Revolution

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy -Colossians 1:15–18 NIV

Hi everybody

Someone said to me in passing after the the message on Sunday, "Messages like the one you gave really bother me." I like comments like that, I actually get kind of excited to hear how so.

I don't mind bothering people -- in some ways it's part of my job, not for the sake of the bothering itself, but for the sake of raising questions that sometimes we don't want to ask ourselves. Jesus bothered people -- He still does. Jesus bothers me -- and when He does, I share that "bothering" with you. I think Jesus does not want us to get too comfortable here. He tells us in the gospel of John that He came so that we might have life to the fullest (more and better life than we ever imagined). He says a couple of chapters later that whoever loves their life will lose it and whoever hates their life will somehow find it. I do not believe He is being contradictory, merely saying that true, abundant life comes not from striving to make the best life you can imagine for yourself, but instead believing Him when he says "I can imagine so much more than you can." Abundance, from trying to give it all away (some of us figuratively, but others literally -- at least in part). Our tendency is to believe that for most it is figurative and that for a very few it is literal -- at least in part. I think that the exact opposite might be true.

This past Sunday we started our summer series: Summer of Rock. Each week we are enjoying a "non-Christian" rock song and seeing God and the themes of His Kingdom in and through it. Our first week was "Revolution" by the Beatles. I think Jesus was a revolutionary, and that He calls us to live lives of revolution. Jesus asked, "Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?" He answered His own question, "No, I tell you, but rather division." (Luke 12:51). I think so often we want Jesus without the revolution, we want Jesus the Sunday School teacher, not Jesus the troublemaker, Jesus the revolutionary.

"You say you want a revolution?" Most of us say, "No, not really, I'm actually quite happy with the status quo." But Jesus isn't. Jesus' plan is to make up there, come down here, to make the way things are in the Kingdom of God the way they are here on earth. And it does not take a lot of imagination before we realize that Jesus is talking revolution.

Does that bother you? It bothers me. When I live in ways that reflect God's Kingdom come, His will be done, right here, right now, as it is in heaven, my world is disrupted, upset, bothered. Yet when I embrace that revolution, when I step into the ways that Jesus bothers me, I discover that He actually meant it when He said that if I trust Him enough to lose myself in Him, I will actually discover the truer me. It makes no sense, but it's true.

I'm getting together later this week with the person who told me my sermon bothered them. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say. In a way, I hope it bothers me a bit.

Peace, hope and love