Yesterday I made it official. I told my former pastor, a brother I dearly love, that I would be leaving their congregation. I had been an associate pastor at his church for 12 years. During that time I went from being a happy spokesperson for conservative Evangelical Christianity, to an anguished soul wondering how I found myself representing something so at odds with who I was and how I was raised.This wasn’t his fault. This was something I was entirely responsible for.
As I begin to see the next leg of my journey unfold, I am thankful for what I’ve learned along the way. The last five years has been spent rediscovering my true identity: Not who I thought my parents wanted me to be, not what I thought it meant to be a “good Christian,” in short, no longer living to please other people. Now I want only to please a God who transformed my life from a selfish, self absorbed pig of a human into a person who desires only to reflect His love.
That’s what God is to me.
Love.
God is love.
Why do we forget that? Why has organized, institutional religion departed from the simplicity of Christ’s message into a convoluted hodge podge of theology and tradition?
You see, when we view God as love, the presentation of Christ becomes so simple. The life of Jesus serves as an icon of that love (John 1:1) The cross has long represented exactly how much we are called to sacrifice so others might experience true love. Is the cross offensive to you? Forget about the cross, there have been countless symbols that embody His love. Choose a memorial to one you are most comfortable with. Jesus never asked the cross to be His official icon. He asked that HE be that icon.
When faith is viewed in this light, there really are no atheists, for what the atheist is saying is they reject the way God is presented to them, not what God represents. After all, who is truly saying, “I don’t want to give and receive love?” The life of Christ settles the definition of love, as that definition is this, “Greater love hath no man than he should lay down his life for his friends.”
As I laid out this presentation of Christianity to my non-Christian friend, he reflected on this for a moment and said, “I’m OK with the idea of someone laying down their life for me. I just don’t want to lay down my life for them.”
Wow. Honesty. How refreshing.
So I take back what I just said. There ARE those who simply don’t want to give their lives for others. There are many who, like me, wanted to receive a “whole lotta love” without giving one drop in return.
This brings me to a central question: How can we lay down our lives for our friends if aren’t fully committed to understanding their struggles, their fears, their gifts and their dreams? How can we be willing to give our lives for another if we don’t know what exactly it is about them that is worth dying for?
How can we die for someone if we aren’t first willing to walk a mile in their shoes?
I’m not saying that to understand a drug addict we have to become addicted to drugs, I’m merely saying we need to actually listen to their life story enough to understand WHY they became drug addicts.
Interesting how people can pass judgement on others so quickly without taking the time to walk a mile in their shoes. Consistently I’ve observed these same people retreat from their platitudes and dogma when they come face to face with the targets of their criticism and are forced to look them squarely in the eyes.
Funny how our worldview changes when we take time to live in another person’s world.
