Army of Priests

Have you ever felt dirty for loving someone?

300+. That’s the new estimated death toll from the black Saturday bushfires in victoria. That’s 300 fathers, mothers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters burnt to death as they tried to flee the advance march of hell. On top of this there are thousands and thousands of newly homeless families who have lost everything they own.

It makes me feel sick. I can’t stop seeing the pictures of roads filled with burnt out cars that couldn’t out run the fire. I imagine being one of the families who were never told it was coming. One moment I’m playing in the park with my fictional kids. Next minute, there’s smoke on the horizon. This doesn’t phase me until moments later flames appear… and grow, really fast. I grab the kids and head for the house, thinking I should check the news to find out what is happening. But I’m too slow. By the time I get home the street is filled with ambers. Houses are on fire. The smoke makes it impossible to breath. I grab my fictional wife and we get in my fictional 4WD. I strap my youngest kid into the child seat in the back. I drive, as fast as I can – but I can’t see, the windshield is full of ash. I open the window to stick my head out and smoke rushes into the car. The heat is unbearable.

I dodge flaming burning trees and debris from exploded houses. I make it onto a main road through the bush. I look backwards, and I see behind me the approaching wall of flame. I put my foot down, but it still gets closer. Drops of melted rubber begin to fly off my tires. My children are screaming. The fire gets closer. Damn, its fast. I look back to the road. I can’t see even a metre in front of me but still I speed. Suddenly, a log appears. I swerve. I hit a tree. The airbags go off. We’re trapped. The fire is so close….

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I was at a local church yesterday known for espousing the prosperity gospel on a regular basis. As usual the sermon was all about how God would bless us abundantly with whatever we ask for. Unlike similar churches tithing isn’t seen as necessary to get this blessing but it definitely helps. They had a ‘pledge’ that they read out before the offering saying asking that when they gave their incomes would increase, settlements would be favourable, health problems would go away, and a long list of other things.

During the message the pastor (who in the past published a note with the newsletter telling the congregation not to do good works in the community) bought up an issue that was unexpected. He said there was a “theology of hell” going about, especially in the young people, that involved good works, and prayer, and giving your possessions to the poor in order to curry favour with God.

Now most the young adults who once went to the church don’t any more. Quite frankly they are all too busy thinking up ways to do these community oriented things that the pastor has told us not to do. A few of us have sold a lot of what we own and given the money away. (I just finished my third wave in my ongoing campaign to get rid of the stuff that controls my life. I’ve found it liberating. I still have heaps of unwanted stuff to go though.) After the service I learnt that one of my friends had given away his musical equipment to people that needed it. “Selling you guitar” was one of the examples the pastor had used. It all added up now, the pastor had heard of this before I had.

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I’ve have recently had two friends abandon their Christian beliefs. One has become Atheist, the other Zoroastrian. Whilst they had different reasons for their change they both agreed on one thing: Christianity does not make better people.

Its easy to see what they mean. Statistically speaking Christians are almost indistinguishable from the general public (except they are slightly more likely to get divorced or support torture). There are good Christians, and there are bad Christians. There are good non-Christians and bad non-Christians.

Countless holy wars have been launched by Christian leaders. The atheist, communist leaders of the 20th century are just as guilty. Countless charities have been started by Christians and non-Christians alike. Religion doesn’t seem to be a deciding factor in people’s actions.

Most Christians are functional agnostics. They’re not ‘good’ people or ‘bad’ people. They just blend in with the surrounding culture distinguishable only by their church attendance. Some Christians read their bible a lot and evangelise in their schools, campuses, and workplaces but there still isn’t anything different about them (at least not anything which other religions also repeat).

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Just imagine a world that was built on selflessness rather than greed…

There would be no bartering and no money and no keeping tabs of favours. Everyone would freely give there time and services to each other without expecting anything in return. If you were a doctor and someone was sick you would go and heal them at no cost, but that would be ok because someone else would feed you at no cost, give you clothes at no cost, and shelter you at no cost.

There would be no lazy people because everyone would love others and would thus be deeply motivated to work for the benefit of the greater whole. There would be no government, nor corporations, nor external entity that forces people to act. Instead everyone takes the initiative themselves.

We would all self organise to take out the rubbish and when a road between two towns would be advantageous we would naturally all pitch in our bit to help build it. Yet if you didn’t that wouldn’t matter because no one is keeping tabs because no one is greedy.

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He loves us.

He loves us despite the state we are in. He loves us regardless of what we have done. He loves us regardless of what we will do. He loves us regardless of what we can do. He loves us, male and female. He loves us, young and old.

He loves us regardless of skin colour, or how much money we have, what we wear, of if our jokes are bad. He loves us if we are lonely, depressed or angry. He loves us when we are annoying (Romans 8:38-39).

He loves us if we do drugs, or get drunk, or sleep around. He loves porn addicts, meth addicts, and TV addicts. He loves prostitutes, murderers, gay people, and thieves. He loves sports watchers, cult members, and masturbators.

He even loves you if you don’t love him (Romans 5:8, John 3:16).

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An old snippet from my journal.

One thing I shall never truly understand is God’s love for me.

God, the eternal being, with his infinite power, knowledge, and wisdom decided that he wanted to create me. Of what value I could possibly be to God I do not know, yet he focused all his attention on me as he wove me together. He cares for me, and plans great things for me. He cannot take his mind off me. He loved nothing more than to be with me.

He created the world for me. He created it with all its hills and valleys and all its jungles and oceans so that I can explore it and conquer it and learn ever more from it about God. He sculpted great canyons and mountains and huge volcanoes spewing forth lava. Then he gave it all to me, as his gift to me, and told me to subdue it – control it. He entrusted to me such a brilliant work of art.

He created all the teeming animals of the sea, the birds in the air, and the mammals of the land. Elephants, Deer, Kangaroos, Giraffes, Crocodiles, Buffalo, Snakes, Pandas, and Owls were all created just for me. They were created with such care, a gift made with love.

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This is an item from my journal written several years ago.

I captured a thought last night that I could be like a glass in a Champaign pyramid; that I could pour love into the people around me such that they begin to over flow and pour that love into the people around them.

This is what Christian love is supposed to be like. It’s about paying it forward – doing good things for people and telling them to repay you by spreading your kindness to someone else. This is a truly powerful concept. This is how you can change the world.

I think it is often awkward to go out of your way to go out of your way to help someone. For example, to ring someone when you don’t have anything in particular to talk about, you just want them to know that people do think of them when they’re out of sight.

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We have a tendency to assume that love is weak. It’s just a nice feeling. A good thought. An oft-repeated cliche. And it is easy to believe that we need holy anger and justice and righteousness and courage to really get anything done. These are the words of war after all. Being a male, I always appreciate action movies over sappy dramas,

There is a famous quote by Mark Driscoll that sums up this thought perfectly, “I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”

Yet ultimately humanity did beat up God. We nailed Him to a cross. And we hail this as the greatest moment in the salvation story. Ultimately it is God’s love that stands out, rather than his anger, justice, or righteousness, when we think of the atonement.

See, love is not a girly word. Love is powerful. Love is dangerous.

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How dare God love me.

We have a system going in this world where we love the people who provide value (money, good laughs, etc) and hate those that do not (pedophiles, murderers, etc). For the most part, it works well for us. It gives us a platform for pride by comparing ourselves with the less loved, and opportunity for advancement as though we are in control.

I recently read a news article about bullying where children said that one boy deserved the constant teasing he received because he choose to read books during his lunch break. This is disgusting to us yet how often do we withhold our love for people because of such simple things as the colour of their skin, the fact they are annoying, because they swear or drink and they live on the streets. Yet we are so keen to love people who are popular, rich, funny, intelligent, and who can give us things in return. The golden rule of society: only love when it is easy and there is a reward.

We can go about our lives without ever suffering for someone who will not return our favour. We can hide the ugly parts of our personality and past as people do not care about who we are – only what we do. Because we are respected due to instrumental rather than intrinsic value we can pretend that we are not broken as long as we are useful.

But then Jesus came and upset all that. He went straight to the most undesirable, useless members of society and showed them a love that is greater than what we reserve for even the most popular members of society. It upset the system.

Jesus didn’t love people for what they could do, how they dressed, or what their status was. He loved the unlovable people and he extends the same love to all of us. This is scandalous, for we are of no value to God. He does not need us to help him run the universe, or to make him feel good from our praise, or to do his will. He’s bigger than we are! If anything we are like an ache in his side. Forever hurting one another and raping this world. We should, if things were fair, be recipients of God’s wrath rather than his love.

But God is not fair. He loves us. This causes a lot of trouble because it undermines the fundamental assumption of our system – that people are of value solely for what they do. God loves us for who we are. We can’t have this, as it exposes us all for wretched, sinful, and self-absorbed brats competing for love that we have already had since birth.

We can’t have this. Our pride will not let us be exposed as such.

So we killed God. The only truly innocent man, who did nothing but love, disturbed our pride in such a way that we had to kill Him. Even more, we needed to brake Him. The system required that He hated us, so we had to make Him hate us. If we could then we would prove His love was conditional, and thus the world could go on. So we tested His limits and poured out our greatest wrath upon the most innocent man – the world’s worst evil.

But our plan was foiled. For on the cross Jesus did not choose to hate us, but instead offered us forgiveness. Love overcame evil. It persisted through the greatest darkness and showed itself to be greater, much greater, than we had imagined.

What a scandal! That Jesus could love men even as they drove nails into His hands! That when we mocked Him, and spat on Him, He still loved us. It shattered for all our assumption that love must be earned and exposed us for fools.

We couldn’t break God, but He broke us. With all our attempts to prove our instrumental worth stripped bare we are left with nothing. We are wretched. We are sinners. We are evil.

But God still loves us!

He loves us regardless of social status, popularity, income, the colour of our skin, the thoughts we have, or the sins we have committed. Nothing we do can make Him love us more or less.

Also, He loves everyone else the same way. Jesus set up a new system for living. One where love cannot be earned, but must be given. It is the kingdom of the loved unlovables. Its citizens no longer try to bolster their image and instrumental value, but they’ll strain themselves to love others. It is the ultimate alternative to the current order, and its existence serves to criticise that order and call its members to repentance.

It’s scandalous. We Christians belong to a reality of freely given yet utterly undeserved love. It appears so foolish to this world that they will persecute us, jail us, beat us, scorn us, and kill us but we will still love them. As in the example of Christ our love with outlast their evil, revealing their inadequacy, and showing them a new way of life.

This is Christianity: a broken and unlovable people who extend grace so freely that they world must stop them at any cost. Love is a scandal.

I’m struggling to think of how to communicate what I want to. I have been newly reminded in the last few days of just how desperate and spiritually bankrupt I am. We truly are wretches and broken people in need of God.

So often I try to improve my relationship with God solely through my own efforts by reading my bible more or praying harder but I cant. No matter what I do I can not improve my stance with God by one iota. I also like to think that through study I can get an understanding of God but really I am nothing more than a blind man in the dark. Only God can flip the light switch.

We really are wretches. We really need God’s help. I’m getting sick of the parts of Christianity that think God is some ATM in the sky and like to proclaim that we are “heirs to the thrown” as through we Christians are something special. We’re not. We just have a really, really awesome God.

People who truly follow Jesus are just people who have had their pride painfully broken by encountering the overwhelming majesty and love of God. All the gospel is can be summed up as such: “We are broken. We are sinners. We are nothing. But God’s love overcomes our wretchedness.” That’s it.

God’s love changes everything. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. It’s hard to believe. It’s scary. If we can accept such overwhelming love all we can do with it is pass it on. If somehow there was a way that I could redeem myself then I would be in control. But God’s love is out of control and it is ferocious.

He’s all we’ve got. He really is. The only difference between me and a prostitute or a meth addict or a thief is that I know God loves me and they don’t yet. That’s it. Because there is nothing in my power that I can do to hold my life together. God is the only one.

I’m just learning how to be a child and depend on Him, rather than my own effort, to absolve my bankruptcy.