September 8: Actors Day

 

September 8: Actors’ Day

Thespis stepped onto the stage at the Theater Dionysus in 534 BC. to become the first known performer to speak a character’s words and express their story. This is why actors are often referred to as “Thespians.”  Since then, actors have played an increasingly significant role in Western society.  Unfortunately,  all a person needs to be treated as credible, is to be famous!  We turn to actors for advice on politics, national security, public safety and medicine, and yes, it’s insane!

But the deeper insanity is that all of us are actors.  Jesus reserved his harshest criticisms and most scathing rebukes for…actors! In fact, the entire 23^rd chapter of Matthew is devoted to just that.  Who are the actors that Jesus has in mind?  The religious people of Jesus’ day, the Scribes and the Pharisees.  He calls them “hypocrites” which is the Greek word for “actor.”  In a very real sense, we all play that part, especially those of us who are religious.

The world has been writing reviews ever since.  One of the most common criticisms of Christians is our hypocrisy.  What they really mean is that we are inconsistent.  We decry deceit, and then we lie.  We stand for justice, and then we act unjustly.  On and on the list goes.  The result?  We become morally and spiritually irrelevant.  We lose our standing and it becomes more difficult to speak truth into a world that desperately needs the truth 

So what are we to do?  First, we need to cry out to God’s Spirit to give us the conviction and the compassion to live consistent lives. Second, we need to remind ourselves that truth is truth, regardless of whether or not an imperfect person proclaims it.  There is a deadly trend in Western culture to dismiss someone’s input if they are the “wrong” color or from the “wrong” socio-economic class, or it they embrace the “wrong” spirituality. We are bullied into silence and shamed into complicity with the world.

We will never be perfectly consistent (this side of eternity).  But we need to shake this notion that the only people who can speak out are those who have experienced the identical circumstances of someone else or those who have it all together.  Speak up!  Play the part of broken sinners, saved by grace, who have a story to tell that is the greatest story ever told.  Actor or not, the truth is the truth.