Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us,
in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I struggled for years with the loud and
persistent message of God against sinners. The idea was that if you were a
smoker, a drinker, a skimming-off-the-top candlestick maker, God despised you
and your evil ways and you might as well stay away. His salvation, they implied, was for the good; for those
who had it all together. He only gave his gift to the worthy. You didn’t have
to be perfect, of course, but you had to be trying.
That’s a lie.
We Christians have an unhealthy relationship with suffering. If suffering itself weren't awful enough, because of our screwed up ideas about it, our pride is often stabbed in the process. We either can't imagine that any ill would come to we generally good and gentle folks, or that God would allow us, specifically, to suffer in a world obviously chock full of suffering. We, whether
we would be able to admit or not, see suffering as the result of moral failure; as punishment.
And that's just not true.
And that's just not true.
They’ll tell you that you should forgive and move on.
They’ll say that you were in the wrong place at the wrong
time, or that you somehow caused it, or that you’re lying.
Don’t listen to them.
It’s okay if your pastor, your father, your uncle, or your gym
teacher goes to jail for his crimes—and they
are crimes. Against you, against God. You’re not being unforgiving, unchristian,
unreasonable or not thinking about the problems it will cause. You are being
wise. You are being strong. Taking a criminal off the streets to protect others from his touch.
Maybe that’s all you need, is for someone to tell you it’s
okay. Sometimes we’ve heard the lie so much that it’s hard to hear the truth.
But, it’s okay. And you will be too.
All my life, I wanted to do something special. My heart
ached with hunger for some reason to beat. I dreamed of success that led to
peace. It’s probably why I went into ministry. Besides the religious expectation
that anyone showing a serious interest in Christianity must be destined to be a
pastor, I wanted meaning. The problem was that once I had a meaningful calling,
I started asking myself if it was meaningful enough.
I wondered if I were being spiritual enough. (I wasn’t.) If
I were studying enough. (I wasn’t.) If I were witnessing enough. (I wasn’t.) If
I was doing everything the congregation expected of me. (I definitely wasn’t.)
So then, even smack-dab in the center of my personal world’s most important
vocation, I wasn’t satisfied. I was letting myself, my congregation, and—most importantly—God,
down.
The Law needs to be heard by my old Adam. Because he hasn't believed in Jesus, doesn't believe in Jesus, never will believe in Jesus. All it understands is power and fear. So, as a Christian, I need to hear the Law, because the old Adam won't listen ... But, suppose I'm right on the edge of the abyss, and saying, 'I must not be a believer at all.' If you don't give me the gospel, then don't even bother to come to me.Listen Here:
Law & Gospel in the Christian Life
We get so mad about the way the world portrays us Christians. We get upset when they don’t understand the bible like we do. We
get angry when we don’t always get our way, because our way is the right way, darn it! Don’t they see that?
We’re entitled and self-righteous when we do that, you know? And we miss
the whole point of the Christian faith.
In this long lusted after revival of the fan-favorite, award winning podcast, Etcetera, the buffoonery knows no limits. The Order of the Merry Monk of Love talk about Erik's new book, Chad's old book, Lauren's sordid love affair with Luther, and the plight of a poor constipated Capuchin monkey and a far too dedicated zookeeper.
“The Gospel is a harsh document; the Gospel is ruthless and specific in what it says; the Gospel is not meant to be re-worded, watered down and brought to the level of either our understanding or our taste. The Gospel is proclaiming something which is beyond us and which is there to stretch our mind, to widen our heart beyond the bearable at times, to recondition all our life, to give us a world view which is simply the world upside-down and this we are not keen to accept.”
(Photograph by Hideta Nagai, My Shot)
I remember growing up and being, like, silly over some actor or songwriter whom I found out was a Christian. I would become pretty obsessed with them after that. If I’m honest, even if I wasn’t 100% sure
they were a Christian, I’d be okay with that. If they just said some semi-religious
things, I'd jump on that wagon hard.
Looking back, I think it’s a pretty strange
phenomenon. I mean, I get that I wanted to be represented in the larger culture,
and that I wanted to get behind my bros and sis’s in Christ. But blindly supporting
anyone that either says they’re a Christian or just spouts off spiritual-sounding
things is not very discerning.
What’s more, I see full-on adult Christians
doing the same thing. (Me too, sometimes.)
Never
Meet Your Idols
I’m not a big one for naming and shaming. I
feel like it separates more than it helps. So, speaking in general terms: there
are a lot of jerks being lifted up as religious idols who claim Christ and talk a
good game, but do some really crazy, un-Jesus-like junk.
As a follower of Jesus, a former pastor,
and someone who works within a fairly large ministry, I meet a lot of “famous” religious
people (I put famous
in parentheses because outside of our Christian circle, honestly, nobody
really cares). What I’ve discovered after a junk-load of idol worship is that I
tend to trust people who don’t look all that ”religious” on the outside, but in
whom I regularly see the love of Christ, rather than those who talk a lot of
religious mumbo-jumbo (no matter how accurate) but act like jackholes.
I went through a lot of letdowns to get to
that point. I’ve seen the dark sides of a lot of holy rollers and it’s not
pretty. I walked away from the religious scene for several years because my
idols (including the church) let me down. And that’s all I’m trying to do here:
save you a lot of heartache from holding up television stars, politicians, and
so-called religious professionals as the high water mark.
Idols
Are Dangerous
I’m not talking about penny ante sins, or
one-time moral muck-ups. I’m talking about ingrained evil. Continuous,
non-repentant behavior like belitting women (or anyone!), showing disdain for
the poor, racism, slander, narcissism, greed, etc, etc, etc. Often, people are really
good at hiding that stuff, and can talk a good game, but the folks we hold up as religious royalty are often pretty obviously loco. So, why do we idolize them? It's because they have something we want, or are something we want to be, and we can’t see past our idol worship. So we defend
those sucker’s, bad behavior and all.
Our problem is that we want a king. We want
someone else to do the hard work of sanctification so we can emulate them. We
want them to wrestle with the difficult sayings of Jesus so we can just
implement what they say. We don’t
want to think, because we’re busy, and thinking is hard. And I totally get that.
But it’s still a really bad choice.
When you put anyone on a pedestal, don't be surprised when they dropkick you on the way down.
Your pastor, your favorite television show
personality, political candidate or best friend isn’t perfect, and, no matter how holy they seem, are certainly
not worthy of your worship.
By way of full disclosure, I screw up on a minute-by-minute basis,
commit all of the sins I said those guys above do, and I’m such a jackhole that
I’m not even sure you should be reading this blog! But I do know One who you can
put your faith in that will never let you down, lead you astray, or say
insulting things about your sister (Although, your sister…). He’s the only one
that actually deserves our cheers and praise.
