R3: radical, revolutionary, different

“Peter declared, ‘Even if all fall away, I will not.’” (Mark 14: 29)

That’s a bold statement.  You’d have to be pretty confident in yourself to say that no matter what happened, the only person to stay faithful is you. 

Peter was determined though. 

When Jesus responded saying that all of the disciples, including Peter, would turn away from him, Peter reaffirms his statement.  Telling Jesus emphatically “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” (Mark 14: 31)

Cue ominous music.

We all know what happened: Jesus was right and Peter denied him.  But I have to wonder - what would have happened if Peter had listened to Jesus?  If Peter had been more interested in listening to what Jesus was saying than proving his loyalty, would Peter have remained loyal?  Would being aware of his weakness allow him to overcome it? 

There’s no way to know, obviously.  But reading about this incident forces me think about the role pride plays in my own life.  When I feel pride I don’t want to admit I’m wrong.  I become invested in protecting my definition of reality.  And often that means I’m not prepared to handle dramatic change. 

I bet Peter wasn’t much different. 

And lets face it, Jesus’ arrest was something Peter didn’t expect.  He never dreamed that Jesus would be lead away without a fight.  He never dreamed Jesus wouldn’t use his powers to protect himself.  It must have been crushing to Peter to see Jesus give up “so easily.”

If he was filled with pride before, his emotions must have been raging.  He must have felt the fear that comes when we believe our world is being destroyed.  But more than that, he must have felt shame.  Shame at believing in someone who wouldn’t (or perhaps it crossed his mind - couldn’t - save himself.) 

It’s no wonder Peter denied Jesus.

Peter was so intent on following his pride that he couldn’t hear Jesus’ warning.  Even though Jesus told all the disciples that he was about to die for them, they simply refused to believe it.  Their pride kept them from the truth.   

Sometimes we think God takes pleasure in hiding the truth from us.  But I have to wonder, how often does he tell us what’s going to happen, and we respond saying, “that’s nice God, but let me tell you what’s really going on.”

How many things would be different in my life if I simply listened when God spoke, instead of trying to explain to God why he was wrong?

Have you ever loved someone so much that all you wanted to do was talk to them?  But because they were angry and frustrated they were avoiding you.  The thing is, they weren’t really even mad at you.  They were just upset at things in their life.  No matter what you tried, they wouldn’t talk to you.  They believed talking to you would mean having to deal with their anger, and it was easier to just keep quiet.

And as you sat there, you knew that all you really wanted was simply to talk to them.  Sure you’d have to talk about the problems bothering them at some point.  But it didn’t have to be right away.  You just wanted to spend some time with them.  To enjoy their company.  To love them. 

And as they avoided you, your heart broke.

I wonder…

Is that how God feels when we stop talking with him?

Orthodoxy.

What a strange title for a book.

I mean, it doesn’t sound very revolutionary.  It doesn’t sound very radical.  I’ll admit, it does sound different.  But probably not in a good way.  So what made GK Chesterton call his “autobiography” of faith “Orthodoxy“?

The answer is the same as why R3 focuses on God’s revolutionary, radical, and different nature.  In short, orthodoxy is the most radical thing we can experience - if it’s from God.  Or as Chesterton says, “the orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable.” (Orthodoxy, p. 93)

I bet you didn’t expect that when you saw the word “orthodoxy”!  That’s okay.  Neither did I.

But that’s how God works.  He does the unexpected.  Sometimes he works in ways that at first don’t seem oblivious.  And yet when we look back we realize everything made perfect sense.  That’s where I found myself when reading Orthodoxy.  There were just certain things that didn’t make sense about Christianity.

On the one hand the Bible says that we should love our neighbors and be willing to give up our lives for them.  But at the same time we’re told that the world is broken and defective.  That it’s not how it should be.  So why, as Christians, should we work so hard to fix something which can never be fixed?  Wouldn’t it be better to just pick one philosophy and hold to it?

Life would be so much easier if we could just love people without working to fix problems.  And it would be easier still if we could just give up on the world and say, “I don’t care.”  But that’s not where God asks us to be.

So how do you find a balance?

The world’s answer is that we need to find a balance between the two.  That the solution is somewhere in the middle.  That we should love some people, but not everyone.  And that while the world isn’t perfect, it’s not really that bad.

Let’s face it, that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.  Isn’t compromise a good thing?

But compromise is not the answer Christianity offers.  It says the tension itself is what’s important.  That when you try to create balance what you’re really doing is losing something important.     

That’s why Christianity can say radical things like “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”  On the surface it sounds crazy.  How can you separate the two?  Shouldn’t we have some sins that are “bad, but acceptable” (e.g., stealing food because you’re starving), and other sins that are “beyond redemption” (e.g., murder, rape)?

“Christianity came in here as before.  It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another.  It divided the crime from the criminal.” (Orthodoxy, p. 87)

Orthodoxy, when it’s about God, is startlingly revolutionary. 

“The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven.  The crime we must not forgive at all…We must be more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before.”  (Orthodoxy, p. 87)  It’s out of this answer that we find how we’re supposed to live our lives.  And it’s out of this answer I began to understand how Christians can say things that seem so obviously contradictory.

Now when I look back at my questions, I see they aren’t contradictory at all.  I see that we really can hate the sin, but love the sinner because I don’t need to somehow balance them.  Instead they are two things that are fundamentally separate.  And it’s in that “separateness” that we find our answers. 

This is an idea that applies across Christianity and applies to courage, sacrifice, life.  It’s no wonder that an orthodox church doesn’t take a tame course. 

Sometimes we need to know “not only that the earth is round, but [know] exactly where it is flat.” (Orthodoxy, p. 90)

You can’t keep quiet about God.

At least that’s my experience.

When someone experiences the revolutionary God, they become different.  They can’t help it.  And one of the first things to change is that they can’t keep their mouth shut!

How many times did Jesus say to someone, “yes I’ve done this miracle, but don’t tell anyone” and then that person went off and told, well, everyone?

“Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone.  But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.  People were overwhelmed with amazement.  ‘He has done everything well,’ they said.  ‘He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” (Mark 7: 36-37)

People were overwhelmed with amazement.

Because that’s what happens when we experience God; he overwhelms us.  I think this is especially true when we’re living without hope.  When all we can see is suffering, pain, fear, and doubt it’s really hard to imagine anything good happening to us. 

So many people Jesus hung out with were completely isolated from society.  These were people who were truly without hope.  They were totally rejected, not just by the “cool kids” but by everyone.   

Everyone except Jesus that is.

It was into that pain that Jesus stepped and offered hope.  He offered not just healing from a current problem, but a new life, a new way of living, and most of all a future.  Is it any wonder everyone was talking?

Sometimes things seem too coincidental to be, well, coincidences.  Of course it could always be dumb luck.  Or perhaps God just really wants to drive a point home.  There are certainly things I need to hear more than once a few times!

Friday as I was looking through some notes I saw something that caught my eye.  A quote I had written down from The Screwtape Letters.  In that book CS Lewis discusses what happens when we’re kept half-aware of our guilt.  Basically it works to Screwtape’s “advantage.”  And for those who haven’t read the book he was a demon.  Screwtape that is, not Lewis.  

By making us only half aware of our guilt, Screwtape says, “All humans at nearly all times have some such reluctance [to think of God]; but when thinking of Him involves facing and intensifying a whole vague cloud of half-conscious guilt, this reluctance is increased tenfold.” (The Screwtape Letters, p. 58)

What we want to do most is get rid of that guilt.  But the one thing that can remove that guilt is the one thing we turn from.  Or as Erwin McManus says, “we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to him, the more guilt and shame we will feel.”  (Soul Cravings, Entry 9)

I wasn’t thinking of these things when I wrote about turning away from God when my faith feels weak.  But that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.  I’ve been running from God because I feel “half guilty” about being faithful.

Screwtape must be pleased by that.

I think it’s time to change direction and run the other way.

Have you ever met someone who was totally confident of their faith?  Someone through whom God really worked?  These are the people who always look “put together” and “with it” when it comes to their trust in God.  They trust God with everything in their lives. 

What do you think when you see them?

Whenever I look at someone who has these traits I often think they must have it pretty easy.  I mean they don’t have to struggle with their faith, or wonder why things aren’t happening the way they expected.  After all, they get to see God act in visible ways all the time.  (Usually because they are on the front lines doing radical things for God)  

I start comparing how they appear, to how I am.  I see their steadfast belief and their determination to follow God.  Then I look at my own life and a lot of the time all I can see is my roller coaster of ups and downs. 

But is that really how things are?

Paul made it a regular habit to go back to communities he’d set up to encourage them.  He knew that no matter what they saw, no matter what they experienced, they still needed to be reminded of just who God is.  

He went back to cities like Antioch and Lystra (where he was nearly killed by a mob) just so he could “strength[en] the souls of the disciples and encourag[e] them to continue in the faith” (Acts 14:21-22).

Apparently even the disciples needed encouragement.

Paul wasn’t always on the giving end of encouragement though.  Sometimes he was the one who needed encouragement.  Towards the end of his life, while in jail, everyone abandoned Paul.  I can’t imagine what that would feel like to have lived so much for other people, and then when you needed a friend - they all ran away. But that’s where Paul found himself.  (Which, by the way, is also where Jesus found himself)

It’s hard to remind myself that even people like Paul need encouragement.  But it’s true.  In fact, every single Christian, who has ever lived, has needed encouragement at one time or another.  Which means I’m not alone in needing it.

I’d like to think that the next time I am feeling guilty about my waning faith, instead of turning from God out of shame, I turn to him.

Because even disciples need encouragement.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to be Paul.  (not this Paul)

This was a guy who traveled the world talking about God.  He was bold, action-oriented, and totally committed to God.  He was someone who lived his life to the fullest.  

But then I read stories about Paul’s experience in a city called Lystra. 

When Paul first arrived there, everything went well.  He was able to talk about God, people were listening, and some even started to believe.  But as time went on, people began to change their minds.  They began to no longer accept Paul’s teaching.  So they did what comes naturally to any crowd after a lecture they don’t like - they picked up rocks and threw them at Paul.  In fact, the crowd was so confident in their aim, they drug his body outside of town thinking he was dead. 

Days like this make me want to reconsider my plan to be more like Paul.

But as Monty Python might say, “he’s not quite dead yet.”  And so Paul got up and went back into town. 

I don’t know about you, but heading back into the town where people threw blunt objects at me would not be high on my ‘To Do’ list.  But for Paul, that’s just who he was.  So after returning to town, he and his friend Barnabas moved on to a different city.  Presumably to do the whole thing over again.

But Paul wasn’t done with Lystra. 

After visiting a few more cities Paul came back to encourage the Christians who lived there.  But he didn’t say, “don’t worry everything’s okay” or “believe in God and everything will go smoothly.”  Paul actually said, ”It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God.”  (Acts 14: 22) 

Ouch.  This being-like-Paul-thing sounds less fun all the time!

In a world that values comfort over all, this is hard to swallow.  How can suffering be a part of God’s Kingdom?  But the truth is the closer we get to God’s will the more dangerous it can become.  Just look at Paul’s life.  Even Jesus, someone who probably knew what God wanted, died a horrible death.

Now if suffering was all there was, this would be bad news.  Fortunately we don’t suffer because God enjoys it, or because it’s an initiation.  We suffer because sharing God’s message often means being in direct conflict with the world’s message.  And we suffer because this world is broken.

The people in Lystra went from thinking Paul was a god to trying to kill him.  Why?  Because Paul didn’t stop talking about who God was when they thought he was a god.  He kept teaching and explaining.  And eventually they decided they didn’t like his message anymore.  But if Paul had stopped teaching, no one would have learned about God.  And no one would have been saved.

That’s why Paul could be so bold and passionate when he knew some people might try to kill him for his beliefs.  Paul knew that sometimes to accomplish a bigger goal sacrifices personal have to be made.

Christopher, of Got Fruit? fame, sends in this comment:

I most always view reference or mention of the word “hope” as synonymous with Jesus Christ; how He is the key to God’s plan for redeeming us through Him.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1st Corinthians 13:13

It took me a long, long time to realize that.  I searched for all kinds of answers, never even guessing that God was part of the equation.  And so all of my searches proved, if you’ll pardon the pun, fruitless. 

Erwin McManus says that our souls crave God, and when we try to fill that craving with something other than God, we’re always disappointed.  The more we put into our lives that isn’t God, the emptier we feel. 

Hope doesn’t mean you’re never depressed.  Or that you’re always feeling energized.  Hope isn’t even about being in a good mood. 

It’s about knowing there is more to this life than just this world.  It’s about knowing we are loved by God, and that there is something for us beyond our lives here on Earth.

So often I confuse the word “hope” with the word “easy.”  I think that just because God tells us to have hope in him, that it somehow translates to no problems.  To be honest, the more your hope is placed in God, the crazier your life gets.  Because when you start believing in him, he starts giving you these revolutionary plans.  Plans that will change the world.

Hope is trusting that God’s promises are real, and that he’s there when he says he is. 

Hope is the only way I know how to get through life.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with bad news.  Every day it seems like another problem crops up, or society takes another step away from following God.  And perhaps that’s true.  Perhaps today really is “worse” than yesterday.  But let me tell you a secret…

None of that matters.

God doesn’t call us to judge non-Christians.  He calls us to love them, and share our faith with him.  In a way, the more problems the world has, the more opportunities we have to share His message.  Now clearly a broken world is not a thing to rejoice over!  But we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves.  We have a mission to accomplish.

That’s what I love about organizations like LifeChurch.tv.  They saw a situation and instead of defining it as a “problem” they recognized a need.  This “need” was a lot of people, who probably don’t know God, in a game called Second Life.  So they bought some virtual land and built a virtual church. 

But they aren’t alone, Catholic missionaries are getting into the act.  And others are asking important questions. 

Now as much as I love video games, I’ve never played Second Life.  So I don’t know if these virtual churches are still open.  But that’s not really the point. 

What matters is that people recognized a need, and they acted.  Instead of treating the game as a problem, they saw it as an opportunity to share a life-changing message.

I wonder what things in my life I treat as a problem, instead of an opportunity to grow?