People..loving them, living with them, eating with them, sharing your life with them, being true community with them...it's a messy business.
In looking at the Pharisees and the way they approached life, it seems like they did everything possible to avoid a mess. Neatness was valued over people--and certainly over their complicated issues.
Jesus was pretty clear with them in action and words. Over and over he emphasized wanting our hearts OVER a nice looking outer appearance. He even broke many of their "rules" for the sake of ministry to the broken and hurting.
If Jesus was here today, who would He spend His time with? What kinds of people would he be reaching out to? What would the "church" say about it? What kinds of news reports would Pat Roberson run on his show? How would Jesus be written up in "Brotherhood" newpapers? Just curious.
I wonder sometimes if our time in corporate assembly is spent more on the outer appearance rather than getting messy. Nothing really happened yesterday to make me think that, it's just been eating at me for a while.
I'm reading Shane Claiborne's Irresitable Revolution right now and it's extremely convicting. Dangerous even. I'm also teaching a class on Wednesdays at Otter Creek called "Worship is a Verb". Studying these things again has provided me several sleepless nights...thinking, pondering, feeling that all too familiar tugging.
As my buddy Jeff Walling says...the MESSiah came to enter into our MESSES and bring us hope and healing. To even suggest we aren't a mess really implies we have no need for a MESSiah. (Jeff--loved our lunch last week...even if it was the meat of an "unclean animal". HA! Thanks for being my brother!)
How are you allowing Him to impact your messes today? (asking myself that too.) We're called to be His hands and feet too. Let's not be afraid of getting messy for His sake.
Monday, June 25, 2007
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5 comments:
Claiborne's book is excellent. It's caused me to change some things in my life and question other things I haven't yet had the courage to change.
In the spirit of Claiborne's book, some of us from OC started a blog a while back that you might want to check out.
http://livingthesimplelifenashville.blogspot.com/
Peace.
trI'm also reading Claiborne's book & my husband has finished it. Dangerous indeed! The way it has impacted us is that we've decided to share our home with someone. I guess that's pretty messy, cuz you have to love people when they're ugly & most people are the ugliest in their own home. We ALL let our ugly out with the ones who are closest to us, right?
It makes my heart happy that you used Jeff Walling's quote about the MESSy MESSiah. My fiance and I grew up in such legalistic environments (similar to those the Pharisees presented Jesus with) that are centered around feeling guilty when you screw up (not that guilt is a bad thing, but too often, Satan takes our guilt and feeds us damaging lies about ourselves through our guilt). Mike showed Jeff's Messy Messiah production last fall at Highland, and it really helped changed our view of our identities. Although we still long to be holy people, God loves messes and longs to forgive and shower us with His grace when we fall short of His glory.
Last Friday night (well it was 2am saturday morning), I sat on my porch with some guys from abilene drinking beers and a man came up to us. He informed us that he was on his way to go get some crack but that he'd be back to hang out. He came back by and sat with us talking for probably 45 minutes. I left thinking that that is probably more what church is supposed to be than anything we do Sunday morning.
Hey Brandoni! Ok - my first official blog response. I guess I won't mock you about this stuff anymore, since I miss all y'all so much and was THRILLED to get to catch up via your blogs. Broke my HEART Saturday to miss the wedding - give my love to all the LG people and to the ZOES. Thanks for posting all the pics. Made my day:) Miss you TONS sweet friend! Shmee
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