Pastor’s Note
The real scandal at Southwood
As I sit down to type this Pastor’s note the landscape at Southwood is very political. There are many people hurting, many people confused and many people frustrated. There are officers and members on both sides of the issue. I get regular appeals to resign and regular appeals to remain. It is a difficult season for all of us.
I am presently sitting in Gulfport Memorial Hospital with my mother who is fresh out of ICU. She’s sleeping soundly just on the other side of my laptop and in many ways I’m jealous of the foggy state she’s in. There is some appeal to just going to sleep and hoping to wake up when it’s all over. Some of you are nodding with me. You totally understand.
Between visiting hours I keep seeing tidbits of the Republican primaries on the news. It baffles me that these individuals are in the same party. In the end they end up supporting one candidate, but the nature of the debates and attacks are vicious. I wonder how they will just “flip a switch” after the primaries and pretend this never happened. It honestly makes me think about Southwood. I know God is on the throne and His will is going to be done, but I’m not sure there is a relational switch that can just be flipped when all of this is over. In kindergarten we were told, “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me…” What a lie! I’ll take sticks and stones any day. It’s the words that regularly hurt me, and you, and all of us, right? We are all hurting.
I want to tell you that I deeply love you and our beloved church. I am thankful to be here and honestly thankful to be here at this season in the life of the church. This moment in time is His will for my life. I embrace it as such. I want to appeal to you to please stop “biting and devouring” one another. As troubling as it is to watch the supporters of Romney and Gingrich destroy each other it is more heartbreaking to think that we have become the church in Corinth with some following Paul, some Apollos, some Jean and some Jesus. There is no switch that can be flipped in the end. It is our hearts that must be turned now.
Between the polling data, the potential votes and the politicking we are losing sight of something: we have made the scandal at Southwood the story about Jean Larroux, instead of the story about Jesus. It is supposed to be the Gospel! Beloved, if you think you are campaigning in the Kingdom for me but are angry, critical and making judgments on your brothers and sisters in Christ then please take my sign out of your yard. That is sin and I honestly beg you to be known by loving your opponents not out-arguing them. To my dear friends who would desire my removal please consider your words and your hearts. To “get out the vote” or hope that some story will break which will ensure my defeat is sinful as well. I must love you enough to tell you that. To both groups: the scandal at Southwood should be the grace of God not the amount of gossip going on.
I decided to write a campaign ad that I think both “sides” need to hear: “Some have said Jean Larroux has no business in the ministry and we should ‘throw the rascal out!’ Some have said that Jean Larroux is everything they ever wanted in a minister and they couldn’t imagine Southwood without him. Let us set the record straight: the only prophet, priest or king trustworthy enough for that kind of endorsement is Jesus, not Jean. And regarding the rascal, it is true. He is a rascal. But the campaign slogan is as old and overused as the one who invented it. It was actually the devil who first said to the Father ‘throw the rascal out’ but the Father threw a party instead. That is grace. That is the Gospel and that is the real scandal at Southwood. Sinners set free, loved and accepted because of Christ.”
Beloved, it is the scandal of the Gospel, that makes the scandal we’re going through okay. The campaign we are supposed to be working on is His and He is the only candidate worthy of your allegiance.
—The beloved rascal of Jesus