It is a popular notion in the sports world today to offer spectators a “Main Event”.  This spectacle includes the best fighters, the most prize money, the most energy, the most fanfare.  It’s as if the promoter is saying, “This is the best we’ve got – and you must come and see it!”

I have thought of this concept in relation to church and to personal faith.  Here is a question for us to ponder:  What it the “main event” as it relates to our lives?  What do I project, what does my church project, what are we known for?

You can easily find out what a church is all about.  Perhaps our sign lets you know that we have what we consider apostolic leadership.  Or maybe our pastor’s name is worth advertising.  Or maybe we have the best band and smoke machines to boot.  Or maybe we are the hippest and most cutting-edge, and maybe even anyone could belong here.  Maybe we have an amazing setup for your kids, even better than the YMCA.  You should come check us out.

Now I take this Parable of the Main Event and apply it to myself.  What am I known for?  How would others describe me?  What is on my mind when my eyes open in the morning?  Is it my looks, my physique?  Is it the letters before or after my name?  Is it my money?  Is it my talents?  Perhaps I am witty or creative or intelligent.  Maybe everyone knows me because I have done so many good things.  You really should check me out.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with beauty, money, piety, ministries or programs.  It’s just that I don’t think we were created to be known for these things.  There is something better.  What is really worth being about?  What should the proverbial “main event” be in the life of a church or a Christian person?

The Old Testament Hebrew text offers insight here.  In Jeremiah 9:23-24, we are encouraged not to boast in the grounded things.  Being a pastor is no big deal, nor is being a billionaire, nor is being a world-famous athlete.  You’re beautiful, so what.  You’re rich, so what.  You’re wise, so what.  Yet we adore these things as if they were worth our worship, and we try to become them because we want to be worshipped.  We want to be the main event.

The Hebrew word here for “boast” is halal, which literally means, “to shine”.  So each person is boasting in something – something about them is shining.  There is an eminence about each of us that comes from the very core of who we are and what we are about.  Jeremiah says, in essence, for a person to be about their money, their power, their piety even, their self, in any way, is futile.  For a church to be about its building, its pastor, its wealth, its size, its programs, is more of a stench than the sweet fragrance that God has created us to be.

Paul describes what I call ‘soul aroma’ in 2 Corinthians 2.  Jeremiah agrees with Paul that the smell, the shine, the main event of any person would be sweetest were it the mercy of God found in Jesus Christ.  My life is not about what I have done, but what has been done to me.  From there, good things emerge, but they are never to be what we are known for. 

What are you and I known for?  I am arrested as I read how the disciples in Acts were recognized for this – that they had been with Jesus.