(originally posted July 21, 2006)
I am at least a year behind all the COOL Christians. How do I know this? Well, I’m currently finishing up Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz”. (See? Over a year behind.) Today I’m captured by his idea that Christians use love like a financial commodity…withholding it from people we don’t like, or who disagree with us, and pouring it out on people we DO like, or who agree with us. (Read that again if you need to…you have to absorb that to get the rest of this post.) Further, we label those who disagree with us as ‘bad’, and put them in two camps: (a) evil, or (b) charity, based on their socio-economic status.
How incredibly convicting, and nauseating, and true. So true that there is a part of me that almost says, yes that’s just how it works….so what’s the big deal? So true, apparently, that I, a Christian for over 25 years, raised in a completely loving Christian environment, have to ‘remember’ to show compassion to people. Or, more honestly, I will show compassion and love people as assigned.
I’ve always used the ‘gifting’ excuse whenever I’ve begun to notice this trend in myself and veer perilously close to being convicted. The ‘gifting’ excuse has simply to do with the fact that I don’t have the spiritual gift of mercy, or prayer, or being-inconvenienced-by-the-needs-of-others. No, MY gifts are things like Administration, and Leadership, and possibly, Discernment. Which, if examined closely, could all fall nicely into a mind-set of ‘please leave me alone so that my brilliance can unfold in its entirety’.
If it’s true that this awful misuse of love–both given and withheld–is lurking within the fabric of our churches, maybe this is the organic root of dissatisfaction that also lurks there. If it’s true that we have ‘eternity written on our hearts’, and that we were created in God’s own image, then maybe there is some speck of something deep within that recognizes that we’re not doing this love thing the right way. Maybe my growing discontent comes out of the fact that I know something isn’t right about the way we interact with each other, both on an individual level and corporately. The horrifying truth is that before I can start throwing a fit about this and waving it around as my new Why I’m So Done With Church banner, I have to be willing to confront how completely soaked I am in the culture about which I am newly enlightened. This is ME! There is no ‘THEM’ in this scenario. I have been, from birth, a part of the church, or The Church, or tHe ChUrCh, however you want to think of it. I have absorbed, and perpetuated, and, no doubt, squeezed out on others this ever-so-slightly twisted view of how to love. Is it in my ministry? My home? My marriage? Seriously. God have mercy.
So, if you want to know, this week I find myself needing to be on my knees asking God to forgive me, and somehow rebuild me to be a person that actually reflects the true nature of His pure love, rather than a person that merely Gets Things Done. I will not ever achieve a complete reflection of Him, but I’ve got to believe that moving in His direction instead of away from it is a good thing.
May the same God that showed mercy to the people who bore His name in ancient times, even as they gave away their worship to others, show mercy to we who bear His name now. Let us no longer tarnish and ruin His reputation. Let us instead show that kind of surprising, gentle, pure love that is only found in Him.
