God is not safe - but he's good
My friend Maura wrote about a sermon in her blog that I found very provocative. I want to share it with you. For those of you who have faiths elsewhere such as Buddha, Krishna, the Zen of Bazooka Joe or nothing at all - this is my faith; you don't have to agree with it - I just ask that you respect it.Sometimes, I go to church and completely zone out during the sermon. Correction; a lot of the time. The times that I don't are directly correlated with the level of interest and excitement of the preacher, or if it's something God specifically wants me to hear. Then, there are those preachers who really, truly hear the heart of God and convey it with passion. I heard a sermon like that this morning. In one sentence, it was "God is not safe". When you enter the presence of God, nothing is safe except you yourself.Too often, the North American church has reduced God from the Lion of Judah to a cute teddy bear. Jesus is an Anglo-Saxon with a long straight nose, a hint of a smile, light glowing all around him as his blue eyes stare meaningfully (insert desired meaning here) at a fixed point in the sky, his head slightly tilted with flowing, light brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. I don't like this picture of Jesus. He didn't go around staring meaningfully at things. He probably didn't wear white. He wasn't white. He was Middle Eastern. Jesus called out the hypocrisies of the pious Pharisees; he rampaged through the temple, turning over tables of those who were blatantly disrespecting God's temple. He said outrageous things, made mud out of spit, got up early to pray, saved a woman from stoning, ate with the "bad guys," invited himself over to other people's houses, and finally allowed himself to be hung on a cross. Jesus was not safe. Christians are called to be like Christ. And still, for some reason, he's widely used as a security blanket. For anyone who is not a Christian and is reading this, I hope that your conception of Jesus is not characterized as a white guy who stares meaningfully at things. He's so much more than that.
- Arthur, kudos on the paper on Labute. Award well deserved. =)
posted by Joyce @ 10:25 PM
1 Comments:
Well thank you. I want more prizes, they're spiffy.
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