Late Night Theology (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted as a note on my Facebook account on September 11, 2009, at 3:41 AM. So... Just remember that it was written at 3:41 AM and that should put a lot of things in perspective...

Luke 7:18-35

John's disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

When the men came to Jesus, they said, "John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?' "

At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

After John's messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

" 'I will send my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way before you.' I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."

(All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

"To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

" 'We played the flute for you,

and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge,

and you did not cry.' For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by all her children."

Emphases mine, of course.

But seriously.

Jesus said that. The Christ. The Son of God. The Alpha and the Omega. He Who Was Without Sin.

Jesus was called a drunkard by his contemporaries.

People don't call you a drunkard if you are a teetotaler.

So if Jesus Christ, the Son of Yahweh, the Most High God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob drank enough that the Pharisees felt like they could discredit His ministry by calling Him a drunkard...

WHO ON EARTH ARE WE to say that drinking is a sin?

I don't want to get on a rant about drinking - that's not my point here.

What I DO want to get on a rant about, however, is how we act when people don't fit OUR picture of OUR Christianity.

If you haven't read my sermon from July 26 of this year, you might wanna do that before you go any further. I know, it's kinda long, but hey - it's a sermon.

I've really been thinking on the stuff I wrote in that sermon lately. Ever since I wrote that sermon, actually. I look around and I see so many people trying so hard to live the best Christian lives that they know how to live, and then I see so many other people slamming them down for not being good enough, and that completely breaks my heart.

In Matthew 23 Jesus rips the Pharisees in half, saying that they "tie up heavy loads on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." What does that heavy load mean? The rest of the chapter paints a really clear picture: they had turned Judaism into a strict set of rules - laws! - that were impossible to keep. They made the search for God such an arduous task that God got lost in the details. If I may use a metaphor that I will never actually be able to relate to: following God under the Pharisees was like constantly being in labor but never actually having a kid.

And sometimes we still do that.

Sometimes we see people with their hair and their clothes and their tattoos and their piercings and their cigarettes and their beer bottles and their bumper stickers and their music and their past and their friends and their family and their whatever the smash else you want to think of and we automatically assume that there's no way that they're actually living out God's will for them.

Here's the thing about God's will for them: it's FOR THEM.

When we're trying to reach the lost, we love to tell them - and rightly so - that God accepts them just the way they are, that God already loves them, despite all their faults, and that God looks at what's on the inside, not the outside.

So why don't WE do that?

Why don't we take on the love of God? Why don't we just let everyone around us know that we're gonna love them, no matter what?

And please - don't think that I'm saying that our love for people has to go to a point that we simply allow sin to run unchecked in their lives. That's definitely not the case.

What IS the case is that we have to redefine what sin actually is.

Have you ever seen the movie "Pleasantville"? Remember when all the color started showing up and everybody went nuts? Remember when all the dads met at the bowling alley because it was the last black and white place in town, the last "safe" place?

Sometimes we as Christians forget that different isn't always a sin. In fact, it rarely is. Long haired freaky people can be just as Christian as close-cropped cookie-cutter suburbanites.

I'm not super focused right now. It's 3:35 AM. I'm kind of a lot tired. I'm just miffed, that's all.

Please - if you understand this, if you care about bringing people to Christ, or even bringing fellow Christians closer - help me spread this around. I'm trying so, so, so very hard to stop making people fit MY definition of what Christians look like, and I'll admit that my definition is already pretty loose compared to a lot of folks'. I'm trying to see people with the eyes of God. It's taking a lot of prayer, but when's that ever a bad thing?

I was once told by a man who should know way, way, way better than to ever say such incredibly horrible things that I was "putting too much trust in God." Those quotation marks are there for a reason, the man actually said that, to me, with his mouth, out loud, and meant it.

Holy blasphemy, Batman. That's just insanity.

And since then, I've tried to live my life with the understanding that it's impossible to put too much trust in God. He is, after all, GOD, and by definition, that pretty much means He's got it handled and really doesn't need your help figuring it out.

Leave comments, ask questions, tell me I'm wrong, tell me I'm right... Whatever. I'll reply. I want to go somewhere with this. I just needed to get it out into the open first.

I love you.