For it is not the hearers of the law
who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will
be justified. When Gentiles, who do not posess the law, do
instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the
law, are a law to themselves.
They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts... -
Romans 2:13-15
When
we are faithful, the Church has good news to share. But we are not
always so faithful. Often, the gospel is crowded out by human
ideologies. We proclaim a Liberal Jesus or Conservative Jesus, an
Evangelical Jesus or Social Justice Jesus. The Church has bought into
the false dichotomies of the "culture wars" hook, line and
sinker. Our worldviews are often rooted in forms of black-and-white,
us-versus-them thinking that has brought us to the brink of
self-annihilation.
When
we are captured in this way by our surrounding culture, we fail to
proclaim the radical truth about who God really is. In Jesus, we
encounter a God who is not like us. God is not a Republican or a
Democrat. Instead, in Jesus Christ we come face to face with a Being
whose love and justice transcend any of our normal catagories. In
him, it is always "yes." God is strong and gentle,
loving and just - blessing us with freedom and responsibility.
God is
not boxed into our narrow frameworks. The
Holy Spirit blows where it will, and it is present in each of us.
All we have to do is listen to the gentle
whisper that breathes in every heart. God
is spirit, and those who worship him will worship him in spirit and
in truth. God is not confined to temples or hierarchies or rigid
belief systems. Who you are or what you call yourself presents no
barrier to this relationship.
God is
equally real in the heart of the illegal immigrant and the wealthy
Anglo. The
Word of God is alive and active in the innermost parts of the gay
atheist and the straight Christian fundamentalist. The living witness
of God is present in the Occupy activist and the Tea Partier. The
Spirit blows where it will, and Jesus does not show partiality.
But
will we listen? Are we awake to the Spirit's promptings in our
hearts? Do we see Jesus in the poor and those that the wider culture
chooses to ignore? Are we ready to offer up our lives and reputations
for those who have the least? Do we recognize
the voice of our Shepherd when we hear it?
My
greatest joy and challenge is to see how God
is active among other "flocks" - groups of people
where I would not have expected to find God at work, guiding and
blessing. One of my surprise encounters with the God of the Margins
has been within the Occupy movement. Occupiers run the gamut of
beliefs, from committed Christians to dogmatic atheists, but many are
quasi-agnostic, "spiritual-but-not-religious" types. They
can sense that there is deep truth out there somewhere, but they
haven't determined yet what to call it, or how to relate to it. These
are people of deep moral conviction who have rejected the rote
religion of past generations and are seeking out the truth on their
own terms.
Since
they are involved in the Occupy movement, it is not surprising that
most of these folks find expression for their commitment to truth and
justice through social activism. They live out the light that they
have been shown through their struggles for grassroots democracy and
economic equality. Just like the Gentiles
who do instinctively what the law requires, many Occupy activists
act naturally out of their own interior sense of justice.
In the
process, they fulfill the "law" far better than many
Christians! Though the Scriptures call
us time
and time
again to work
for justice, many Christian congregations and organizations are
more focused on preserving their own privilege and comfort. The
Church is often the "hearer of the law." But many of those
whom the institution has rejected obey
the law that the Lord has written in their hearts.
This
"law," the inward voice of Jesus that calls us to the work
of justice and reconciliation in our society, is the
Cornerstone that our religious builders have rejected. While we
in the Christian Church have kept all sorts of superficial rules and
regulations, we have neglected the weightier matters of the law:
justice, mercy and faithfulness. We
have strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel!
I want
to walk with whomever is listening and obeying the inward promptings
of God. Some of these people are Christians, and I praise God for
their witness. But God is speaking through many
who are outside the gates of the city, wandering in the
wilderness following
a pillar of cloud and fire whose name they do not know. I want to
follow this wild, uncontainable God with them, even if it costs me
security and my already tenuous sense of certainty. Will you walk
with us?
Therefore Jesus also suffered
outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own
blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he
endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the
city that is to come. - Hebrews
13:12-14
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