Lessons Learned

Since the last time I left an entry I have learned some valuable lessons about myself and our world around us.

First of all, I wrote what I thought was a masterpiece of writing, a critique of the church and Christianity today. I laid it all out beautifully, and then when I tried to post it here, my computer locked up, and all my efforts were gone. Then I wrote somewhat the same piece, discussing the same things about my grudges with the church, and again my computer froze up solid like before. So I thought, well maybe, just maybe, it's not meant to be. Maybe I'm supposed to take some time off to read, meditate and pray about these things before I write about them. Whether the lockups were from a computer virus or from providence, I am glad that I waited.

I started thinking about the time Jesus said to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. In placing this in context with all other scripture I am becoming convinced that the things of this world, including politics, are not really for us Christians. I am toying with the idea that it does not matter to a follower of Jesus if the nation he or she lives in is ruled by a dictator or monarch or a president. It should not matter what the ruling party is, or even if there is complete anarchy, or even if Christianity itself is outlawed.

I am thinking that it is quite possible for a follower of Jesus to be effective in our community regardless of anything else, if we just get back to basics. What is our mission? What have we been told we are to do? When Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, what does that entail? When Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" and then told Peter, "Feed my sheep." I believe Jesus was laying out exactly what love really is as plain as could possibly be told. Love is not 'liking' someone, as in liking an ice cream cone. Love is caring about or caring for someone, enough to make a difference in their life. So we should be caring for others as we care for ourselves. And how do we care for God, if God by definition doesn't really 'need' us? We respect God, and we care for those 'little ones' whom God cares about.

Our society seems to be governed by fear more and more each day. We are afraid of the terrorists, afraid of the government, afraid of economic hardship, afraid our spouse will cheat on us, afraid our neighbors will sue us. Those fears lead us to withdraw and avoid conflict, and then those fears convince us to hate. We may not even be completely conscious of these processes within us, and the reasons for why we feel the way we do and why we persue self-destructive behaviours. We may not realize that we use these buried emotions as a justification for lashing out at those around us, our family and friends, when we should be doing just the opposite.
Well, the Bible says that "perfect love casts out fear." So if we strive for perfect love, which is truly caring for, or taking care of, someone, we no longer have any reason to fear. If I live magnanimously, sensitive and responsive to people's needs, then I have no reason to fear anything from them. If we try to see our enemy's needs and solve them, they just might decide not to be our enemy any longer.

But do you take care of someone in order to get something back from them? No, that isn't perfect love, it's manipulation. We need to look for needs that we can meet, then meet them with no strings attached.

I recently started the book, "The Irresistible Revolution - Living as an Ordinary Radical" by Shane Claiborne. What a terrific book this is! This book really puts rubber to the road as far as how we should be living as Christians, and he does it in a positive and exciting manner. It is exciting because interacting with the needy is exciting and seeing God at work is renewing.

The church is not a building any more than a labor union is a building. The church are the people. Is money placed in the church's offering plate out of love, or from a feeling of obligation? Maybe we shouldn't be so concerned with real estate and put the money where it really is needed, with the needy.