My father was an elementary school principal back before the days of automated data systems and computers. He would be the one to get a call from one of his teachers saying they were sick and couldn’t come in. He would sit at the breakfast table frantically calling from his paper list of substitutes. It was one of his great joys of the job (hah).

As a student, there are always some substitute teachers you like, and some you dread. One of the dreaded ones for me was a lady we affectionately dubbed “Tiny Tornado.” She was barely taller than us 3rd-graders, but oh boy, could she pack a verbal whallop!

We do it all the time, substitute. More politically correct words instead of vulgar or offensive. Fat-free foods. Vaping instead of cigarettes. Methods. The real world for the seemingly unattainable spiritual. These days people want facts, proof, evidence that God matters. To believe that Jesus Christ died for us, that our sins would be forgiven, sounds too ridiculous to be true. After all, didn’t he die on a cross some two millennia ago? How can that possibly matter now, the skeptic asks. To have abundant life in Christ cannot be measured by physical, material things. Hebrews 11:1 – “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The two key words there are “hoped” and “not.” The bold, audacious claim that we make, based on the claim God makes on us by the power of the Holy Spirit, does not fit into any theory or explanation. There is no substitute for that which is, paradoxically, the most real alternative to evil and hopelessness. Sometimes the substitute brings suffering and pain, just as it does for the non-believer. The new (or retro) story of discipleship entails putting that faith into action. For younger people, it is almost counter-intuitive, or reverse psychology: they view the church as a means of escaping from truly being Christ-like. Show me, prove to me that God is real by engaging in systemic ills, caring for the poor, needy and down-trodden.

Maybe we have substituted a panacea kind of God for the mission OF God.
Well, that’s a much bigger, deeper conversation we can have with each other. I am still “old-school” enough to believe that texting, instagramming and Facebooking are poor substitutes to real, honest-to-gosh conversation. We need to be in constant dialogue about and with the God who loves us unconditionally. We know that Jesus was the substitute for what truly should have been our just desserts. Our response to that priceless grace is to substitute righteousness for vanity. To substitute imitation love for that real, unconditional love.

P.S. I used the catch-phrase in bold and italics not just once, but twice!

Pastor Art