The Welcome

These days I find myself deeply moved by the music of Mumford and Sons, the Avett Brothers, and other folk-rock bands who seem to be dealing a lot in truth-telling. Case in point is this phrase from Mumford and Sons song "Roll Away Your Stone" off of their "Sigh No More" album.

It's not the long walk home that will change this heart, but the welcome I receive with every start.

 Every time this song comes on when I'm in my car, I find myself moved almost to tears by the goodness of God. His grace - that is what has drawn me to love Him.

Obviously this phrase from the song is a reference to the Prodigal Son story, which is a parable that seems a limitless trove of valuable truths. If you know the story then you know that the so-called "prodigal son" demanded his inheritance of his father, left his father's home and proceeded to waste everything on booze, sex, drugs, travel, and general lasciviousness. By the time he was done partying he was working with pigs and envying them their meals. This low point prompted him to decide to return home in the hopes that he could go to work for his father and at least have a decent life as a servant.

The beautiful moment of the story is when the son returns home. He doesn't get to act out the beggar's plea he's been practicing because, on his way up the road to his father's house, his father sees him and comes running down the lane and embraces him. This part is too good not to quote.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." And they began to celebrate.

This is the heart of God that move men like me to love God. You see, the long road home goes a ways to change us for sure. Don't you know that it was a pretty shitty experience for this young man when he had spent all that he had in foreign lands, only to be broke when famine came there, forcing him to take about the worst work he could imagine. I'll bet he learned a lot from that experience about humility and gratefulness. He must have because it was enough to drive him back to his father's house, which had to be humiliating and embarassing. I can just imagine how much he beat himself up while traveling back home; and how much he was learning about perseverance and patience as he dealt with the difficulty of travelling without money and with little hope. I have no doubt that this reckless son came back to his father's house much wiser, more humble, and ready to be the best that he could be at whatever there was left for him to do.

But here is what he did not learn on that long walk home. He learned nothing about grace. The lesson of grace is not something we teach ourselves, not something that we earn, and this son didn't learn about grace until he looked up in surprise and saw his father running down the road to meet him. He learned about grace when his father refused to hear his plea for work and instead called for the best robe and the ring and good shoes to be put on his son. He learned about grace when the fatted calf was slaughtered in his honor and the whole household proceeded to celebrate his return.

In short it was the welcome he received with his new start that changed his heart. Can you imagine ever turning back from that kind of grace and love? To what would you turn and where would you go? This is how God captures our hearts and changes our lives. His grace and love are amazing, and when we encounter that we can't help but to have our hearts changed.

 

Judge Not

Then Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in me, believes not in me but in Him who sent me. And he who sees me sees Him who sent me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me, and does not receive my words, has that which judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him in his last day." - John 12:44-48

You may not know this, but Jesus did not come to judge the world. He didn't come to judge you, he didn't come to judge me. And I'm going to say it: he didn't come to judge your gay coworker, your Muslim classmate, the liberal atheist who's good friends with your sister-in-law. He didn't come to judge any of them. The fact is he doesn't care about those things that you identify with yourself or with those people.

Here is what Jesus came to do, what he said he came to do. He came to save the world. That's it. He came into the world in the same way that light comes into a dark room. Light doesn't enter a room and immediately cast judgment on the objects sitting there. The tendrils of sunlight don't point fingers at the dusty fan. They don't avoid the dingy rug covered in the carcasses of insects. Light doesn't judge darkness, it simply disintegrates it. In the presence of light, darkness disappears, flees.

Jesus does not compare himself to a righteous crusader come to make the world obey. Isn't that interesting? This was a huge disappointment to many who wanted to believe in Jesus. So many Jews of his day were expecting a Messiah that would come in and rearrange the social and political order so that the seed of Abraham would rule. Many who might have believed in Jesus simply couldn't do it because he hadn't come to judge, to rule. In fact in this chapter of the book of John, the author discusses how the religeous leaders of Jesus's day did not - simply could not - believe in him. Their hearts were hard against his word, against his love, against his salvation. When your heart is set on seeing judgment dished out there's nothing more disappointing then seeing salvation instead.

This is the sad fact of the American Christian experience, particularly inside the walls of any given church. You see, judgment is deep down in our skin. It sits comfortably within our flesh just waiting to be flung on the nearest person. Isn't THAT interesting? There is something about judgment that we just love, and it is this: judgment is a way to assert our righteousness. Not His righteousness, not the righteousness of Jesus, but ours. Judgment raises us up. Our flesh, that part of us that is entirely physical and self-centered and self-serving, simply gets its jollies off of judgment.

This is a touchy subject in the Church. Churchgoing folk are reticent to concede any ground on this point. We are perfectly willing to pay lip service to love, mostly because we know Jesus talked so much about it, but in the end we cling white-knuckled to a bit of judgment. Because surely that is what God wants, right? I mean after all, He is just. He is holy. He is pure and perfect, and that's what we're called to - perfection. Surely we can and should judge because how else will the world know the holiness of God?

Maybe the fact is that the world won't know the holiness of God. The truth is that the world as a whole will never really know the holiness and righteous nature of God, especially through you and me. We are not instruments of holiness. We are not messages of righteousness to the world. We are not harbingers of the perfect nature of the Creator. We are terrible at that kind of thing. That's why Jesus came to save us.

Here is what we're good at as it relates to the Kingdom of God. We are excellent examples of grace. We are wonderful bearers of the beauty of love. We are perfect witnesses to the salvation of Jesus Christ.

If Jesus himself was not called into the world to judge it, then who in the hell do we think we are to judge it? What makes us think we're more qualified then the perfect son of God who said, "What the father told me, I tell you." Jesus only said what the Father said, and only did what the Father did. And he didn't come to judge, but to save.

Don't lament that this is not your role. I can almost hear the gnashing of teeth at the idea that we are not called to judge. Some of us are so used to judging, so deeply used to it - and frankly so damn good at it - that we can't imagine that we're not called to it. But tell me, what is your judgment doing for the Kingdom of God? How many unsaved ones are coming to your door looking for your judgment? How often have you found that your righteousness is up to the job of bringing sinners into salvation?

Before you consider the answers, let me spoil it for you: zero. No one is coming to Jesus Christ by way of your judgment. Your bible-bashing on Facebook isn't bringing souls to salvation. Your vehement defense of heterosexual marriage has yet to prop up an edge of the Kingdom. The assertion of your rights as an American have not and will not ever set a lost soul free.

Here is what scripture says: it's the kindness of God that brings us to repentance. Isn't that something? So often we slip into the delusion that his anger will bring us to repentance. Or surely his wagging finger of judgment will do it. Perhaps a self-righteous street corner preacher will bring the lost sheep in. Yes! The prodigal children are all waiting for the right combination of righteous anger and impatient moral zeal! Surely if we get steamed up enough they'll coming flooding into the aisles of the local churches (the Protestant ones of course).

Forgive me my sarcasm and hear this: love is what does it. The good news of Jesus was, is and always will be this: God has come to mankind to save us. Judgment was always a promise for those who didn't measure up, but Jesus is the good news that saves us from that. Sin is dealt with. Death has no more sting. Satan fell like lightning to his rightful place in a terrible pit. So what else is left but love, sweet love, love that saves.

Friend of Sinners

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds. (Matthew 11:19, ESV)

I think it's easy for us to forget that Jesus was a radical. For so long now we have had the image of Jesus as the kindly shepherd with little lambs in tow. As the gentle bearded white man with golden curling locks of hair who takes the children in his lap and teaches them Sunday School lessons. As the humble outsider gently knocking on the door in the hopes that we will answer and let him into our lives. These images are so pervasive, so accepted and so subtly soothing that the concept of a Jesus who is a populist radical overthrowing the dogma of orthodoxy is unsettling and unbelievable.

It's easy for us to forget just who Jesus was and what he did. Here was a man with the wrong background for life as a spiritual leader. Not only did he come from a region held in disdain by many in the area, but it was probably known by many that his mother had been pregnant before she was married - no doubt a deeply shameful thing for a Jewish family in that day and in that region. So he began his ministry as a kind of outcast, at least in the sense that he was not an especially honored or sought after teacher.

But as he went along the people followed him. Twelve men in particular dropped everything - work, family, their daily livelihoods - and became is acolytes, his disciples. And you can be sure that these men were not the very best that Palestine had to offer. Two of them stand out as particularly poor choices for a rabbi to select. First there is Matthew, who was a tax collector, a position that was generally despised because of the graft and thievery of these officials. In several verses of the Bible the phrase "tax collectors and sinners" indicates in what low esteem Matthew and his ilk were held. The second poor choice was the man who betrayed Jesus, greedy Judas Iscariot the betrayer. Here was a man that Jesus knew would betray him, and yet Jesus invited him to become a disciple anyway.

It's easy for us to forget that Jesus was a friend of sinners. And not just sinners, but truly despised and disdained people. And not just a friend either, but a loving and dedicated friend. The kind of friend who would come over and eat at your table. An intimate friend not concerned with protecting his reputation. The kind of friend who would weep over your losses, bless your family, speak truth into your life even if it hurt your feelings. Jesus was radical not because he called the sinners out in the public square, not because he drew attention to his own righteousness by comparing it their lack, not because he worked tirelessly to turn the tide of culture toward the moral rules of the kingdom of God. No, Jesus was radical because he was a friend of sinners. He was radical because he was a powerful spiritual leader who had little room for religious orthodoxy because he had ample room for love. He was radical because he cared less about his reputation than he did about the broken men and women around him, and he cared less about their reputations than even they did.

How radical his love was. How radical it still is. And yet we don't seem to have a stomach for it. We have twisted the love of Jesus Christ into a kind of invisible assumption of motivation for our moralizing judgments of our neighbors. We've made hatefulness out to be a necessity of righteousness. We have elevated the throwing of stones to a place well above the offering of a cup of water. How radical is the love of Jesus especially when you compare it to our narrow, scared, feeble and fragile attempts to show that we care about anyone who does not precisely measure up to our idea of worthiness. How radical is the love of Jesus and how miserably unappealing is our love.

It's easy for us to forget what love looks like. It's easy to forget that the pinnacle of love was and is Jesus. We often forget that Jesus loves us not because we're especially lovable, but because his way of loving is so radical that it doesn't depend on our loveliness. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He didn't wait for us to clean up our act before he gave everything up for us, so why are we waiting for our neighbors to clean themselves up before we give our love to them? This is what love looks like, surely - to give something up for the sake of our neighbor no matter whether they measure up to our sense of righteousness and morality. We believers should be called friends of sinners, and we should proudly nod in agreement when it's said of us. We should be so fortunate that it would be said of us, just as it was said of Jesus.

Gratefulness While Walking

On my morning walks I find
it fitting to number
all that I am grateful for as my dog
finds the perfect plot of land
to defecate.

My eyes are drawn to the trees
and dawn coloring the clouds,
a holy riot of color that
my mind never memorizes
and hardly even sees.

I'm grateful for the grass and flowers,
for brick and stone,
for clay that becomes brick but used to be stone,
that wants to be bone;
for the grain in wood,
for the good in grain,
for the heart in vain searching for the
dawn in the clay, in the bone, in the day.

I'm grateful for the dust I was,
for the ash I'll be.
I love the smell of the earth,
the song of the bee, the song of the wind,
the scream of the mind. The search
for peace. The wonder of time.

Mostly I'm grateful for what is great. For the
glory of being thankful, and the ease of
shedding anger, no matter how late.
Or early, for the grass is greenest
at dawn, and tallest before it's gone.

Jesus for President

Hello, Jesus? Jesus, this is Karl Rove. Look, I don’t really know you and I hope you don’t mind, but I got your number from Rick Warren. You see he called me a couple of days ago very excited and said you were in town and that I should talk to you. I know that you two have talked recently, but I also know that you didn’t discuss what I hope we can discuss today if you’ve got some time. Okay, great, thank you sir.

If you’ll indulge me for a bit I’ve got an idea. Really it’s a proposition. Now I don’t really know you as I said, but George, he used to talk about you quite a bit. So in a sense I feel as if I know you well enough to have this conversation. But even though George used to mention you, for my part Rick’s opinion about you goes a bit further with me, which is why I’ve called. You see Rick had an excellent idea and he called me, and that’s why I’ve called you.

Well Jesus it’s just this: we think you’re the best choice, the right choice, for America in 2016. Now before you say anything in response to that I just ask that you hear me out. We think you’re absolutely the best choice for president and, after talking to Rick and a few other close associates of mine, I don’t see any way you won’t be president. I mean for starters there is the obvious fact that you will absolutely take the evangelical vote. In fact it hardly seems worth mentioning, though I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention it. Name recognition with Evangelicals alone will galvanize their support, and I don’t have to tell you that that is not an easy task every four years.

I also think you will appeal to independents, especially since so many of them are looking for the right balance of social liberalism and fiscal restraint. While I wouldn’t mind a conversation to learn where you stand on economic policy, my gut feeling is that you’re not a spender. And of course there’s your social agenda. Somehow you hit social issues at perfect angles, with exceptions so minor that I think we can almost ignore them. Take this Golden Rule idea - everyone knows it and it’s incredibly popular in principle. And your compassion! If there is one thing I took away from George it’s your compassion, which frankly I think our party desperately needs if we’re going to take back the presidency.

Thirdly I think you can really bring in the minority vote, not least because you are yourself a minority (bear with me). In fact, there is a tremendous opportunity with your name, if you’ll follow me, as it relates to the hispanic vote. Jesus (Hay-soos) is an incredibly popular name in the Mexican-American community, and it is this common touch with latinos that I believe will appeal. And I can’t begin to imagine how well you poll with the poor. Frankly I think we will sweep the minority vote.

Now, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I have a couple of reservations, but this is strictly based on what I have heard and read about you so I think we can clarify a lot of this. You have said some things that could be construed to imply that you are pacifistic, which the other party - as well as detractors within ours - will pounce on. That said, I think this is a non-issue. We can explain your pacifism as something personal and therefore dismissible. It won’t be hard to convince voters that you will be tough when the situation demands it and American lives are at stake. Aside from that the only other attack I expect is that you would be soft on crime, but I doubt this will hurt your chances of success. As I said in the beginning, the Evangelical vote is yours regardless of how they interpret your convictions. The most significant backlash I expect to receive is on the Right, but once they understand how you can’t lose it won’t be hard to get them in line. Frankly I expect a landslide in the general election given your credentials.

I’m sorry I haven’t given you a chance to talk, but I wanted to lay it all out there first so that you would understand my position and the position of many leaders in the party. We believe in what you can do for this country Jesus, believe it with all our hearts. And I would bet my life that most Americans will believe what you can do for America too, if only you’ll let us introduce you to them. Before you say anything just know this - we will absolutely take care of everything, right down to wardrobe. Even though I have not doubt that you can win - that you will win - we refuse to leave anything to chance. In other words you will be the perfect candidate.

Whatever is Beautiful

One of the larger theological revelations in my life came by way of children's fantasy fiction.  It may be less than surprising to hear that this fiction was one of C. S. Lewis's Narnian books, the last in his Chronicles series, The Last Battle.  As you mayknow, the Chronicles of Narnia are a thinly veiled allegory of the salvation story of Jesus Christ.  They are also excellent fantasy fiction with many generations of stories woven together with overlapping characters, themes and geographies.  To dismiss them because they are Christian allegory would be as foolish as dismissing them because they are children's fantasy fiction.  There is good stuff in these books whether you look for the allegorical or not, but for me the allegory is a strong pull and the reason for the revelation.

If you're not familiar with The Last Battle, it is the culminating story of the Narnian world where the forces of right and good battle with the forces of evil.  These evil forces are an advanced nation with a pagan god, a fearful and demonic and very real god named Tash that they call into battle almost unwittingly.  One boy in this pagan army believes firmly in Tash and endeavors to see his god by entering a shack where he believes the god to be.  However instead of his pagan god he meets Aslan, the lion that represents Jesus, and is surprised to be welcomed by the lion even though he has obediently served Tash his entire life.  He questions the lion about this, and Aslan lays out a surprising theological argument.

Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.  Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thous hast done to him.  For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.

 When I read this I was taken aback; this is not a subtle theological point Lewis is making and this is where the allegory is important.  Here we see Aslan, the representative Jesus,  saying to a man who is a non-Christian that everything good he did in his life was for the glory of the true and living God, not for the false demonic god he had intended to serve.  His fervent obedience, his desire for religious piety, his service to his god and to others in the name of that false god; all of it was to his credit for God's glory.  I had never heard an argument like this, but it was a revelation I had been searching for, one that seemed to answer questions I had harbored for a while.

I remember as a kid wondering what would happen to people who didn't hear about Jesus.  As I grew older, that significant question held a place in my heart even though I didn't pursue an answer.  Looking back I think that I supposed the answer was exactly as Lewis describes it in The Last Battle, but I would have articulated it with biblical context.  I would have quoted Paul when he said no one has an excuse for not believing in God - just look around you at this amazing world: His divine nature is all over the place.  But this isn't the same as knowing Jesus and knowing about his sacrifice on the cross, so the question would linger.  There are other instances in the Bible that hold up under Lewis's scrutiny, but didn't strictly hold up under my theological requirements.  Much like other aspects of my theology, I had to go beyond what I thought was true and embrace what God was revealing to be true.

This is an uncomfortable place to be as a believer, in a place where the Lord forces you to either claim that His revelation is wrong or incomplete or admit that your theology is.  It's much easier to have a flexible theology when you walk with the Lord, especially when you consider which of the two in the relationship is omniscient and perfect in all ways.  But we don't always do that, do we?  Most of the time we dismiss the revelation of the Lord by assuming we're misinterpreting it, or that it doesn't hold up to our current convictions so it must not be God.  Or if those around us aren't up on that revelation it can't be right.  We have a lot of reasons for leaving God in our theological box when things get uncomfortable, chief among them the motive to keep things comfortable and contained.  My box is just fine the way it is, thank you.

I think something else in the scripture that stuck out to me became the final revelation that broke my box open.  In the book of Philippians, Paul's letter to some apparently good friends, he gives some significant pointers about how to live godly lives.  Stand firm in the Lord; work in unity; rejoice in God always; pray in all things without worry.  He seems to sum it up in verse 8 when he says,

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if ther is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

In my own mind I like to summarize this verse with one phrase: Whatever is beautiful.  But any way you say it, do you get what Paul is after?  This list that could easily be put together by a new age Buddhist yoga instructor with a "Hillary 2016" bumper sticker was written by the principle Christian theologian of the first church as a compendium of things on which to meditate.  Now why would that be?  Why would Paul culminate his passage of Christlike directives with a list of adjectives that could be uttered without a context of God whatsoever?

Well, maybe because these ideas CAN'T exist outside of the context of God.  Just as Lewis's Aslan said: all service that is not vile is to the credit and the glory of God.  It's a beautiful revelation and a beautiful affront to so much bad theology in the American church, because we learn that the beautiful things in the world, regardless of their source, are divine.  Just as Jesus told us to offer a cup of cold water, he wasn't limiting the grace of this act to those who believed in him.  The cup of cold water is the kind act that glorifies God regardless of who hands it out.  To my eye and ear this is just the kind of thing Jesus would teach, baffling and deep and wonderful as it is.

For my part I'm taking back the beautiful things of the world for myself, for the glory of God.  I'm celebrating whatever is beautiful because I know that God is glorified in it.  Especially so-called secular music, and the best example I've found to date may be the Avett Brothers, so I will leave you with the lyrics to "The Ballad of Love and Hate" (although I could easily substitute any other of their songs).  Aside from the musical, melodic beauty of their music, the poetry and sentiment of their lyrics are right up my alley as a lover and follower of Jesus.  I like to imagine this song as a contemporary parable, the kind of quirky and deceptively deep story Jesus would tell (or sing to) a crowd just to confuse them and haunt them until they yearned to learn the truth behind it all.

The Ballad of Love and Hate

Love writes a letter and sends it to hate.
My vacations ending. I'm coming home late.
The weather was fine and the ocean was great
and I can't wait to see you again.

Hate reads the letter and throws it away.
"No one here cares if you go or you stay.
I barely even noticed that you were away.
I'll see you or I won't, whatever."

Love sings a song as she sails through the sky.
The water looks bluer through her pretty eyes.
And everyone knows it whenever she flies,
and also when she comes down.

Hate keeps his head up and walks through the street.
Every stranger and drifter he greets.
And shakes hands with every loner he meets
with a serious look on his face.

Love arrives safely with suitcase in tow.
Carrying with her the good things we know.
A reason to live and a reason to grow.
To trust. To hope. To care.

Hate sits alone on the hood of his car.
Without much regard to the moon or the stars.
Lazily killing the last of a jar
of the strongest stuff you can drink.

Love takes a taxi, a young man drives.
As soon as he sees her, hope fills his eyes.
But tears follow after, at the end of the ride,
cause he might never see her again.

Hate gets home lucky to still be alive.
He screams o'er the sidewalk and into the drive.
The clock in the kitchen says 2:55,
And the clock in the kitchen is slow.

Love has been waiting, patient and kind.
Just wanting a phone call or some kind of sign,
That the one that she cares for, who's out of his mind,
Will make it back safe to her arms.

Hate stumbles forward and leans in the door.
Weary head hung down, eyes to the floor.
He says "Love, I'm sorry", and she says, "What for?
I'm yours and that's it, Whatever.
I should not have been gone for so long.
I'm yours and that's it, forever."

You're mine and that's it, forever.

When Jesus is Present

      Jesus is always surprising. There are so many things that he says and does that surprise me and that surprised his audience.  Like when he said "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. "  He surprised us by redefining family.  Or when the man asked for the greatest commandment and Jesus gave him two: love God and love your neighbor.  He redefined what it means to love and serve God.  Aside from redefining principal tenets of religion, Jesus just does things differently, surprising us with his unforeseen commentary and arresting us with his visceral humanity.
      When Jesus appears to the disciples as a group after his resurrection, he has already appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus.  The disciples know that he has risen because the two who met him on the road have reported it to them.  In fact, just as they are sharing about their encounter with Jesus, he shows up in the middle of the room.  As they marvel that he has risen - and we must admit that this was surely an astounding moment - Jesus says something surprising.   He says, "Have you anything to eat?"  Now, I don't know about you, but this is the last thing I would expect the resurrected Messiah to ask three days after his death if he suddenly appeared among me and my friends.  I'm not even sure I would expect that Jesus would need to eat, seeing as how he had, you know, risen from the dead rather miraculously.  But there it is: "Have you anything to eat?"
      I don't know how surprised the disciples were.  They were probably so shocked by his sudden appearance that his asking for food didn't register as the least bit odd.  And to their credit they quickly oblige with some broiled fish, and Jesus readily eats it.  So whether or not it's surprising that he's hungry, it's evidently true that he is, which means that he is still the man Jesus - all God, yes, but also human - because this need to eat and the sensation of hunger have not disappeared.
      Maybe this is one of the really surprising things about Jesus - that he really is human.  In spite of the fact that this is the most important thing about him, that he is God incarnate, we find it difficult to truly grasp.  Sure he may be a man, but he's also completely God (whatever that really means), so I can't possibly relate to him.  I mean, look at the miracles he performed; no one else had ever done what he did, everybody recognized that, from his friends to his mortal enemies.  But at the same time the scripture tells us that Jesus "was tempted in every way," so we know his experience matches our own.  We want so desperately to let ourselves off the hook by taking away the humanity of Jesus, but each time we encounter him he reminds us of how human he is.  "Have you anything to eat?" he says, and not only because he's hungry, but because he wants us to have the chance to offer him something he needs.  He wants us to share in the surprising truth of his humanity.
      What is so surprising about Jesus is that he wants or needs us at all.  In that little room appeared the man who had fed four and five thousand people with a couple of fish asking if he could have supper.  Surely he didn't need someone to give him a broiled fish.  Or maybe he did.  Maybe it wasn't the food that he needed so much as he needed to remind his friends that he too they could provide something necessary from time to time.  And that this would always be the case, and that it would be just what he and his dad wanted.  How is that for surprise, to know that God wants something from us?  Because just as surely as Jesus the man wants our company, our friendship and our aid, so too does the Father want our part in His life.  He wants us to be quick to offer up to Him what so satisfies His heart: praise and honor, love and mercy and glory and all of the beautiful things He's made that get so trampled in our hearts and on this earth.
      I'll bet that if we knew Jesus better we wouldn't be surprised at all when he asks for a piece of fish.  Or a cup of cold water.  We shouldn't be surprised because he told us he would ask, and just as surely as we clothe the naked and visit the prisoners and feed the hungry, there he is in all of his humanity with his hand held up slightly, a surprise in the dark with the word "peace" on his breath. 

The Irrelevant Church

There is so much whining these days that it's hard not to hear it.  Social media, that pair of words that get's thrown around far too much, is mostly responsible for this.  Not only is Facebook an apparently readymade venue for our whining, it is also an echo chamber reverberating our complaints back to us through dozens or hundreds of others who share our view and biases.  And because of the genius of this space - that there are computers and algorithms working constantly to make our echo chambers as efficient as possible - we wind up believing that our gripe is at the center of the information universe in some way.  We see articles, comments, videos, memes and all of our friends reinforcing this sense of centrality through repetition of our viewpoint.  This is not in any way coincidental; the social media machine is made to reinforce our self-centeredness.

What this means for Christians in particular is that we get really tribal.  Maybe a story breaks about a Christian athlete who gets cut off mid-sentence while talking about Jesus.  Or perhaps the media makes a big deal out of a fast food restaurateur who opposes gay marriage.  Whatever occurs, the internet blows up in the face of Christians and suddenly it seems like the world is against us.  Suddenly it's like we're not even supposed to be allowed to espouse views contrary to society at large.  Suddenly it seems like we're not even widely accepted by our own culture.  As if this wasn't a nation founded on Christian values and principles, like prayer in school, heterosexual marriage, and the gospel of health and wealth.

Interestingly this nation was not founded on those things, and if America is a Christian nation, those of us who bear the name of Christ should be pretty embarrassed.  The thing is we Christians were so used to being the privileged and accepted class that we get our feelings hurt the moment the world dared remind us that we're not really welcome here.  We Christians are so used to churches on every corner and Bibles in every hotel that as soon as the culture exposes itself to be not at all Christlike, we act like it's a surprise.  But isn't this the same world which we are in but not of?  Isn't this the same world which Jesus said would not accept us?  Isn't this the very same fallen world that was given over to the Enemy when humankind screwed up, and which God himself came to redeem through Jesus, knowing good and well that it would still widely reject His love?

Hell yes it is!  Did we think that just because we found a land where the government wouldn't harrass us that we had it made?  Why did we ever get to a point where the Church was less the hands and feet of God and basically just a public institution?  Why did we willingly trade Power in the Holy Spirit for the political power of man?  And even though we look back on the reign of "Christian values" in the wider culture for so many decades, why are we lamenting the illusion that we were ever better off as the completely negligible mainstream practitioners of a mostly dead religion?  My profound question is this: why did we ever think that we were off the hook for the hard life that Jesus promised we would have?

The truth is, we were promised hardship.  We were promised persecution.  We were promised a poor reception in the world if we came in the name of Jesus Christ.  But you know what we believers have gotten in American for the last couple of centuries, especially the last 100 years?  Not hardship, not in the name of Jesus.  Not persecution, not really.  And did we get a poor reception?  I would say not, especially not since by and large it's still virtually impossible for a non-Christian to be elected president of this country.

So what does it mean if we were promised to be persecuted if we came in the name of Jesus and what really happened was we became the dominant cultural force in the nation?  Well one conclusion is that we have not come in the name of Jesus Christ.  That's my conclusion.  We are not a Church that by and large moves in this society, in this world, with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus.  That's why we don't know persecution.  Do you think that if we lived and loved and moved and worshipped like Jesus did that we would be as comfortable as we are?  Do you know anyone who has been martyred for their faith, the way Peter was?  Do you know anyone who has been imprisoned for preaching the Gospel of Jesus like Paul was?  Have you ever met anyone who could stir up the kind of hatred and vehemence among religious folks the way Jesus did?  So much hatred that the most important religious figures of the day plotted to get him arrested and killed by the government?

I can tell you that I don't know many people that are persecuted for being Christians, but I know a lot of people who have gotten rich.  If you travel to just about any major city in America you will find churches the size of universities.  You will find churches with so many attendees on a Sunday morning that people are turned away at the doors and the local police direct traffic when the preaching is done.  You'll find churches of such size and magnitude and income that the pastors have bodyguards and there are more programs for the congregants than there are outreach ministries for the poor, widows and orphans.  In this great nation of ours you will find churches of such astounding wealth that you would probably be shocked to learn how much poverty there is in the same city, perhaps even blocks away, perhaps even right next door.

Perhaps there is poverty even inside the doors.

That's what I think about the American Church, our national arm of the Body of Christ.  I think that despite our wealth and attendance that we are a body beset with poverty.  We have money but we don't have power.  We can clean up after tornadoes but our prayers don't heal the sick or broken-hearted.  We love to serve but we can't figure out how to love.  We worship at the feet of the whore Ministry while the man Jesus beckons us for our attention.  The American Church has come to embody so much division, exclusion, privilege, haughtiness, arrogance and willful ignorance that we have the nerve to be annoyed at people who have decided they want nothing to do with us.  We are so blind to our state of affairs that we can't understand why people don't want to attend.  If the internet is awash with our gripes and complaints about our failing significance, it's equally awash with tips and instructions for how lure back the "Dones" and the "Millennials", as if the only thing we need to get people back into the pews is a more attractive offering.

My fellow believers, people aren't leaving the Church because they reject the Gospel of Jesus.  They're leaving the Church because they're looking for God and they can't find Him there.  We have spent the last few decades sanitizing the Gospel by making Jesus into Ghandi, outfitting him with soft robes and a sanguine disposition.  We have consistently turned the church experience into a social regime where nobody is supposed to be uncomfortable and only the paid staff is supposed to do any spiritual work.  My fellow believers, the Church in this nation is not being persecuted, the Church in America is becoming completely irrelevant, and that's why people are leaving.

If we want relevance and significance in this world then the only way to get there is through the Good News of Jesus Christ.  But it's not enough for us to want the Church to be relevant within the context of society.  What we need is to yearn for the healing and salvation of our fellow human beings.  We have to be able to look into the eyes of anyone we encounter and earnestly desire to see what God sees.  And what He sees is someone of inestimable value whom He loves; loves so much in fact that He turned the universe around for the very purpose of having a relationship with each one of us.  This is the Gospel: that the God of all Creation loves us as sons and daughters.  Do not seek to find validation in being rejected for a message of any less significance than this.

The time is come to stop whining.  We are not moving heaven and earth by complaining about our irrelevance.  Salvation is just as powerful and pertinent today as it was two thousand years ago, and don't believe for a second the lie of the Enemy that you need anything more than the simple good news of the man Jesus, the man who defeated Death and Sin.  Believe that the Gospel is worth dying for, but more than that believe that it is worth truly Living for, and accept nothing less than the honest, full, complex, confusing, wonderful and life changing FREE Gospel of Jesus.