Abundant Life?

I think this will come out cynical. I don't mean it to be. I only hope that it will raise some questions and provoke some thoughts. I have recently (and by recently I mean over the last year or so) been placed in a several situations where I have been able to hear the stories of those around me. All of these occasions have been with Christians and all have been real, by that I mean that in all cases people have made themselves vulnerable and shared hard truths.
When reading through the Bible and in studying the writings of some early Christians, I have gotten the idea in my head that, in following Christ, our lives should be transformed, and in that transformation we should be left different than the world. I think it is clear in the teachings of both the New Testament and Tanakh (The Jewish scriptures or the Christian Old Testament) that people who have encountered God look different than those who have not. I don't think it is a stretch to say that early Christians left their non-Christian counterparts flabbergasted by their "bizarre" behaviors and strange customs. I believe that our world has not changed so much for that better that Christians don't stand out because everyone is so good. And I believe Christ's words in John 10:10 that says He has come to give us abundant life.
Now here's where I am wrestling. In the life stories I have been able to hear from fellow Christians it is striking how many (including myself) have suffered from some sort of serious depression. I am taken aback by that truth. In studying divorce rates I have learned that both secular and Christian marriages has near identical divorce rates. And I know of equal numbers of Christian and non-Christian friends struggling with some form of addiction whether it is drugs, alcohol, or pornography. I understand that we live in a fallen world. I understand that a Christian would follow Christ because of an awareness of self-brokenness; and I understand that upon conversion our problems don't go away. But why, why do we look so similar to the world around us? Why don't we stand out like those who came before us. Why is our life no different from our neighbors, and why do we seem to be missing out on this abundant life we were offered? I understand that an abundant life contains highs and lows, ups and downs, but really? I don't think that those being welcomed into the Church are experiencing it in any form of an regular basis. I don't have anything resembling an answer to this. I only have the tension of two truths; one, we follow a transformational God and two, I see a major lack in transformation.
Is this the ultimate trick of the devil in modern times? To make us think we look different than our neighbors, to make us think that we are experiencing the best God has to offer? Are we going to wake up and realize what we're missing? I don't think we have to wait for God's return to earth. But I think it's clear that there is something wrong. We claim that we follow the one true God (it's a claim I wholeheartedly believe in) but why on earth would some of those sceptics believe us when we are so darn broken? I just feel like something is missing? Thoughts?

Pure and Faultless Religion

A couple of days ago some family friends of mine got home from Honduras. I had been watching their house while they were gone so when they got home I went to give them back the keys. While I was there (I should say that the wife is a Christian and the husband is an atheist.) they said that while they were in Honduras the interacted with some of the poorest people they have ever met or seen in their lives. And they saw countless missions groups down there going to, “Save the people of Honduras” she said she saw group after group getting up and leading worship and building churches and ‘proclaiming the word/good news/gospel’ to the masses. And she said while all this was going on she watched kids starving to death and watched their parents dying of aids. Struck by the churches ability to ignore the glaring and immediate needs of the Honduran people she asked one of the missionary teams why they focused on spreading the good news and not on caring for the needs of the people. The response was disturbing; “We know that these kids are going to starve to death and we know their parents are going to die from aids or other opportunistic diseases, so the one thing we can do is make sure they go to heaven.” That to me doesn’t sound like the good news Christ proclaims. And it doesn’t sound like the abundant life He offers in John 10:10. That to me sounds like a half-assed gospel focused more on numbers of converts than on caring for the members of our savior’s body. I think this is a huge issue in modern missions and a clear area of needed improvement. In all honesty I think, and this may sound heretical but oh well, we should throw out missions trip all together from the churches bag of tricks. However I think that we as a body must try to meet the needs of the world and must tell people about this Christ who has worked his way into all of our lives. I think (in my humble opinion) we need to look to serve trips. A serve trip goes for one reason, to love people the way Christ calls us to, and to meet the needs that we are able to meet. And in doing this I think that people are lead to ask us what are motivation is, and in that question we are able to explain the good news that has changed our lives. We have a God that looks at the Church and commissions us to care for those who can’t care for themselves. What good is giving someone the good news, and letting them die from unmet needs. Yes, they will meet us in Heaven, but is that enough? I don’t think so. I think the verses that follow are clear to point that out. Like I wrote in earlier posts, I think that caring for the poor is a requirement for Christians and not just something that we should consider doing or something some of us are called to do. This is a necessity and is an integral part of our walk with Christ. Look at verse 45 of Matthew 25, and I think it’s clear that we aren’t supposed to only care for those that end up in front of us. That doesn’t seem like an excuse. We must seek these people out and show them the holistic life saving and soul saving gospel of Christ.
James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Matthew 25: 34-46 34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40 "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' 41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44 "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45 "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

The Holiness of Our Neighbors

I have recently been reading the Weight of Glory, a series of essays by C.S. Lewis and I have a revelation in our reading. I don’t know if it was a new thought or if it has just come alive in a new way. But Lewis’ understanding of the holiness and the eternality of our neighbors have struck a chord in me. “Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.” I love how Lewis can point out our superiority over nature without questioning its importance. Nature is a powerful place to find evidence of God’s power, knowledge, gentleness, and beauty. And through nature God reveals glimpses of who God is. Nature, to God, works similarly like the wardrobe in Narnia. It allows us to enter something beautiful, something bigger than ourselves. But, nature lacks one thing, eternality. And that is something we have been given. Don’t be mistaken. Humans are not eternal beings, however we are made eternal through our union with Christ. “The Church will outlive the universe; in it the individual person will outlive the universe. Everything that is joined to the immortal head will share His immortality.” We are not eternal on our own. We cannot forget that. We must know that we are who we are, only because of whom we know. We were nothing but Christ made us something with him. And so with the great honor of being an eternal being, we must also have the humility that we cannot reach that honor on our own. However, when made part of this beautiful union with Christ Lewis paints the most beautiful picture. “But as organs in the Body of Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale.” We don’t have to fear this honor being taken away; in fact we can look forward to the day that we talk about the galaxies, the stars, the earth as if it were a fairy tale. A myth, so far out of sight it is as if it never happened.
So, Lewis has covered that we are holy in our eternality. In fact we are so holy that, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” I think with that statement comes an enormous responsibility. We are holy beings interacting with holy beings every day. In fact Lewis believes these interaction to be so powerful he is lead to say this, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a night mare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our deals with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.” If that doesn’t push us into a new way of living I don’t know what does. Lewis would say that we make people more beautiful or more hideous with every interaction. We are called to love one another, to make one another better. It is a burden given to us by our Lord. It is the greatest commandment after all to love God and love our neighbors. And I would say that it could be inferred that we are called to leave people (just like we are to the environment) better than we found them. We are a society of people who have met the risen Lord and been made better by Him, and it is now our duty to be a witness to that meeting and that transformation every day. So how will this impact you? How will this change your interactions with your neighbor? What name is laid on your heart as someone you’ve wronged? Someone you’ve pushed a little closer to nightmare potential? I know these essays have been a heart check for me. So with that I will close this saying that there were no original ideas in this essay, this was basically a regurgitation of C.S. Lewis, but maybe this will cause some original ideas to come out of your life.
(*All quotes taken from “The Weight of Glory” and “Membership”)