"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging your self to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close."
-Soren Kierkegaard, from "Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard
I honestly couldn't help but feel completely helpless the first time I read that....mainly because I am so guilty of it. This post is hard to write, but you have no idea how desperate I am to see things change.
Have you ever read the gospels? I did and it wrecked every notion I had of my life.
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
I've probably read this verse a million times. I even wrote it on a cute little card and tacked it onto my bulletin board thinking, aww, how inspirational. But the truth is that none of us really knows what it means to lose our lives. We all love our agendas too much, our plans, our dreams, our earthly goals...we don't ever deny ourselves really. Some may argue and say, well, when I can I give time to my church, etc. Yeah, okay. But let's be honest. That time is probably leftover time, doesn't require much sacrifice, and I only say this because I do it too. But in this verse Jesus makes it very clear to his disciples, you want eternal life? Follow me. Wholeheartedly. No shortcuts, no self-sufficiency. Love passionately and deeply, and that means everyone. Not just the ones who look and think like you. Learn to trust me. I find it so tragic that Christians today have no idea what it means to really trust God. We sing a million songs about trusting Jesus and always try to console others in their desperation by telling them to trust God when we don't have the slightest idea what it means to depend on him. Psalms talks about how God has it all under control, and how if he takes care of the lillies and sparrows, he most definitely will take care of us. But in these times, our obsession with self sufficiency is unhealthy. You're sick? Go see your doctor. Need food? Go buy it at the store. Can't pay rent? Lose sleep and come up with a million ideas to get that extra money. And oh the 53195831 insurance policies we will purchase. We don't know how to live by faith anymore, and we don't realize that anything we have doesn't come from us, but from Him, and that every single breath of ours depends on Him! Never us. Now I'm not saying to be lazy or anything, but I mean, Jesus himself lived his whole life on faith in His father alone. Jesus was homeless. Yeah. Homeless. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who has his hand over all, was homeless. Yet he always had a place to sleep. Jesus didn't have a job and probably had to trust His father for every meal. But tell any Christian in America to sell all they have to poor, to quit their job, and go after God's heart and to trust him for everything, and they will probably peg you as a radical.
Which is another problem. Why have Christians become so normal? We are like iguanas. We blend in with the rest. Like Kierkegaard said, we use our idea of church as our excuse for not living out a true authentic faith. Because we know that if we really took Jesus words seriously, we would have no other choice but to act accordingly, and to give it all away in search of his kingdom. We choose not to because we like our houses. We like our cars, our jobs, our social status, and our sense of pride in being able to provide for ourselves. We feel like we deserve what we have when we kinda don't because anything we have is because God in his great mercy gave it to us. Jesus' life was uncoventional, so far from what I live today. The American church probably shares more resemblance with a leper than Jesus. The leper is numb, can't feel, and is slowly dying. We, the church, need to learn to love and feel again. To share love....after all, that's why we're here. Jesus chose to give us the privilege of being his hands and feet on this earth. I mean, he could do the job. But instead, he chose to give it to us. So we could see how beautiful he is and how meaningless anything this world could give us is.
I'm on a mission to give it all away. And I mean everything.
Good thoughts. I've had a lot of similar thoughts and for some reason a lot of this stuff isn't very popular with a lot of people. It seems like there are a lot of people that are willing to be Christians, so long as it doesn't cause them to give up their comfortable American lifestyles. I could point fingers, but then I look at myself and see similar things in my own heart. Only, to me, my faults in these areas are somehow manifested in more acceptable ways. As long as we live, I think Jesus will never run out of stuff to point at in our lives and say, "You need to give this up to me too." Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteHey! Thanks for the read. And it's true...people want to be able to 'follow' Jesus and still do what they want. It doesn't work that way. If our lives are ever comfortable...then we are missing the point.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is not a popular idea. But I'm glad you see what I see..
"spread love, it's the brooklyn way" -biggie smalls