Camels and Cashmere Underwear

Luxury items fascinate me.  My uber practical, paycheck to paycheck, associate pastor lifestyle can't quite comprehend the gold plated toilet seat, diamond studded watch, cashmere underwear, or $75,000 SUV with the home entertainment system.  As much as I hate to admit it, those who own luxury items produce in me a constellation of emotions from envy to resentment.  In my self-righteous moments, my criticism and judgment take on the words of Jesus, "It's easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."  In those moments I hear myself cheering on Jesus and jeering at the wealthy, "That's what I'm talking about Jesus...Y'all better watch out Jesus (Spanish pronunciation) is about to get Old Testament on your punk @$#."

My trip down Condemnation Lane doesn't last more than a few blocks before Reverend Hammond's words echo in my ears, "Most pastors in Liberia make less than $100 a month.  Many barely make $60."  My peers in West Africa live in abject poverty as they serve a people and a nation ruined by years of civil war.  My life is luxury stacked upon luxury compared to theirs - indoor plumbing, electricity, a living wage, health care, access to technology, educational opportunities, home ownership, automobiles, and food security.  From their perspective, my 2002 Pathfinder is a Hummer, my 1,800 square foot home a mansion, and my monthly salary a king's ransom.

The hard truth is that the majority of the world looks more like West Africa than North America, and the greatest luxury in America does not involve wealth or material possession but God.  In a nation that defines needs as smartphones, flat screens, and entertainment God is the ultimate luxury item.  Who needs God when you live in a nation obssessed with and defined by self-interest, comfort, safety, and security. 

God is a luxury who sometimes receives a passing nod when all is well, a heartfelt cry in despair, or an unbriddled curse in tragedy.  But make no mistake, in a nation of untold luxury where the mainline church is dying like a third world epidemic, God is a luxury.  Where are those damn microscopic camels when you need one?   





 

Out-patient Surgery

Yesterday I had my knee scoped at an outpatient surgery center.  This morning as I lay in bed leg elevated, knee throbbing the thought hit me - the church isn't a hospital but an outpatient surgery center.  I've heard many say that the church isn't a "museum for saints but a hospital for sinners."  But the more I reflect on the story of God and the response that story necessitates the more I see the church as an outpatient surgery center.  A hospital can be a place of healing, but more often it is a place of overwhelming pathology where sickness, infection, and, despair hover like a dense fog.  Such potential toxicity fosters a sedate, sedentary environment where patients are discharged on the basis of insurance coverage rather than health.

An outpatient surgery center is by its nature a place of movement and targeted healing.  Patients come to have conditions repaired, relieved, or removed.  Though sore, in pain, and scarred patients are sent back into their lives, into their worlds to complete  their rehab and recuperation.  Their health is fully restored in and through the circumstances of life.

The gospel isn't an Amish Manifesto or a hospital name "Isolation General."  The gospel is the story of engagement where the sick are brought to the physician to be treated and sent to gather the sick.  To follow Jesus is to be an "out"-patient who discovers healing and is dis-"charged" to help others do the same.  We aren't called to the infirmary but to the community.  We are the sent out not the brought in.  We are the way and not the destination.  We are an "out"-patient surgery center and not a hospital.

Hunger Games

I am hungry.  I am hungry for less of me and more of Jesus.  I am hungry for sacrifice.  I am hungry for a community that meets people where they are...a community more concerned about following Christ than studying Christ.  I am hungry for authenticity and transparency.  I am hungry for bondages broken, addictions busted, and oppressions laid low.  I am hungry for the consumer church to stop gorging itself and start feeding the hungry and the hopeless.  I am hungry for radical obedience and uncommon self-denial.  I am hungry for danger, for risk, for un-comfortable zones.  I am hungry for the church to stop confusing tradition with traditionalism.  I am hungry for worship to be a lifestyle and not a worship style.  I am hungry for a movement and not a methodology.   

I am hungry for the kingdom of God.