Spare Change
For a few weeks, my struggle with loneliness seemed to vanish for a bit. I’m not sure why; there was no real reason for it to disappear. But tonight it has returned with full force and my chest aches.
I simply long for community. I long for a group of people who I know love me, who I know are dependable, loyal people. I have lost so much faith in friendship this past year or so. Friendships all seem so fickle, so momentary. Out of my large group of friends/acquaintances, I count only two that I feel I will have a relationship with for a long, long time. I know this is probably normal, but it’s difficult for me because those two people are about a thousand miles away. Here, I have friends but I know our relationships aren’t strong.
For one, I am simply Plan B. When she has nothing better, she will hang out with me. If something better comes along and we have existing plans, she will choose the other thing. I don’t think she realizes how much this hurts me, and I have never told her. Instead, I have simply learned not to expect anything from her. This has become its own new struggle.
Another friend I have here loves me muchly but she is getting married in 44 days. Our bonding time has almost ceased already and I know it will be mostly non-existent when she marries. I am sad about losing her, at least a part of her, even though we’ve had our struggles. She loves me and has always told me that. Even when I felt her love was too much, I always apreciated the knowledge it was there.
Tonight I attended my church’s college group Bible study. I enjoy all the people that attend. We laugh together and they seem to enjoy me. Yet as I was walking to my car, this wave of loneliness just washed over me. I knew I didn’t fit there, with them. I have struggled with this ever since I have attended. This is not their fault; honestly, I’m not sure why I feel so misplaced. But the feeling is there and it is strong and gritty, wearing me thin.
Tonight I am tired. I am tired of my mediocre friendships. I am tired of my mediocre self. I am tired of this city, of this day-to-day life. I am ready for something new. I am ready for change. I am ready for something other than this.
The Nearness of Life
Sometimes, I admit, God seems like a bit of a last resort. He’s the being people turn to when their lives are falling apart. If they’re close to death, whether it’s personal death or the loss or near-loss of someone close, people who have never uttered a prayer are suddenly on their knees. When people who never step inside the doors of a church get hurt or have their heart broken, they pray for healing and wholeness. Millions of non-church goers were in church today, celebrating the Christian holiday essential to our faith.
I am sure many churches presented the gospel message, with the hope lives would be changed and given to Jesus Christ. I am sure many pastors asked people where they would go if they died tonight (why is it always “tonight?”), hoping to help them answer that question.
Sometimes it can seem like God is just something some turn to only to escape hell. Often times, that story has been mine. I wanted to spend eternity in heaven with God, but living for Him now? Letting Him pervade me and consume me in this world? That I wasn’t willing to do.
As I think about Christ’s resurrection, I think that eternity is a small part of the picture. Christ’s mission here was not to only save His Bride from hell, but to save us now. He came so that we might know life today. Renewal does not begin with death. Communion with God does not begin once our lives here are done and over. The life Christ offers He offers today, now, this second, this moment. Redemption is within reach.
Sometimes, I admit, God is my last resort. I am willing to accept His salvation, but I hesitate to accept His wisdom and guidance, strength and courage. It is easy to ignore God sometimes.
As yet another Easter fades into memory, I hope to carry this lesson with me: that new life, redemption, begins anytime we choose to accept grace. New life does not come simply with our physical death; it comes whenever we choose to let Christ make us new.
I wish all who read these words a wonderful, redemption-filled Easter.
By His wounds we are healed.
Green vs. Blue
Well, I ended up attending the lecture I wrote about in my previous entry. I had no idea what to expect, really, so I can’t say that it did or didn’t surprise me. The man that spoke is a well-known author and advocate for homosexuality (or so my teachers told me). He had a great sense of humor, so his lecture certainly wasn’t dull. The theme of the lecture was Coming Out as an Ally. He didn’t stand up there and preach that he was right and everyone else was wrong; he just talked about being there and supporting people in their choices. Obviously, I didn’t agree with his topic of choice, but I did agree with his overall message.
I know I’ve said this a lot lately, but I really am in awe of who Jesus really is. I suppose I’m just shocked that He is so different that most portray Him, than I portray Him. Sometimes it seems as if non-Christians love better and easier than I do. The speaker I heard yesterday spoke about how important it was to love people regardless of your own opinions and beliefs. This is a lesson I’ve been going over and over in my head lately.
I am really bad when it comes to loving people. I’m a pretty quiet person when I’m around people I don’t know very well. When I’m with a group of good friends, I’m just as loud and boisterous as they are, but those first few meetings with someone are usually awkward for me. I’m not good at just going up to someone and saying hello. It takes me a while to truly embrace another person. I am not as kind as I know I should be or as encouraging as I’d like to be. I don’t love instantly; it takes time. But it seems to me that Jesus did love instantly. He didn’t care about a person’s background or past mistakes. He cared, but He didn’t dwell on those things or condemn people for them. He just loved, earnestly, passionately, and faithfully.
It is shameful that so many unbelievers are more accepting and loving than I, a person who claims faith in Christ, am. I have been baptized in the greatest love the world has ever and will ever know yet I have to wonder how often I truly show proof of such a claim.
My church is in the process of constructing a new building. Before this, I had no idea paint and carpet colors mattered so much. (Green, apparently, is better than blue.) My church is not in the best condition it’s ever known. There is a lot of fighting and discord over simple things like sprinkler systems and trim. There have been arguments about seating and pipes. Paint, carpet, sprinklers, trim, seating, and pipes: this is what it seems my church has become. Not only that, but people complain and argue about everything else imaginable, too. It is for these reasons I feel Jesus would be mostly unwelcome in my church. Not by everyone, but certainly by a few. Maybe not unwelcome, but unseen. The question I have been asking myself lately is if I would see and welcome Him.
Sometimes it seems like churches have just lost the point. Some are consumed with tradition, never changing a thing, never growing, because they don’t feel the need to. Some churches are obsessed with the latest technology, more concerned with their PowerPoint presentations than with the Gospel. Some are all about numbers, some are all about appearances, some are all about money, and some are all about obligation.
I believe the problem is not with churches, but with every individual member that makes up that particular body. I was thinking the other day how much my church needed to change, how much was going wrong, how much needed fixing…and then I remembered that I really have no right to say a thing. It’s me that needs to love more, it’s me that needs to stand up for those being accused, it’s me who needs to start a change by first improving my own heart. Nothing in my church will ever be mended unless I confront my own demons.
I mention the problems with my church to show what little difference there is sometimes between Christians and those who don’t believe. Scripture says the world will know of our faith through our love, but what happens when there isn’t love anymore?
As I sat listening to the lecture yesterday, I thought about the people I was around. I thought about the message of the speaker. I thought about how selfish I was sometimes, how harsh and judgmental. I thought about how there was a very good chance that the room I was in contained more love than the sanctuary of my church sometimes. It was shameful, to be quite honest.
I don’t want to be a person who always misses the point. I don’t want to be the Christian that doesn’t really know the real Jesus. I don’t want to bicker with a fellow believer in Christ about how a building looks. When we start caring more about the look of our church than the soul of it, we have missed out on so much.
I have no idea if any of this at all tied together, but there it is…
Oil and Water
In my English lit class this morning, my teacher told us we weren’t having class tomorrow. Instead, she told us to meet up at our normal class time to attend a lecture on gay pride and coming out. I’ve been thinking most of the day about the lecture and my discomfort with its topic.
As a Christian, I believe what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. I do not believe God created His people with homosexual tendecies. He created men and women for a very specific purpose, each one complementing the other. However, I do believe that homosexual urges are very real, very difficult things, especially for those in the Church who struggle silently, afraid to admit it. (My heart breaks for those people. I cannot fathom such a battle.)
I’ve been thinking about whether or not to attend the lecture tomorrow. I won’t lose points for it if I don’t go (and the points thing really shouldn’t influence me anyway). I am just unsure about so much where homosexuality is concerned.
Those who support the homosexual lifestyle preach love and tolerance, yet when someone who opposes their view makes that known they are called a bigot and hateful. Those who oppose the homosexual lifestyle often take it too far, storing such rampant hate in their hearts, sometimes acting on it through violence or slurs. It so often seems the world gives us two sides: either accept homosexuality completely, or hate those that do. As someone who claims Jesus Christ, I believe there should be some sort of middle ground.
It makes me sick to hear a fellow Christian say something cruel and hurtful about a gay person, yet when I hear someone claiming Christ who sees nothing wrong with homosexual choices, that doesn’t settle well, either.
In my past couple of entries, I’ve been talking about who Jesus is to me and the type of man and deity I believe He was. I believe Jesus was a personal, loving man. He embraced those the Church did not. He did not accept their sin, but He did accept them. In church, I so often hear “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Yet I’ve also heard Christians respond with an “ew” or a “gross” when a gay person is mentioned. Is it really the sin we’re hating all the time?
Sometimes it seems the Church expects people to clean themselves up before they’re “presentable.” Sometimes I expect people to get clean before I allow myself to love them. But God loves us in all our despair and rags. He lifted us from that place. I believe that all sin is of equal weight, that a “small” lie is equal to murder. Most Christians share this belief, yet homosexuality is the sin of choice the Church has undertaken to cure, so to speak. We throw rallies, we boycot, we march, we preach, and we advertise, all to make it known that we as Christians are against homosexuality. But what good does any of that really do?
I remember a few years back when Christians were boycotting the Walt Disney company because they apparently embraced gays too much. I believe such a thing is not only a complete waste of time and energy, but I also think it’s shameful. I can’t picture Jesus holding a sign and marching around proclaiming His hatred for any particular thing or lifestyle. Maybe some people can, but I just don’t see it. Instead, I see Jesus forming relationships, realationships that would have made the religious leaders uncomfortable. If the Jesus I believe I know walked in the doors of my church, I think many people would be uncomfortable with who He is. Like C. S. Lewis once said, He isn’t safe but He is good.
I am far often too safe. Sometimes I try to stay inside this tiny Christian bubble and am afraid that those who are “unclean” will pop it, ruining me and making me dirty in the process. But Jesus was never afraid of a little dirt. He kneeled down and drew in the dirt, defending a woman caught in bed with a man who wasn’t her husband. He loved her, and then He told her to go and sin no more. He did not tell her to stop sinning before she knew of his acceptance.
When we love someone, we want them to be the best person they can be. I love my friends just the way they are, but I want them to grow and to change because I know that’s how life gets better, that that is how people learn. I’ve been thinking about what might happen if an openly-gay person walked through the doors of my church and sat down. There would be stares and whispers. There would be hallway conversations and sideways glances. There would be a meeting where it was debated whether or not such a person should be able to attend. It seems that far too often, me included, we say ‘go and sin no more’ before we offer up a defense, before we tell the world to drop their stones, before we realize we too are too guilty to throw them ourselves.
By not going to the lecture tomorrow, I fear sending the signal that, as a Christian, I am just like all the others who refuse to even look at a gay person as a genuine human being instead of some backwards sinner. By going, there is an oppurtunity for conversation, for thoughts to flow back and forth. I mess up in my faith all the time. I sin daily. I sin several times a day, actually. Somtimes I don’t even realize it but most of the time I do. Yet I do it anyway. In spite of this, I cannot stand the thought of sending to the world, or at least my English lit class, the wrong picture of who Jesus was. Jesus never turned away. Instead, He embraced and loved and healed. I can’t do the healing, but I can love with the love I know, with the love that covered me when I was unworthy. Through that love, Jesus can heal. Before anyone can ‘go and sin no more,’ we must first be healed. After all…
“…Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17
Off Target
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Jesus and whether or not the Jesus I feel I know matches up with the Jesus I see in my church and in the churches I’ve been a part of in the past. I have come to the conclusion that the Jesus I know really doesn’t fit in that well at all.
I’ve been thinking a lot about evangelism. I’ve realized how often I think Christians tend to get this one wrong. I’m sure some people’s eyes have been opened by a Gospel tract. I’m sure our cheesy salvation bead bracelets have made certain people think. But overall, I have this suspicion the world is rolling their eyes behind our backs. If I think some of our methods of reaching people are missing the mark, what do non-believers think?
I see all these cliched church signs and I laugh at them. I see salvation presented in a three step, ABC format and think that the greatest romance the world has ever known has been simplified way too much. I see Christian bookstores and cannot help thinking that Jesus, if He went inside, would have very much the same reaction as He did in the temple when His anger was shown by the turning over of tables. We Christians have taken Jesus and put his name on mints and keychains.
Maybe I am far off with these beliefs and I can understand why some might think I am. I don’t think the things I’ve mentioned are all wrong, horrible things. But I do think they miss the mark. I do think they simplify things a bit too much. I do think that far too often, we have turned Jesus into a product.
Sometimes I feel like I am watching an infomercial for Jesus. “Accept Him in the next five minutes and you’ll get eternal life! Pray now and we’ll throw in two free answers to prayer!” That might be an unfair statement but that’s how I see it a lot of the time.
I guess I just get frustrated that the Jesus I feel I know rarely matches up with the Jesus my fellow Christians claim. Going back to the evangelism thing, how often do Christians make friends with unbelievers simply to “save” them? What happened to loving a person just to love them? I believe the best way to share the message of the Gospel is through relationships. God is a relational God and handing a person a tract or asking them where they’d go if they died just doesn’t cut it to me.
God is this wild, huge, uncontrollable God and so often He is presented as a cure-all. Christianity is this beautiful, poetic faith yet it is so often full of five-step plans and easy answers. There is nothing wrong with easy, but if easy is how we want God we will miss so much. God is not easy. The Gospel is often offensive. Salvation is the climax of anyone’s existence. Oh, how often I fail to see God for who He is.
Today in Sunday school, we were asked where Jesus is. Many responded with “in my heart.” What in the world does that even mean? We’re college students and “in my heart” is something I would hear in my mother’s preschool class. Then we got asked if we have taken Jesus places He shouldn’t go, listened to things He shouldn’t hear, see things He shouldn’t see, etc. But Jesus hung out with the worst of society. He called fishermen to be His followers. Even more, He called them to be his friends. Jesus spoke to prostitutes with more patience than He spoke to religious leaders. He sought these people out. He healed on the Sabbath, offending the leaders of the church. He made company with tax collectors and lepers. Have I taken Jesus where He shouldn’t go? Or have I neglected to go where Jesus wants to take me out of fear or a better-than-them mindset? Somehow I think it’s the second option.
I suppose this rant of mine is simply due to the fact that I see Jesus so differently now than I have most of my life. I am tired of cheap faith that demands no thought, just Sunday school answers. I am tired of evangelism that is more about numbers than love. I am tired of worship that is only half-hearted obligation. I am tired of church being a social gathering to complain and whine. I am tired of myself and how I often misrepresent who Jesus is, what the heart of the Gospel looks like.
But before I can blame the Church, I must first fix myself. I am the problem. I am what needs correction. I believe Jesus can do it, if I let Him. I am just beginning to understand where I have gone wrong for so long. I am just beginning to see the God of the universe as just that: big, gigantic, and huge yet small enough to see me, to love me, to like me.
Song of the Moment: “Awake My Soul,” Derek Webb
Dressing It Down
Dress down your pretty faith
Give me something real
Leave out the “thee” and “thou”
And speak to me now
Speak to my pain and confusion
Speak through my fears and my pride
Speak to the part of me that knows I’m something
Deep down inside
Perhaps my seemingly relentless struggles with God, religion, and faith are because none of those things are real to me. I simply act the part of a Christian so much of the time. I have taken faith, beautiful, raw, life-affirming faith, and have turned it into motions instead of meaning.
I’ve been in church since I was a week old. I know the words to hymns and praise choruses, the names of all the deacons, the correct Sunday school answers, and a lot of the Bible. Yet all of these things are pretty much meaningless to me. They were accomplished out of obligation, learned through simple routine.
I know that I’m not perfect
But compare me to most
In a world of hurt, in a world of anger
I think I’m holding my own
And I know that you’ve said there is more to life
No, I am not satisfied
But there are mornings I wake up
And I’m just thankful to be alive
I have had little choice regarding church these past eighteen years. I sometimes thnk about what I would believe in, if anything, had I not been raised to be a Christian. I wonder what god I would subscribe to, what doctrine would capture my attention. But I have this sneaking suspicion that I would believe in nothing and no one. I can never know for sure, but I suspect I would have brushed religion away completely. I am not sure what that means.
I’ve known now for quite a while
That I am not whole
I’ve remembered the body and the mind
But disected the soul
Now something inside is awakening
Like a dream I once had but forgot
And it’s something I’m scared of
But something I don’t want to stop
In English lit last quarter, we read a short story by Langston Hughes called “On the Road.” In it, Hughes wrote, “Sometimes you have to tear the church down to get Jesus off the cross.” As I read that the first time, it struck a chord in me. As I reflect on it now, I see how relevant of a statement it is in my own life.
To me, in a lot of ways, Jesus is still on the cross. I was a sinner, Jesus came and died for me–that is the heart of the Gospel. But I have ignored the risen Jesus, the one who left the tomb empty and cold. His resurrection made salavation possible yet I ignore it or forget about it so much of the time. Maybe, like Hughes said, you sometimes have to tear down what you think you know in order to meet and come face to face with the real, alive Jesus.
I woke up this morning and realized
Jesus is not a portrait
Or stained glass windows
Or hymns
Or all the tradition that surrounds us
And I thought it would be hard to believe in
But it’s not hard at all
To believe I’ve sinned
And fallen short
Of the glory of God
I say that when I was tweleve years old I took real ownership of my faith, but did I really? I fear that “my” faith is still so often void of any personal significance. But even though so much of my spiritual life is just routine religion, I cannot shake the feeling that there is a God that’s big and mighty and wondrous, a God who is real, with feelings and love. I feel that in the midst of this religious insanity that grace is ever-present, willing to capture even the dirtiest, willing to capture even me. When I am my most distant and hardened, I still feel pursued by God. I still hear the echo of His message, and I cannot escape its meaning.
He’s not asking me to change in my joy for martyrdom
He’s asking to take my place
To stand in the gap that I have formed
With his real, amazing grace
And it’s not just a sign or a sacrament
It’s not just a metaphor for love
The blood is real and it’s not just a symbol of our faith
I’m not sure what I need to do in order to capture and grasp the depth of the Gospel message and not just the religious ideals and standards. I think I have made Christianity all about right vs. wrong. I look at all these things I’m not supposed to do, sin, and I get overwhelmed, knowing I will never be able to keep all the “rules”. Then I look at all the things I’m supposed to do and I get bored and flooded with thoughts of Christian t-shirts, keychains, and CDs. It’s sad that I have taken the world’s greatest romance and turned it into a list.
When I think about Christianity, I think about Christians, and when I think of Christstians I think of all sorts of different people I will never be able to live up to. But maybe I don’t have to. Maybe God doesn’t want me to follow His list of right and wrong and that’s it. (That can’t be it.) Maybe God simply wants me. I hope that my attempts and honesty might be enough.
I also hope to simply have the courage to try to meet God somewhere, anywhere. I hope to fall in love. I hope to escape the confinement of playing church and religion and be released into the very real arms of a man who loves me and crowns me as the glory of all his creation. I hope that my Jesus is not still nailed to the cross, but is alive and walking and running towards me, inviting me on the greatest adventure my heart will ever know.
The blood is real and it’s not just a symbol of our faith
(Lyrics by Sara Groves, from her song “Awakening”)
