I recently read a classic children’s story entitled The Happy Lion to my son. The picture book, written by Louise Fatio and illustrated by Roger Duvoisin, is nearly sixty years old and tells the tale of a lion in a small French zoo.
The book starts by introducing the regular visitors that the lion sees at the zoo. They are friendly and polite, and the lion looks forward to their cheerful visits.
Then, one day the door to the lion’s cage is left open. He decides it would be a great opportunity to return their visits. He wanders about town, and as he encounters each of his “friends,” he is surprised to find that they behave quite differently when they see him outside of the zoo. They run away, shout, faint, throw things at him, and carry on in various other ways.
The Happy Lion is quite disappointed to find that outside the zoo, these people are not his friends at all. In fact, he finds them to be foolish and impolite. Gradually he comes to the realization that “this must be the way people behave when they are not at the zoo.”
As I read this simple story to my son, I thought about the church and the way we interact outside of our regular meeting times. For me, two somewhat parallel issues came to mind.
First, do we behave differently outside of church? Are we being consistent from day to day, from context to context? Would our brothers and sisters in Christ or our guests who have seen us at church be surprised by the things we do or say in public, at home, or at work? Certainly no one is perfect, but are we striving to walk in the light (1 John 1:5-10)? The stereotype of church-goers as “just a bunch of hypocrites” is not one that we want to be responsible for reinforcing. How many souls have been steered away from the flock due to negative impressions made by “Christian” men and women behaving badly outside of church? When we behave foolishly or inhospitably, we must remember that some will assume that “this must be the way [Christians] behave when they are not at the [church building].”
Second, how do we interact with one another outside of church? In other words, are our “real friends” and our “church friends” one in the same? Or do we have one set of friends for Sundays and another for the rest of the week? Would we welcome visits from our brothers and sisters in Christ or, like the folks in the children’s story, would be dismayed to see them show up on our doorstep? And if we say we would welcome such visits, do we, in fact, extend invitations for such visits? Do we communicate with each other throughout the week with phone calls, letters, emails, and texts? Is our church family really like a family to us or is it a Sunday-only family? Are we spending quality time with one another throughout the week?
In the story of the Happy Lion, it is the keeper’s son who comes to rescue the lion from the townspeople. He alone treats the lion like a friend outside of the zoo walls.
The Son of God demonstrated again and again what it means to be a true friend during his time on earth. And as Christians, we know firsthand what an amazing friend Jesus is to us even today. We are to be like Christ (1 John 2:6), and that includes being a true friend to those around us. In John 13:34-35, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
-Tyler Walker, The Weekly Bulletin, August 19, 2012