The problem for a lot of Christians is that Jesus calls us out. He calls us to be more than what our comfort level prefers.
Most of us like the idea of the tame Jesus, who will let us live our lives just as we want and never bat an eye or offer a criticism. The "I'm alright, you're alright, don't rock the boat" kinda savior. He's cool, he's comfortable and familiar, and we don't have to change for him.
Some of us like an angry Jesus, who storms around looking for people to crush in wrath, and whose favorite game is based upon that old "whack a mole" arcade game....but instead of a stuffed toy, it is sinners that get punished with glee. Whap, whap, whap.
Some of us adore the political Jesus (often with hints of angry Jesus or tame Jesus -depending on party and issue-thrown in for good measure)...who more closely fits a political party's platform than anything resembling what Scripture taught.
And a whole lot of people swoon over the Rich Jesus, who tells us only to say that we want to be wealthy, healthy and wise and snap, it'll happen. Really. As long as you have enough faith (and you've given your tithe to the pastor who sold you this convenient genie of a god.)
We want a labeled Jesus, a packaged Savior, who comes with an instruction booklet, and who will allow us to turn Him into whatever we might want, or need Him to be at any particular time.
But He's not a tame God, or a boxed Savior to be trotted out at a moment's notice. He is both holy and compassionate, both righteous and loving. He delights in improbabilities (you did notice that band of misfits He chose to be His disciples, right?) and He doesn't fit our social norms. When He walked the roads of Galilee, when He taught in the Temple, where ever He went and whatever He did, He goes farther and deeper into situations than we would have.
What terrifies many of us, if we are honest, is that He is calling us to do the same.
And we don't want to.
When Christ sat and talked with the multiple divorced Samaritan woman at the well, it was a big social "no-no" of the day. He did it anyway, regardless of risk to reputation, and changed her life. He showed us that we are to befriend even the socially taboo, in order that His love and light might reach them through such faulty vessels as ourselves.
When He stopped the religious establishment from stoning the adulterous woman, He showed us we are to live lives of mercy and forgiveness, even at the cost of upsetting the faithful adherents of our religious institutions.
When He touched the leper...the untouchable of that day's society, we are shown that we are to be loving and accessible to the outcasts of our time and our culture.
Some of His friends raised eyebrows. Matthew, after all, was a hated tax collector, a man who made money off the toil of his people and worked in collaboration with the hated occupying force. I'm sure mutterings of "traitor" had often reached Matthew's ears. Yet Christ called him, loved him, redeemed him. How many of us are careful in who we choose to call friend? We so often only have friends of like beliefs, social standing, political views....the list of our criteria goes on and on. Why isn't our circle of friends more diverse? Why isn't our love large enough to accept others different than ourselves?
He was known as a friend of sinners....do we want to be known by that title?
I'm not speaking in church-speak here, "...well, we're all sinners, so my friends in church are sinners just like I am, so I, too, am a friend of sinners, just like Jesus...." (said in a comfortable, smug after service voice)
Stop that! Yes, we are all sinners, and yes, we need to have friends and fellowship within the Body of Christ, the Church, but that wasn't what Jesus was accused of by the religious establishment of His time. He was accused of hanging out and being friends with prostitutes and tax collectors, common people and untouchables, with exactly the kind of people the Religious Authority told people to stay away from.
He befriended and loved the people that weren't acceptable. He didn't choose His friends from the "Who's who" directory, He went the opposite way. He searched out brokenness, and healed. He sought out loneliness and comforted. He showed people trapped and entrenched in sin a way to turn from their sin. His love changed people wherever He went. He fed and watered people not only with bread, and fish and wine, but with living water and the Bread of life....He gave them the knowledge that they too, scarred and shattered as they were, were loved by God.
Loved so deeply that He died for them, so that He could have them for eternity.
We're not to cling to a packaged Jesus that fits our ideals....Christ can't be "handled" or "managed." He is sovereign Lord, and we have only the slightest glimpse of His beauty, holiness, mercy and love. Rather, we are to fall in love with Jesus and in turn, accept the truth that the God who made the stars cherishes and loves us. And that love, showered upon us, will change us, it cannot help but do so. Jesus makes each believer into a new creation, changing us from the inside out. He takes our broken, frail selves, fraught with sin and fear, and through His grace transforms us. No one can have an encounter with the living God and come away unchanged, and I can't see how anyone could truly know Jesus and not fall in love.
We are shaped by His love and by our response to that love.
And He calls us today to love others deeply and recklessly. To seek out the crushed of spirit and breathe in new life through the Holy Spirit. He calls us to give more than we want to, to the needy. He calls us to find the downtrodden and sit with them, listen to them, even though the rawness of their stories might shock or hurt our sensibilities. He tells us to go to every corner and share the Good News of the life giving Gospel, even though doing so might scare us or be outside of our comfort zone. He calls us to be friends of sinners, of the lost, so that we might show them the light of Christ. He calls us to be lights on a hill, holy in an unholy world; yet to also keep ourselves authentic and real enough that our message and life of faith can be taken seriously by those who haven't yet discovered how much God loves them. We're to be living carriers of that love, wherever God sends us.
Christ's harshest words were reserved for the religious establishment that set out un-keepable rules and un-breachable social mores, who made God seem far away and unreachable to the common man. He lashed out at men of the cloth who turned a blind eye to need, who ignored mercy, who manipulated Scripture for their own profit and standing, and who left the lost to perish in their sins.
What would he say to the American church? What would He say when say when He saw how we wanted to package Him? What would He say when He saw who we sought out for friends, and whom we ignored?
What will you say when He asks you to be more than what you are now? When He calls you to step out of the boat of being comfortable and take that step into that amazing, unfathomable love of God and all that such love entails? Will you leave the safe harbor and go on that journey with God?
Most of us like the idea of the tame Jesus, who will let us live our lives just as we want and never bat an eye or offer a criticism. The "I'm alright, you're alright, don't rock the boat" kinda savior. He's cool, he's comfortable and familiar, and we don't have to change for him.
Some of us like an angry Jesus, who storms around looking for people to crush in wrath, and whose favorite game is based upon that old "whack a mole" arcade game....but instead of a stuffed toy, it is sinners that get punished with glee. Whap, whap, whap.
Some of us adore the political Jesus (often with hints of angry Jesus or tame Jesus -depending on party and issue-thrown in for good measure)...who more closely fits a political party's platform than anything resembling what Scripture taught.
And a whole lot of people swoon over the Rich Jesus, who tells us only to say that we want to be wealthy, healthy and wise and snap, it'll happen. Really. As long as you have enough faith (and you've given your tithe to the pastor who sold you this convenient genie of a god.)
We want a labeled Jesus, a packaged Savior, who comes with an instruction booklet, and who will allow us to turn Him into whatever we might want, or need Him to be at any particular time.
But He's not a tame God, or a boxed Savior to be trotted out at a moment's notice. He is both holy and compassionate, both righteous and loving. He delights in improbabilities (you did notice that band of misfits He chose to be His disciples, right?) and He doesn't fit our social norms. When He walked the roads of Galilee, when He taught in the Temple, where ever He went and whatever He did, He goes farther and deeper into situations than we would have.
What terrifies many of us, if we are honest, is that He is calling us to do the same.
And we don't want to.
When Christ sat and talked with the multiple divorced Samaritan woman at the well, it was a big social "no-no" of the day. He did it anyway, regardless of risk to reputation, and changed her life. He showed us that we are to befriend even the socially taboo, in order that His love and light might reach them through such faulty vessels as ourselves.
When He stopped the religious establishment from stoning the adulterous woman, He showed us we are to live lives of mercy and forgiveness, even at the cost of upsetting the faithful adherents of our religious institutions.
When He touched the leper...the untouchable of that day's society, we are shown that we are to be loving and accessible to the outcasts of our time and our culture.
Some of His friends raised eyebrows. Matthew, after all, was a hated tax collector, a man who made money off the toil of his people and worked in collaboration with the hated occupying force. I'm sure mutterings of "traitor" had often reached Matthew's ears. Yet Christ called him, loved him, redeemed him. How many of us are careful in who we choose to call friend? We so often only have friends of like beliefs, social standing, political views....the list of our criteria goes on and on. Why isn't our circle of friends more diverse? Why isn't our love large enough to accept others different than ourselves?
He was known as a friend of sinners....do we want to be known by that title?
I'm not speaking in church-speak here, "...well, we're all sinners, so my friends in church are sinners just like I am, so I, too, am a friend of sinners, just like Jesus...." (said in a comfortable, smug after service voice)
Stop that! Yes, we are all sinners, and yes, we need to have friends and fellowship within the Body of Christ, the Church, but that wasn't what Jesus was accused of by the religious establishment of His time. He was accused of hanging out and being friends with prostitutes and tax collectors, common people and untouchables, with exactly the kind of people the Religious Authority told people to stay away from.
He befriended and loved the people that weren't acceptable. He didn't choose His friends from the "Who's who" directory, He went the opposite way. He searched out brokenness, and healed. He sought out loneliness and comforted. He showed people trapped and entrenched in sin a way to turn from their sin. His love changed people wherever He went. He fed and watered people not only with bread, and fish and wine, but with living water and the Bread of life....He gave them the knowledge that they too, scarred and shattered as they were, were loved by God.
Loved so deeply that He died for them, so that He could have them for eternity.
We're not to cling to a packaged Jesus that fits our ideals....Christ can't be "handled" or "managed." He is sovereign Lord, and we have only the slightest glimpse of His beauty, holiness, mercy and love. Rather, we are to fall in love with Jesus and in turn, accept the truth that the God who made the stars cherishes and loves us. And that love, showered upon us, will change us, it cannot help but do so. Jesus makes each believer into a new creation, changing us from the inside out. He takes our broken, frail selves, fraught with sin and fear, and through His grace transforms us. No one can have an encounter with the living God and come away unchanged, and I can't see how anyone could truly know Jesus and not fall in love.
We are shaped by His love and by our response to that love.
And He calls us today to love others deeply and recklessly. To seek out the crushed of spirit and breathe in new life through the Holy Spirit. He calls us to give more than we want to, to the needy. He calls us to find the downtrodden and sit with them, listen to them, even though the rawness of their stories might shock or hurt our sensibilities. He tells us to go to every corner and share the Good News of the life giving Gospel, even though doing so might scare us or be outside of our comfort zone. He calls us to be friends of sinners, of the lost, so that we might show them the light of Christ. He calls us to be lights on a hill, holy in an unholy world; yet to also keep ourselves authentic and real enough that our message and life of faith can be taken seriously by those who haven't yet discovered how much God loves them. We're to be living carriers of that love, wherever God sends us.
Christ's harshest words were reserved for the religious establishment that set out un-keepable rules and un-breachable social mores, who made God seem far away and unreachable to the common man. He lashed out at men of the cloth who turned a blind eye to need, who ignored mercy, who manipulated Scripture for their own profit and standing, and who left the lost to perish in their sins.
What would he say to the American church? What would He say when say when He saw how we wanted to package Him? What would He say when He saw who we sought out for friends, and whom we ignored?
What will you say when He asks you to be more than what you are now? When He calls you to step out of the boat of being comfortable and take that step into that amazing, unfathomable love of God and all that such love entails? Will you leave the safe harbor and go on that journey with God?
No comments:
Post a Comment