Passion, part 2

In my prior post, I finished with this: "There's a big need out there and he's stepped in to be of help." Now that I'm actually reading the book, I'm compelled to restate: I'm glad he stepped in to help: there's a big need in here.

(p 47) After years in the church, I began to see that underneath those shiny suits and happy smiles were people just like me who were broken and sinful and desperately in need of acceptance and love and forgiveness. But for the first ten years of following Jesus, I tried to fit in with this consumer church culture, and it just didn't work. I was still a marginalized kid. I was the redheaded cousin nobody wants to take credit for: I made it into the family, but only on a fluke.

In Jesus' time, the religious community didn't accept him either. He didn't fit in. He lived in the margins. Over the years, I've found incredible comfort in this, because I realize I'm not alone.

More and more people today believe that the church as an institution is not an authentic or viable way to connect with God. We want to go someplace where people are straight-up about things and deal with life in a real way. We're searching for a place where everyone can admit who they are, let down their guard, and confess that they, too, need a Savior. The truth is, all of us who have a relationship with God can do so only because God has forgiven us and we're still desperately needy people.

I'm not going to do it, but I'm sure tempted to sit in the back of church and then jump up during some part where it seems like many people are just tuning out and say, "Hey, anyone who wants to join me: let's leave right now and go to the park and talk to each other about what we're wrestling with and remind each other of God's continued love for us." They would benefit from such interaction. I would benefit from such interaction.

(p 55) Jesus is a friend of sinners. He's there in the margins with the average Joe, with people whose lives are broken and tattered and sinful. People who have had horrible things happen to them and done horrible things back. Jesus is in there accepting them and tolerating their behavior. Why? Because he wants them to know that he loves them.

These aren't people who would get up early and go to church, or figure out how to jump through all of the ritualistic hoops thrown up by the religious community. These people have written off all that. They sleep in on Sundays and watch football and go to the mall. They're just the average person on the street.

Jesus is a friend to people like that, which prevents him from fitting in with the moral lifestyle of religious people. And so he's marginalized by them. They reject him.

I suspect Jesus would already be at the park, waiting for us.

(p 80) God said to Jeremiah, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Technology, entertainment, pleasure, knowledge--all these are mirages on the quest to fill an empty heart. They promise to give life that they know nothing of. They are nothing more than illusions--mere deceptions that will ultimately steal, kill, and destroy.

If we spend our lives banking on one or more of these things to give our life meaning, we end up losing the life we sought to gain. The deception is that instead of gaining something, we are robbed of something. Instead of living, we are dying. Instead of building, we are being destroyed. And we find ourselves stuck in the margins. Disappointment invades the margins daily as we trust in things that promise real meaning--but in the morning put their pants on and are gone. And we're left waiting in the margins. Thirsty again.

God hates that. He did not create us to fall victim to deception and destruction. Jesus invites us out of the margins to discover the meaning of life in relationship with him. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink," he says to us. He is not merely asking us to nod our heads in agreement with him. He is telling us to bank our life on him in relationship. That he is life.

He created your heart and knows what it longs for. What you crave can only be found in him. Quit seeking and drink. Enter into his love and trust moment by moment that he is all you need.

It has been peaceful, settling on that.

(p 106) When fathers abuse their God-given place in our lives, they leave a legacy of confusion and heartache for their children. Jesus invites us to reimagine life in relationship with the perfect father. Jesus redeems us from our sin and the brokenness of our father-wounds and he returns us to the Father and his love for us.

We need to understand who this Father is. If we don't we will simply take our broken understanding of what a father is and attach it to God, and that will only leave us confused and angry with God. He is very attentive to our needs, so attentive that he knows what they are before we ask. People in the margins struggle with this. Somewhere along the way, they learned that they're not really valuable enough to pay attention to.

I remember when a speaker painted a mental picture for our introspection. "You're at Sizzler, helping yourself at the salad bar, when someone exlaims that God is coming down the street and will be coming into the restaurant. What's your response? Do you rush out to the street to greet him? Do you go to the door to get a peek? Or do you go find a place to hide?" There may have been another option. I just remember that none of them fit for me. My answer back then was that I'd return to making my salad. I wasn't opposed to God, and, sure, I'd like to see him. But there were probably more people that wanted to see him more than I did and I could wait. The reality was that I viewed God as not really caring so much about me. I wasn't really valuable enough to pay attention to. The reality is that he is in love with me and you and is paying close attention to our intimate needs and longings of our hearts.

The author then repeats someone's story of a prince who was kidnapped when quite young and who grew up in a poor and troubled community. Years later, when rescued and put on the throne in royal clothing, with royal blood flowing through his veins, he wrestles with his memories of the life he lived and things he grew up around. He is named by those things. He needs to reimagine life as a child of the king--a reality more true than his experience.

(p 110) This is what Jesus is calling us to. Whatever your experience of life has been, the royal blood of Jesus was shed and is sufficient to bring you into relationship with your Father, who reigns in an eternal kingdom. You are a child of the King. You belong to him. It is time to throw away the old clothes of your brokenness and sin and begin to live under your Father's protection and provision.

     Rick McKinley, Jesus in the Margins