salt-shaker.blog

Finally! We have made it after millennia of searching for truth! We are the illuminated generation, swimming in unprecedented access to information and superior technology-empowered knowledge. Now we can rewrite the concept of sin to accommodate autonomy. We can confidently exalt self-assertion over connection. We are finally free to dismiss archaic value systems and those who promote them. Worth and status are achieved (ironically) by compliance with these superior values and insistence of their merit. Dissent is not tolerated by enlightened ideology, which presupposes that we have reached the pinnacle and must discard the past to ensure future flourishing. The prophets of this vision are the profiteers in media, industry, and politics who gain fame or fortune as its high priests.

As an advocate of a higher way, a noble perspective and a worthy teacher (Jesus), I am a dissident. Convinced that much of our current social morality is actually destructive,  I struggle not fall into the trap of diminishing or discarding its proponents. That impulse to objectify and attack opposition to Jesus’ truth tempts me to be an unloving hypocrite. I wrestle to avoid legalism and ideology. Rejection of Him feels personal, as He has been the lifeline for my soul these many years. Like Peter, I am inclined to cut off someone’s ear in His defense. Some have encountered me in that misguided response that I am learning to resist.

 Meanwhile, there is scarce media evidence of the merits of subscribing to this thing called Christianity. There is a negative cultural connotation of politics and condemnation associated with that word. Here in America we have earned that reproach. Our pastors are routinely exposed as predators, and our people can be spewers of hateful rhetoric along with the best of them. Our lives too often demonstrate nothing different from those whose god is this world, in pursuit of success, reputation, and achievement. We sometimes demonstrate moral bigotry and harsh treatment of people who don’t toe the line of religion or who commit our pet sins. No wonder people are looking elsewhere for meaning. Meanwhile, Jesus’ assertion that He Himself is the truth is judged by the failure of His followers rather than the merit of His claims.

As a failed and failing human, I am constantly striving to learn how to love while I morph into maturity as a follower. My current understanding may be different in spots than before. Hence, the taunting self-accusation of “You hypocrite” gives me pause to advocate for such a lofty pursuit, being such an imperfect representative. But therein is the beauty of the whole thing. Jesus did not start a religion of achievement. We do that to ourselves. He started a community – broken people learning to let Him heal them, and then helping other broken people to do the same. Hypocrisy is not failing to meet a moral standard, although as His follower my goal is to learn to accurately represent His character. (Side note: ‘Faith’ is translated in the Knox translation is ‘learning to trust’. I love that it is a process.) Hypocrisy is living out of a sin-bent humanity and insisting that truth can be apprehended without His forgiveness and grace. Hypocrisy is failing to meet others with the forgiveness and grace that I myself so desperately need, labeling their failure as worse than mine and judging them worthy of exclusion. 

I have not written for a bit, mainly because I am in a season reflecting, remembering, reevaluating and resetting. Sometimes painful, sometimes beautiful, littered with regret and lament, but shot through with hope and persistent peace in the face of missteps, mistakes, and trauma. I definitely qualify as a failure by external standards. One of the chief of sinners, in fact. But I am a gold mine for the grace of God.  I can boldly proclaim in the face of the “superiority” culture-bias of my day that Jesus is worth trusting, the church is more than what makes the media, and that following Him is worth the cost. Which is significant. 

So I invite any and all to explore God’s story. Accept His invitation to be part of it. That is the only real defense against a wasted life – the illusion of significance apart the infusion of the Eternal into your story. After all, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Jesus