Friday, September 21
For some reason I’ve been thinking lately about an old friend of mine. Rick Cox was a tough guy with a cool car -- a jet black Mazda RX-7 convertible, as I recall. He started dating a daughter of one of the leaders in the church where I grew up as a kid. They married and started their life happily ever after, until she had an affair. His bride left him and took his dreams with her.
He spiraled and entered a two year “fog,” as most divorcees can attest. His only connection to our church was the softball team, but growing up our church had a rule that if you didn’t attend church on Sundays you couldn’t play. To make alimony payments Rick had to work on the weekends, which disqualified him for the team. My dad was the only one, I remember, that fought against the rule.
A few years later my dad and I went to his second wedding. After Rick’s girlfriend lost the baby-weight they held a ceremony in a small country church and had the reception in a fire hall. The only people invited (or who came) from our church were my dad, Rick’s best friend Dave Gaffney, and me. The affair was a slightly smaller and more broken version of the first wedding I attended when I was a kid.
If the ministry of Jesus reminds us of anything, it’s the heartbreak God feels for guys like Rick, as well as his frustration with church leaders who keep hitting the nail right on the thumb.
My Friend Rick Cox
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4 comments:
The church softball league in my home town had the same policy. I thought that it was the height of irony. However when I attended the games and saw the level of sportsmanship and Christian, I was glad there weren't any people there to be scared away from church.
Jesus ate with Publicans and sinners to call them to repentence, not to righteousness. Matt 9: 10-13.
If Christians were allowed to hang out only with "righteous Christians" then we have created a new order of Pharisees. This new order of Pharisees would then decide who was righteous enough to do anything and what we could do and could not do. Jesus was against this type of discrimination.
I do not recall any scriptures where Jesus did not allow anyone into his presence, including the devil himself, so how can any Christian say that anyone is not welcome.
Anyway, if God is for us, who can be against us. So there is no risk to anyone to allow God to do His work through any one of us in any situation.
Thank you for that story. It helped me see things clearly as I am going through a similar ordeal as Rick.
The story reminded me of how disconnected I felt while going through my divorce. Was my home Church interested in my well being? Kind of hard to tell really - the church leadership had nothing to say to me, and the members that did show "concern" seemed more interested in wanting to know the sordid details of my situation than wanting to tend to the needs of a member of the flock. Like Rick, I was left frustrated, questioning my own chruch leadership AND God.
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