So, I just finished reading a book that just really opened my eyes a lot. I want to encourage all of you to get a copy and read it – it is called The Irresistible Revolution (living as an ordinary radical), by Shane Claiborne. He just shares his heart and how the Lord has transformed him from a man who lived a very “normal”, luke-warm, wrapped up in making money, American Christian life, to someone who is passionate about community, giving and sharing the love of Christ with even the worst of sinners. He shares about how Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is for the poor and the broken, and how we have gotten it all backwards over the years. I realized as I read this book that I have bought into so many of these lies – that the more people who come to church, the more successful it is; that the size of the building and how good it looks really matters; and so on. I want to share with you several quotes from his book that really made an impact on me – and is changing the way I am seeing the world.
“So, I did a little survey, probing Christians about their (mis)conceptions of Jesus. I learned a striking thing from the survey. I asked participants who claimed to be “strong followers of Jesus” whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”
This trip is making me realize that I have got to stop living in my little American bubble … where everything is at my fingertips. It is not right! It is not right that I have access to almost anything when there are people who are starving and literally dying daily because they have no food! It is not right that I gorge myself on pizza and Dr. Pepper – or all the Mexican food I can stuff in my belly…until I feel like I am going to puke , and there are people whose bellies hurt because they haven’t eaten anything in days. It has GOT to stop. I have given to the “poor” in my life – of course, there is no face with that phrase…just a cause that I give my money to. But, I don’t get out there and get to know these people- and God forbid invite them into my home for a warm meal! I am getting to put faces to the phrase “poor” or “homeless” this year – and it makes you see how much we are alike….they are human just like you and I…and they deserve to be treated with love and respect, just like I expect for myself.
“After all, what is crazier: one person owning the same amount of money as the combined economies of twenty-three countries, or suggesting that if we shared, there would be enough for everyone? What is crazier: spending billions of dollars on a defense shield, or suggesting that we share our billions of dollars so we don’t need a defense shield? What’s crazy is that the US, less than 6 percent of the world’s population, consumes nearly half of the world’s resources, and that the average American consumes as much as 520 Ethiopians do, while obesity is declared a ‘national health crisis.’ Someday war and poverty will be crazy and we will wonder how the world allowed such things to exist.”
“We live in an age in which people, when they hear the word Christian, are much more likely to think of people who hate gays than people who love outcasts, and that is a dangerous thing. Bumper stickers and buttons read, ‘Jesus, save me from your followers.’ Over and over I see people rejecting God because of the mess they see in the church. As contemporary author and ragamuffin Brennan Manning says, ‘The greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. But I have tremendous hope that a new kind of Christianity is emerging. I’d just like it to get here sooner than later. We live in a world of dangerous extremes. ‘The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?’ The world has seen Christian extremists who will blow up abortion clinics and dance on the doctors’ graves. The world has seen Christian extremists who declare war in the name of the Lamb. But where are the Christian extremists for love and grace?”
Shane has traveled all over the world and studied with some of the most amazing Christians – who have truly given their lives over for the poor and the broken. He spent several months in Calcutta, India studying under and with Mother Theresa – a woman who had horribly disfigured feet because she always chose the worst pair of shoes for herself, so others could have the better shoes.
I guess what I want to say is that things need to change and I am realizing that more now because I am actually faced with the people I have been withholding my wealth from. I want to encourage you to do something next time you are faced with the choice to give or walk away. Why don’t you get to know someone’s name, their face, and their story…. get to know them as a person and not as a cause.
And please read this book – it will definitely leave you with many questions to answer and challenge you to get outside of all we have created the church to be…and gets back to what God intended for it to be.
