loving on him and praying for him until he finally is able to at least accept their prayers and listen to them.

That’s the point. We need to love people regardless of race, creed or religion. Regardless of their looks. Regardless of their speech. Regardless…

We need to love. We need to show God’s love to a world that has serious issues that only God can solve.