Daily PresenceSample

When I was in college, I remember driving in rural Central Louisiana where I passed a little church building just off Ten Mile Cemetery Road. The church’s name was Occupy Baptist Church #1.

“‘Occupy?’ What a curious name for a church!” I marveled as I drove by.

Barely four miles farther down the road, another country church loomed on the right. I slowed to read the church name on the sign out front: Occupy #2 Baptist Church.

“Oh, my gosh!” I thought. “What in the world? Occupy #1 and Occupy #2? That’s crazy.”

Some time later a friend from that part of Louisiana explained what he understood was the origin of the two Occupy churches. Sometime back in the 19th century, there was Occupy Baptist Church, which predated the Civil War. But a schism arose within the fellowship over a weighty issue: On which side of the vestibule should the hat rack be situated? I suppose the left faction just couldn’t get along with the right faction after one or the other lost the vote in the monthly business meeting, so the losing faction tucked their bibles under their arms and with a holy, indignant “Humph!” stormed out of Occupy Church and started #2 just down the road. And 150 years later, they’re both still open, four miles apart in the remote Louisiana piney woods, each devoted to “living as children of light” as Paul admonished the Ephesians to live in today’s passage (Eph. 4:8).

“The absurdity!” we decry. And we’re right—what happened between the Occupy churches is absurd. The kingdom of heaven must surely be grieved by petty quarrels within the body. The church’s message of light to humanity should never be obscured by silly issues that have no bearing on eternity.

In our walk today, let’s remember that the secular culture around us, the culture before which we live out a calling “as children of light,” longs to criticize us. If our light is diminished by internal disputes, by partisan politics, by mean-spirited stands on cultural issues, by any sort of irrelevance that doesn’t touch eternity, our light is diminished. Let us pray that wisdom and discernment will always inform our conduct so that our lives shine to our sacred purpose.