At least that is what it feels like. What the actual. This, the year of our (Dear) Lord (What Now) 2020 has put our brains through the ringer again and again. We are sure of less, worried about more.
When I saw the article about a prominent world security leader posting claims of life outside our planet being not only a possibility but a certainty, I heard my brain ping as the last gear broke free. I very nearly threw up my hands and said WELL, WHY NOT. Then my brain went into the overdrive of questions and reason prevailed, but still. What a perfect way to divert my heart from focusing on finding out how to wash dust from my neighbour’s feet to being worried about stardust invading earth. What a brilliant worry to add to my mind to distract from the real urgency: making disciples by sharing the love of Jesus in practical, real, relational ways where I am now. My imagination asked: even if, in the wildest of plot lines, that’s true… so what? It doesn’t get me out of the next right thing God has called me to here. Now. In the mundane and the still, small moments.
This has been a year where we’ve been lured with stories of grand schemes, of outlandish plot lines, wild accusations. Our brains have been drawn in narratives where there is a almost demonic extrapolation of a grain of truth into a wild, distracting hum of conspiracy and shock value. Our imaginations are being seduced and it’s being called awareness of reality.
In the midst of sifting through news stories and opinions, a few things are clear to me: we’ve forgotten who our neighbours are and how to love them and how to disagree and be at different points of reasoning as them, and still be secure in our relationships to survive and thrive.
We’ve forgotten that the Holy Spirit has a job to convict of specific sin, not us, and that no one needs to “save” Christianity. If anything, it needs a painful revival and humble introspection.
We’ve forgotten that the goal and measure of spiritual success is not fame and reach, it’s foot washing. Quiet, anonymous service from love that stems from our own personal and corporate relationships with Jesus. Our fruit is relationship, not platform.
We’ve forgotten how to lay down our lives, our rights, our comfort. We think fighting for them is the spiritual war we were called to wage. We’ve ripped apart flesh and blood, at the delight of the principalities and powers we’ve flown right past.
We’ve forgotten God uses the weak, the foolish, to accomplish His goals, not the strong, the loud, or the powerful.
I’m weighed down today by trying to sort through information. And I realize that what was always true still is: it is not important that I strive to make sure Jesus is in charge in any earthly capacity other than where His rule lies in my heart. There is a line that has gotten so blurred between the removal of us from our neighbours to an exclusive club with the excuse that we are “not of the world” and “only ambassadors”, to the other extreme of “we have to make sure there’s a Christian in the topmost rule of our country that only lets Christian views rule over all.” Both are diabolical in how they subvert our true role: “They will know you by your love.” The love that lets grace have its way. That can handle someone not having a full knowledge of truth yet, and let them get there in God’s perfect timing, not rush them to a “finish line.” That rests in knowing the Spirit will bring to mind any conviction necessary. That God knows where free will’s power starts. And ends. Our job is simply to show those who haven’t met Jesus the loveliness of His person, the rest He offers from trying to be enough, and to exercise the ability we’ve been given to meet people’s everyday needs in the way Jesus has called and equipped us to exactly where we are.
Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest… what follows is the invitation to move our minds away from the burdens of the world and into the focus on knowing Jesus, the Word, and who was important to him. His yoke isn’t a reference to cattle pulling together, it’s to the discipleship posture under a rabbi. THE rabbi.
The antidote from information overload is to pick up my Bible and read about how Jesus spoke to a sea which immediately paid attention. To see David wrestle with Him in his mind in the Psalms, and come away more sure. To invest in getting to know the lover of my soul and the lion that guards my heart. The one who whispers, “Courage, dear heart” when everything looks its absolute bleakest and my imagination is running amok in the dark.
Debate is not how we woo others to see this lowly carpenter turned rabbi. Denial or escape is not how we grow in love for others. We are to give an answer for the hope that is in us, not an answer for our theology and interpretation of Scripture. These things have their place, but in the way we actually live in this urgent age of being the ones who can bring hope to a world who now has to grapple with zero security on any front? That is a cup of cold water given without hesitation or background checking. It’s a meal offered without weighing worth or beliefs first. It’s loving your enemies because you didn’t stop to define them as that first, and you just offered them what you would a brother by default. Because we don’t get to decide who deserves a second chance, and we don’t get to weigh their repentance. We get to offer them Jesus, and what they do with Him is up to them, not us. There is a place to be wise as serpent and harmless as doves, and loving wisely will look different in different situations, but we get to be enthusiastic about wildly offering a love that the Holy Spirit is up to sorting out the logistics of and protecting us in, if needed. It’s just our job to show off how enthusiastic God is about communicating that that love exists and is extended to all.
So when I’m told that this person is wrong or right or I need to do this or that, I’ll ask myself first: which action grasps for rights and power and which action lets go of control and serves someone else? Which action sees those broken, on the edges, in need of justice (the Biblical justice of reaching down and pulling someone up to a place of honor and restoration) and seeks them first? Who is my neighbour today? We weren’t mean to carry the weight of the world, we were meant to see the weight of OUR small world, defined by God’s leading, and reach into it one person at a time.