Jesus Goes To Church

There is constant speculation surrounding "if Jesus were to show up on a Sunday Morning, what would he say or do" that floats in and out of discussions. The truth is - we have no idea what he would or would not do and to think we know means that our version of who Jesus is and what he would do is superior to everyone else's. We know of two occasions where he came into the house of worship and ended up getting so angry that he demolished the activity in the lobby area.Now my default is that I still love the Church deeply and beleive that it is the hope for a world is trying to figure a way out of this mess we have created. So my question is - what causes us to turn the place where we worship, into something other than it was intended for? Jump in on this one please.

Humility

Most of the new definitions for humility are nothing more than politically correct language wrapped up in the context of a new generation. We give platitudes to the gods of this world and sacrifice what we claim is most precious and we become the very thing we claim to oppose. However you want to define humility, Christ's version is very different than any tribe's definition. On one occasion when his closest followers were arguing once again who was going to be top dog in the Kingdom of God, Jesus takes a child and claims that anyone who wants to be great will have to humble themselves like this child. Interesting analogy since in his day, children had no rights, they didn't exist in the eyes of the world until later in life. In our culture children are everything and yet nothing. We spend enormous amounts of money making sure they have the right everything from clothes and education to sports. They are at the center of life. Yet, they do not exist if we so choose. An average of 1.5 million get set aside out of personal choice just in our country alone. Another 143 million are left alone to be orphans while we spend 6 Billion dollars to bail out a car company. So much of what we do we claim we are doing for our children . . . at least the ones we choose to keep. Maybe humility is finally waking up and admitting just how calloused and self-centered we have become. Maybe humility is becoming like the child who no one wants, who is totally dependant on the grace and love of a stranger who comes along and rescues us from our helpless state. I sense humility is vastly different than we imagine because the gods of this age have captured our minds and hearts and lead us to the valley of Hinnom.

What are we really after?

We live in a culture where images and words create an illusionary reality that leaves us with a lot of angst. We claim this is what we value, yet our behaviors violate there very thing we claim is important to us. We spend incredible amounts of money on our kids as a nation, yet our practice is to kill an inordinate amount of those same children through abortion. I know all the arguments about bringing unwanted children into the world, increasing the poor index etc. We live in a world that is willing to bail out a car company to the tune of 6 billion dollars while 143 million orphans go hungry. For all out talk about compassion, social justice and eliminating hunger, pragmatically speaking, it still is primarily about us. The older brother in the story Jesus tells, claims to have always obeyed the Father, yet the one most important responsibility where he was to go out and find his younger brother, he failed to obey. We all have far too much older brother in us . . . where our words sound pretty impressive but when evaluated in light of the Fathers grace, they are found wanting. May our behaviors line up with our values so that we can create a culture of forgivness and grace.