Tomorrow morning I will do something terrifying. I will drive an hour and a half to southern Nebraska to preach to people I have never met before. I am told that this is a great honor, that people enjoy hearing me speak. Rather, I just think God is making me wander all over Nebraska like some sort of wilderness until I'm ready to do his work. Another blog for another day I suppose.
Us against them. It's a mentality that permeates our society, our very way of life. Race, gender, economics, religion, heck, what side of the cafeteria you sit on, it's all one big way of deciding whether you're with us, or with them. I wonder a lot how we got to this point, if there's something encoded in us post-Eden that makes us need an adversary of some kind. Even our view of God is affected; a lot of times we give Satan way too much credit by picturing him on the same playing field as the Almighty, simply because we assume God has to be fighting someone, he has to have some sort of enemy.
I say all of this to make myself look less sinful when I admit that I am in fact one of the worst about this. When I was young, I was surrounded by a very dogmatic form of Christianity, and it was all us against the other denominations. As I got older and began feeling ashamed of that line of thinking, it became us against people who hate other denominations. Then it was us against pharisees, because that sounded better, then it finally settled into us against the non-Christians. It's really very sad to be honest, and I hope you'll accept my apologies on behalf of all humanity.
Having confessed that, I have a story to tell. It happened last semester, and remains one of the best nights of my life. I was going to Lincoln with a bunch of friends, and as I was driving through the labyrinthine parking of O Street, I saw a few other friends of mine standing on a street corner screaming at some people holding signs.
Let me back up.
There is a guy in Lincoln, or it might be a couple of guys working in shifts, who carries around a cross. He stands on O Street, a busy party-type street, and shouts at people walking by. He screams at them that they're sinners, that they're going to burn in Hell, and accuses them of things they probably have never done. At least I've never done any of the things he's accused me of. (Baby killing being primary among those. I've also never had any kind of romantic entanglement with another man. He accused me of both. No lie. It's the bald head. SCREAMS infanticidal Nazi homosexual.)
So occasionally, this group of people come out to defend homosexuals. Primarily homosexuals. I think they just don't like Cross Guy, but they seem to especially hate that he's down on the gays. On this particular night, they were holding signs that said things like, "Homosexuals are People," and were handing out a pamphlet accusing God of being a bad guy who murdered people. Now I'm not saying I agreed with the pamphlet, but the signs weren't really that offensive. I happen to think that homosexuals are people too. Remember, raised by an ex-hippy.
Anyway, I manage to park (5 blocks down!) and walk back to the corner, happy to see my friends still locked in a shouting match with the Humanists. (That's who I later found out they were.) The humanists were very adament that we were very foolish for believing in God, and that if God really loved people he wouldn't hate gays or bomb abortion clinics. My friends were very upset and began shouting at these guys that they were just ignorant and were going to Hell. Really ugly scene, gotta be honest.
I say all of this to tell you that God works through broken vessels like me. That night, with one faithful friend sticking with me, the rest either running or shouting, I managed to preach the gospel to about 15 people on a street corner. It was exhilirating, unlike anything I had ever experienced. I raised my voice and began to speak loudly to the Humanists, explaining to them that Cross Guy was no more a Christian than they were. That the will of God was more about loving people than it was about stopping gay people from getting married. I explained to them that God wants more than for us to stop sinning, he wants us to start loving. And I told them that by showing up to love some sinners, they had done the will of God without even meaning to. By the time I stopped to take a breath, I realized that there was a small crowd growing.
We walked away that night friends. I shook hands and even hugged a few of them. (Except the fat chick with cartilage piercings who blew cigarette smoke in my face. Can't win 'em all.) Did they drop to their knees and beg to be baptized on the spot? No. But they left knowing that Cross Guy doesn't represent me, and he certainly doesn't represent my God.
I guess the point I'm making here is that if God can bring those people into my life and teach me about his love through Secular Humanists, then he can certainly teach me something through traditional right-wing Christians, through alcoholic athletes, elitist nerds, or any other opposing social group I've labeled as a "them". There is no them guys. It's just one big us. And if us don't start looking out for each other, then none of us will ever find any kind of heaven.
(jake)
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Banana-Flavored Faith
That's right, after a few months of absence, I'm about to strike back like the Empire! A few people have mentioned that they liked these, and my brain is flowing at normal speed again, so here we go again. I was going to save this until after next week because it was going to be my devo, but Greg's tonight was both fantastic and a lot like this, so I decided instead to make this a blog and the devo will be changed.
I'll go ahead and say it; I love my life. I have a great life's story that I really feel would make a good movie or book. Several other people think so too, so that makes it fact. My life is really the final act in a series of stories about some fantastic people and how they overcame their own challenges; I basically like to think of myself as the climax of several stories. (Literature nerd, I know.) The person I want to focus on is kind of the one who started all of this, my grandmother, or as we called her, Nanny.
I've talked about my grandmother a few times at school, but to bring everyone up to speed, she was hands down the coolest old lady alive. She was going to be a nun until she met my granddad, but by the time I came along she was essentially the definition of a "tough old bird." Granddad left her for a younger lady, but left her a nice chunk of money to live on in return. Nanny didn't bake me cookies but once (best cookies ever, the standard by which I still judge all subsequent cookies.) and she never knitted me anything. She did however teach me to keep score on a Cubs game, and explained to me that even when you're watching at home you have to get up and sing along when Harry Carray leads Take Me Out to the Ball Game. One of my favorite things about her house was the fruit; Nanny had great fruit, and my favorite was always bananas.
Whenever I eat a banana, I get swept away in nostalgia, remembering Nanny cussing at the announcers when they insulted Sammy Sosa, or how she used to take care of that nasty black cat I was so scared of. I can even remember the smell of her house, a good catholic house; cheap wine and cigarettes. But you know what? Banana-flavored candy isn't the same. This may seem like a no brainer for you, but for me it's shocking. Banana flavored taffy, runts, whatever, none of it invokes the same memories. It's fake, false, a substitute, and it fails to remind me of that tough old lady who taught me so much.
I guess I feel like our faith is like that. I don't mean for this to be one of the many rip on America posts out there, but the fact is that Christianity in this country is so screwed up. Sure, it's kind of like what Jesus wanted, but how is it any different from the other things out there? What I mean is, maybe the reason people aren't flocking to churches is because we're offering the same thing they can get at any other social club, like boy scouts, or scrapbooking circles, or book clubs. Are we really any different, or are we one more imitation that offers something similar to the real thing?
Faith is more than just a set of political beliefs, and it's a lot more than just sitting around with people who think like you do. True faith is to love people unconditionally, to sacrifice ANYTHING for other people, the same way Jesus did. I tried to find a verse that summed this up, and then I realized, it's all over the whole freaking Bible! The thing is full of it! If we were really offering that authentic flavor of faith, I think people would be way more interested in us.
So the point? No, it's not to go rage against the machine and burn the mother down. Leave your churches standing, they're full of good people who love God. The point here? Let your faith be real. Study the bible for yourself and see what God really wants. Find someone to love. Find an unlovable person, someone not deserving or not receiving unconditional love, and give it to them. That my friends is real faith. None of this bullcrap, "Keep the gays from marrying!" faith-flavored junk.
(jake)
I'll go ahead and say it; I love my life. I have a great life's story that I really feel would make a good movie or book. Several other people think so too, so that makes it fact. My life is really the final act in a series of stories about some fantastic people and how they overcame their own challenges; I basically like to think of myself as the climax of several stories. (Literature nerd, I know.) The person I want to focus on is kind of the one who started all of this, my grandmother, or as we called her, Nanny.
I've talked about my grandmother a few times at school, but to bring everyone up to speed, she was hands down the coolest old lady alive. She was going to be a nun until she met my granddad, but by the time I came along she was essentially the definition of a "tough old bird." Granddad left her for a younger lady, but left her a nice chunk of money to live on in return. Nanny didn't bake me cookies but once (best cookies ever, the standard by which I still judge all subsequent cookies.) and she never knitted me anything. She did however teach me to keep score on a Cubs game, and explained to me that even when you're watching at home you have to get up and sing along when Harry Carray leads Take Me Out to the Ball Game. One of my favorite things about her house was the fruit; Nanny had great fruit, and my favorite was always bananas.
Whenever I eat a banana, I get swept away in nostalgia, remembering Nanny cussing at the announcers when they insulted Sammy Sosa, or how she used to take care of that nasty black cat I was so scared of. I can even remember the smell of her house, a good catholic house; cheap wine and cigarettes. But you know what? Banana-flavored candy isn't the same. This may seem like a no brainer for you, but for me it's shocking. Banana flavored taffy, runts, whatever, none of it invokes the same memories. It's fake, false, a substitute, and it fails to remind me of that tough old lady who taught me so much.
I guess I feel like our faith is like that. I don't mean for this to be one of the many rip on America posts out there, but the fact is that Christianity in this country is so screwed up. Sure, it's kind of like what Jesus wanted, but how is it any different from the other things out there? What I mean is, maybe the reason people aren't flocking to churches is because we're offering the same thing they can get at any other social club, like boy scouts, or scrapbooking circles, or book clubs. Are we really any different, or are we one more imitation that offers something similar to the real thing?
Faith is more than just a set of political beliefs, and it's a lot more than just sitting around with people who think like you do. True faith is to love people unconditionally, to sacrifice ANYTHING for other people, the same way Jesus did. I tried to find a verse that summed this up, and then I realized, it's all over the whole freaking Bible! The thing is full of it! If we were really offering that authentic flavor of faith, I think people would be way more interested in us.
So the point? No, it's not to go rage against the machine and burn the mother down. Leave your churches standing, they're full of good people who love God. The point here? Let your faith be real. Study the bible for yourself and see what God really wants. Find someone to love. Find an unlovable person, someone not deserving or not receiving unconditional love, and give it to them. That my friends is real faith. None of this bullcrap, "Keep the gays from marrying!" faith-flavored junk.
(jake)
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