Simplicity is hard

As I have been walking through the focus for lent that Sheena and I chose it is becoming quickly evident just how dependent I am on materialism. Let me explain... Our theme this year is "40 days toward justice", specifically as it applies to our awareness that we live selfishly here in the States and what changes we need to make in our lives if we truly are to care for others the way Jesus shows us.

That being said, this is hard.

I consider myself to be a fairly introspective person, possibly very introspective. I often have to do things to turn my brain completely off because it seems to always be going and going, making it impossible to rest. BUT as I evaluate my life and decisions I make as they relate to my comfort, I cannot stop digging deeper into how completely and totally selfish I am to the core.

While I might not have "much" in my own evaluation of myself and my life might be considered "simple" by some, the motivations of my heart have only served to shame me to tears.

During breakfast this morning with a group of guys this topic came up with Ananias and Sapphira from Acts 5. They sold a field, lied to the apostles about the price of the field and God killed them. Jon mentioned that it wasn't the lie that God killed them for, it was their heart. Their motivation was to serve money, to lie about that to the Holy Spirit (which is stupid anyway) and fake their way through a life of following Jesus.

God in speaking to Moses in Exodus 20 (10 commandments), points out immediately that He is a jealous God; that His people are to have no others gods (things that divert our attention from Him). This was the crux of the story in Acts 5. It wasn't the money, it wasn't that Ananias and Sapphira kept some for themselves. Peter specifically says: the land was yours to begin with, it was up to you how to use the money, but you lied about the condition of your heart. The issue was that their god(s) were money and what other people thought.

So back to me, since this is my blog... (how arrogant I know...) I am staggering under the weight of how so much of my life, even as simple as it is by American standards, is occupied with the accumulation of stuff. That my life is defined by things, by luxury and by the cravingfor more and better things. To Hell with people in Haiti who are eating dirt to fill their bellies, to Hell with the garbage dump dwellers in Mexico and India, to Hell with the people in Zimbabwe, Darfur, Congo, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh...

It isn't even that I don't care about those who live there or who are in need there. I do! but that makes my actions that much more offensive, because while I want those situations to be different and while I can be part of making a difference... I am filled with a desire to say "Screw you. It is my money. While your situation sucks, what I really care about is my own luxury..."

God help me. I am just as evil as Ananias and Sapphira... *%$@

Santa Jesus

The very scary thing about religion, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is. I mean they think that they have Him all figured out, mapped out, that God is all about formulas and can be conceived in his entirety, that they think that they can force God to do something if they just act a certain way or pray a certain prayer. That I could just figure out the exact formula to figure out how to get God to act on my behalf, doing what I want….

There’s a bunch of Catholics in Rome who think Jesus is this way, (fits into their formula)

There’s a bunch of Baptists in Texas who think another, (fits into their formula)

And the list goes on and on.

Genesis talks about God making us in His image, but I wonder with all this kind of talk if we haven’t made God into ours instead.

It doesn’t stop at religion either. We make a God who agrees with our political ideas, so that must make us right and everyone else wrong.

In Matthew and Luke, Jesus takes people’s opinions of who God is and sends them through the grinder. He repeats one phrase over and over 13 times. ‘You have heard… But I tell you’

Anger

Murder

Divorce

Adultery

Promises

Enemies

For someone who thought that they knew who God was, He would have been completely annoying.

So is our Jesus an invention of our imagination, someone who more or less justifies our opinions? Who is Jesus to you? Maybe He is a Santa Clause…

I never believed in Santa Clause, my mom and dad never did that whole thing to me. So I never had to go through the agony that accompanies the loss of the idea or thinking that my mom and dad were liars. But still the idea of Santa is pretty fascinating, the benefits are amazing.

1. you didn’t have to interact with Santa, he simply slipped into the house and left presents, eats half a cookie then hit the neighbors.
2. Santa theology is very black and white; you either made the list or you didn’t. If you didn’t it was because you were bad.
3. He brought presents based on behavior. If you were good you got a lot of bank. There was a very clear reward system. Good = hot wheels, big wheels, legos. There didn’t have to get into the spirit of anything, everyone knew it was about the toys: cold hard toys.
4. Kids who were bad got presents anyway

Perfect!!!

But soon realism sets in and like a fungus, truth eats at the story in your brain and though you try to resist reality, there is no getting away from the truth.

A lot of people don’t believe in God because they can’t reconcile their idea of Him with the idea presented on TV. By that I mean televangelists who are for show, who swindle people out of money, who make a mockery of our Savior telling us that today is our day, today God is going to make us rich. Conservative talking heads that confuse politics and spirituality…the list goes on.

I don’t dismiss God because of people like this or shows like these, in fact it makes me love Jesus more, because Jesus had the least patience with the people who said they represented God but didn’t.

Watching televangelists makes me feel dirty and then angry and then sorry for them. But really what different am I then them? I have never used God to get money, but I have probably used Him to support my political opinions, and I have probably used Him to make some girl think I was godly because church girls like that sort of thing ….

If I weren’t a Christian and I kept seeing Christian leaders on TV more concerned with money, fame, and power than with grace, love and social justice, I wouldn’t want to believe in God at all. The whole thing would make me want to walk away from religion altogether because, like I was saying about Santa Claus, their god must be an idiot to see the world in such a one sided way. The god who cares so much about being rich must not have treasures in heaven, the god so concerned with getting even must not have very much patience, and the god who cares so much about the West must really hate the rest of the world, and that doesn’t sound like a very good god to me. The televangelists can have him for all I care.

So we have begun to celebrate Jesus birth.

But who are we celebrating? Are we celebrating a Jesus who gives us what we want? Maybe a Jesus who would guarantee our safety? A Jesus who will make us sleep well at night? A Jesus who will give us a good day at school? A Jesus who will make us physically comfortable, safe from harm? A small Jesus, a formula Jesus, an easy Jesus?

A Jesus who if we can figure out exactly what to say or do or be will come through just the way we want him to? If I do a+b=c? If I am a good boy, I will get presents. And if I am a bad boy, well I am supposed to get presents anyway….

I grew up hearing about God, hearing that He had created the universe, some animals, the Grand Canyon, that we weren’t supposed to have sex or drink whiskey or go to dance clubs, that sort of thing. You know… He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice, He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice….

Most of my friends who I have grown up with don’t believe in God anymore. They don’t believe in God because He didn’t explain anything. He was too simple and so He was a myth, a teddy bear, a Santa Clause. My friends and I had been taught a simple God of simple answers to simple questions, the God of keep your mouth shut and think what I tell you to think.

But we all began to have deeper questions, not the surface level questions, that people would read out of books, deep emotional questions. Questions that began to destroy the formula that we had been taught of this simple God with simple answers to simple questions. And since the formula stopped working, many people said that God didn’t exist.

We believed in a Santa Clause Jesus, who was supposed to give us what we wanted when we asked for it.

None of us believe in Santa anymore because we saw through the story. A story for little kids, to keep them in bed at night and acting nice for the last 2 months of the year. But it’s not real…

Maybe you believe in a Jesus who you have invented to be the way you want him to be, or a simple Jesus taught to you by well meaning, but mislead people.

Which Jesus do you serve?

A Santa Jesus who you try to be nice for so that you get presents… what ever those might be?

Or a Jesus who came to this earth to change the way you and I see God?