The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words from the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How will I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
-Soren Kierkegaard
We took the youth to Martha’s Kitchen today. A couple of churches in the area got together and did a “Top Chef” type event - each making key dishes to serve to the homeless in the area. I wasn’t able to really speak to any of the people who came and ate, because I was busy serving them food, but I was able to look into their eyes. I saw a lot of brokenness. I saw men and women who, for whatever reason, were now outcasts of society. I saw the question in their eyes; the wondering of why we were doing what we were doing.
It broke me.
When everyone had been fed, and when most of the people had left for the evening, a man came with a tupperware box for leftovers. We gave him as much as he could fit into the container, and as he left he turned around and said, “Thank you for what you are doing. I wish more churches would get involved in something like this...the people need it. Churches need it.”
I sat there stunned. Yes! Yes. This is so true. Russ, sitting next to me, chuckled and said, “Absolutely. I would even go so far as to say the church needs it more than the people.” The man smiled, nodded, and said softly, “Exactly. I would have been a lot more involved in the church I went to had they done stuff like this.”
There’s this girl in our youth group. Just recently, she came to know Christ. In the span of a week, she trusted Him completely and followed through in baptism. She was there tonight, standing next to me, serving these people with absolute joy. As we were headed to the car later in the evening, she said, “Well this was kind of disappointing.”
I asked her why. She then said, “So many of the youth were just hanging out in the shade-not wanting to help. That’s sad.”
Russ looked at her and said, “Well, there are three types of people in the world. Those who are ignorant, those who see what is going on and refuse to do anything, and those who see what is going on and determine to everything they can to stop it.”
She looked at us and smiled - “That’s going to be me. I am going to do something.”
I thought about these two situations a lot this evening. Two outside observers - two different worlds - one realization.
Dorothy Day once said, “The true atheists is one who denies God’s image in the ‘least of these’” and I can’t help but wonder exactly what type of image we are giving off as a church. Think about it. Are we truly showing His love? Truly?
If we are, then newspapers won’t have to come out when they hear a few churches are ministering to the homeless. They won’t have to, because it will be so common place that it isn’t news anymore. It’s not an event, it’s a way of life.
In the middle of all of this, I spoke to another dear friend on the phone who is experiencing just a bit of spiritual warfare concerning her speaking to her church this Sunday. She told me, “Church has become a place where people check their brains at the door and sit in a service for fifty minutes and listen to whatever message the preacher has. Sunday is the only day where people allow themselves to be absolutely brain dead, and people wonder where God is on Sunday mornings. He’s not in church. He’s not in church because no one invites him there anymore. If you want to go where God is on Sundays, try the soup kitchens, because there, people actually want to hear what he has to say.”
I think the key here is that church has become a place. Not until Constantine was Christianity supposed to be organized. Read Acts. We are supposed to be a living, active example of Christ’s love - reaching out to other through our community of believers.
I know this a lot to digest, and to be honest, I’m still working through a lot of what has transpired these past few weeks. One thing is for certain: I don’t want to be comfortable. I desire for God to continue to reveal his glory through still whispers and magnificent thunder. I desire to be used. I desire to look into the eyes of those considered less than me, those in which society and time has forgot, and show them that there is One in me who sees their beauty.
