No Guarantees

Ok, so I guess like every other website in the Christian and not so Christian world, I thought I too would make a comment on the big news – Mike Gugliemucci does not have terminal cancer, rather he has another kind of illness (my take) – a mental illness that seems to have resulted in him faking this cancer, deceiving probably hundreds of thousands (could it be more than a million??) people via his live ‘performances’ and testimonies and powerful song, ‘healer’. Hillsong have gone into bunker mode (again) and are battening down their hatches, making legal claims toward Youtube, media statements, and probably saying swear words quietly behind closed doors!
Blogs are screaming for answers, newspapers (even The Australian), are loving the fodder for their juicy stories.
But I wonder if the real problem is not Mike and his deceit but the very system he became a victim of. A church that loves to make heroes and stars out of ordinary people…in fact does this not sound like the very worldy system that we live in? Think Paris Hilton, think up and coming teen hero Miley Cyrus, think any kind of super star…or not so super star (Bindi Irwin?), ordinary people longing for attention, love and recognition, they show some flare, and pop culture instantly elevates them higher and higher until there is no way they could ever display their true selves, their broken nature, because if they did – we would crucify them! (And we do!)

Mike has been exposed as a fake.
Oh how I wish some of my fakeness would get exposed sometimes, but the pain, the risk it might cause to me and others.
But, then imagine the healing that may also come, imagine finally being able to walk down the street knowing that your ugliness is exposed and you have nothing to hide. The road to healing I would say is found in here.

So again, I suggest that we as a Church may just have missed the point.
AA on the other hand may look more like a church I would like to attend.

At Church we say, “all is fine, I am healed and victorious!”
In fact some may even invent sicknesses to be able to make that victorious claim. “Glory to God I can still preach and write songs and be your hero!”

But at an AA meeting people come in broken, “my name is Jack, I am sick, I am an alcoholic”. Jack is welcomed and embraced as a broken man, no chance of making him out a hero, he is just like one of us, but together as a egalitarian group of people, we can make a difference in one another’s lives.

So to Mike I say, congratulations my friend (I am not really a friend, although I have met Mike on a few occasions), finally your healing has begun, you have been set free from this lie and can now really begin to come to terms with your inner self, the pain and sickness that in one way, shape, or another – all of us carry.

To myself, I guess I take the challenge to not be afraid of the dark sides of me, but rather expose them. Also, I need to be wary as I like to be the hero, be in the limelight, let the Church make me out to be a hero or let people think more of me than I really am.

To the Church – stop sticking people up on those pedastools! Stop making Kings and Queens and CEO’s out of people who some call “Pastor”.

Who was it who said if you want to be great then you must be the servant of all?

Our journey into into Christ, as I understand it, is a downward one, not an upward one.
Think Mother Theresa as a model?
Think Billy Graeme as a pretty fair example of one who was ‘up front’ yet seemed to resist being made a hero.
Who else? Or am I just making these anti-hero’s into heros?

Anyway – Continue to pray for Mike’s healing…and mine…and your own