That's Not A Buick!

“We can say with confidence and a clear conscience that we

have been honest and sincere in all our dealings with you.”
II Corinthians 1:12

The television commercials should have been replaced by now, an elderly woman looking out her window at her neighbor’s shiny new car and, upon finding out that it’s a Buick, exclaiming her surprise with the catch line, “That’s not a Buick.” But the reason that Buick continues to air those commercials is that they’re resonating with viewers and with car buyers. Between favorable acceptance ratings and the resulting increased car sales, the message that the stereotype of Buicks being for older buyers no longer applies is hitting home.

Stereotypes are a sad thing because they impose images on people’s minds of what others are like that are passed along from one generation to another with little or no thought for their applicability, relevance or truth. Now, some stereotypes are well earned. For example, in 2006, the average age for a Buick buyer was over 66, the highest in the auto industry by far. (You’ve heard of underage drinkers; so I was an underage Buick buyer all these years. Let’s keep going!) In order to survive, Buick has had to consciously break the stereotypes of their products’ appeal with sporty new car designs and an aggressive advertising strategy, in the process lowering the average age of a buyer to 57 in 2013.

In much the same way, Christianity has some stereotypes that we have to see broken, stereotypes that have only been fed by the political workings of “the religious right” in American. Stereotypes that Christians are one thing on the outside and another on the inside, one thing in church and another at home, one thing to your face and another behind your back, can only be broken with a new and stronger commitment to sincerity and honesty in all aspects of life. Paul had to write to the Corinthians believers and tell them, “We have conducted ourselves in our relations with you in the honesty and sincerity that come from God.” The problem is not new. Spurgeon asked this, “Who wounded the fair hand of godliness? Was it not the professing Christian who used the dagger of hypocrisy?”

Maybe it’s time for a new stereotype of Christianity to be formed, a stereotype of men and women who love their neighbors with sincerity and earnestness, a stereotype of men and women who are compassionate when confronted with the shortcomings of others, and a stereotype of people with unquestioned moral integrity. The task has fallen to our generation to impress on the minds of others a stereotype that is befitting a Savior who came to live among us and who gave His life on the cross that we might have the gift of eternal life.

God Bless
Pastor Joe