Sacrifice

I'm reading through The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Highly recommend, by the way. He's part of a movement called New Monasticism. It's fairly new and known for its 12 marks:

1) Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.

2) Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.

3) Hospitality to the stranger.

4) Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.

5) Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.

6) Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate.

7) Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.

8) Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.

9) Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.

10) Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.

11) Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.

12) Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.

There's some good stuff in this movement. Its advocates are really doing what Jesus says--they're leaving their families, finding the hungry and the alone, and being Jesus. They're selling their possessions, giving to the poor, and living in community.

One of the quotes I read in the book is by Dorothy Day: "If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor."

God really convicted me when I read this. Putting down the book, I walked over to my closet and, including hoodies, counted ten coats. Ten! Recognizing my own entrapment in capitalism and this consumeristic society, realizing that I have way too much and that those who have nothing can have if people like me share, seeing that materialism has been a blind spot in my faith, I'm changing. I'm making an active and intentional choice to be different. And that means not only changing my lifestyle but also being proactive in doing something about the poverty and hunger that thrives in this world.

I took out all the clothes in my closet and my dresser (I have two different places to store all of my clothes!) and let my own guilt over my materialism slowly sift out half of my clothes. Half my t-shirts, shorts, pants, shoes, and coats, all are no longer mine. I resolved to take them to the local homeless shelter as soon as I had a free-day from classes.

My friend Shannon, who recommended The Irresistible Revolution to me, is now doing the same thing, choosing to share the abundance we've been given with the poor and the naked. You have to check out her thoughts on all this--so illuminating. She makes an excellent point about the purpose of sacrifice, how its value isn't inherent but rather can be a reflection of something greater happening internally.

I ran across this verse in my Bible this week: "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Psalms 51:16-17). Well crap. If sacrificing my clothes isn't going to please God, but rather the condition of my spirit, then I have a long way to go. Remember I said I had ten coats and decided to give away half? That still leaves me with five. Five! What do I need five different coats for?!

I've got to give away and do a lot more before I have a broken spirit.

Get Over Yourself! (thanks Stephanie Richey for this title)

There's too much I want to do. There's always homework--I'm in the middle of my thesis, and so there's always work I want (yes want) to be doing on that. There's always some friend doing something awesome that I want to be a part of. There's always something fun happening on campus, and I want to do it all.

But right now, I want to get over myself more. I want to say no to watching movies with friends and doing stupid stuff and having fun, and I want to start changing this world. I will not lie about this. It's hard because if I leave and go do that, then I'm missing out on all these fun things my friends are doing.

But it's time I get over myself. It's time I say no to more things, and it's time I start being intentional about serving in this community.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Let's believe this and go.

All of our tracks and our ten percents and our sermons and our bible studies and our fellowships and our worship music just aren't going to feed people, and they're not going to change this world. Relationships will. Serving will.

It's time for our teachers and our nurses and our pastors and our hair dressers and our mechanics and our students and our everyone to step up and start looking for ways to serve. Start pursuing ways to build relationships with the hurting. Start being church, rolling up our sleeves, and getting dirty.

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I stole this from a Buddhist priest's blog (thestupidway.blogspot.com if you're interested). It's worth reposting (I know I just did that in my last blog post too, but I swear it's good stuff).

“Someone once had a dream in which she asked God to show her heaven and hell. God agreed and first of all brought the person to a dining room that had two tables, one on either side of the room. There were all sorts of delicious food stacked up on the two tables, and there were a lot of hungry people sitting next to the tables trying to eat the food. They could only eat the food by using chopsticks. But the problem was that the chopsticks were about two meters long. And because the chopsticks were so long it was impossible for anyone to pick up the food with the chopsticks and then put the food into his mouth. So everyone was very unhappy and frustrated and dissatisfied because they had all this great food in front of them, but was unable to eat it. God said, ‘This is hell.’ Next, God brought the person to another dining room that looked exactly like the first room. Just like in the first room, there were two tables on either side that were covered with all sorts of delicious food. People were sitting next to the tables, and had the same kind of long chopsticks as in the first room. But the people in this room were all happy and smiling and cheerful. When the person looked closely, she saw that the people in this room weren’t trying to use the chopsticks to pick up the food and put it into their own mouths. Instead, they were using the chopsticks to pick up the food and put the food into the mouth of someone else on the other side of the room. It was easy to use the long chopsticks for that, and everyone could eat plenty that way. God told the person, ‘This is heaven.’”

You Sneaky, Manipulative God...

God is so sneaky sometimes. I'm reading Isaiah 6, which is one of those inspire-me kind of passages. God is so sneaky with Isaiah, like border-line manipulative. Listen: "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!" Wait. Who is God asking? Isaiah is the only one in the room. God makes it seem all rhetorical and stuff, but it's not. This is a question only for Isaiah. God has a mission and purpose only for Isaiah, but he asks anyway and lets Isaiah really claim and own this.

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When I was in Costa Rica, I got to help out with a ministry in La Cuenca (which I'll describe through the words of another short-term missionary I met down there). "La Cuenca is dangerous, violent and so broken. For a while before I arrived, nobody was allowed in the area due to all the issues with drugs, gangs, and violence. The three missionaries I worked with in La Cuenca, Hugo, Magaly and Fernando, have been returning to this area for the past five years via a two hour bus ride and no salary. Even though the three are all part of growing families, they receive under $100 per month in support" (Caroline's blog).

One time while I was at La Cuenca, I went with Hugo to visit a family. I stepped into a house no bigger than a dumpster and no cleaner. All around me, a car door and scraps of metal and wood made for walls and ceiling, which blocked no rain during the rainy season. Making small canyons in the uneven dirt floor, toilet and bath water from homes higher up the hill ran between our feet as we talked. The five children had long dropped out of school, and the oldest daughter fumbled with a pot of rice cooking over a log fire just outside the door. Prostitution is stealing these girls and gangs have already taken the boys. When you're an uneducated and unemployed and unmarried mother of five children, what are your options?

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This is the world we live in. I hear God saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" and I know God's looking at me, because I'm the only one in the room. "Here am I, God! Send...oh, wait. We'll finish this conversation later. I'm about to be late to class."

God, forgive us for using our systems of religion to hide from you.

What would happen if a generation embraced something greater, giving all of themselves away?

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We're losing today's generation, not because we're making Christianity too hard, but because we're making it too easy. Now when Christianity started, it was a radical movement. A movement that changed the world of the early church. People can get behind something like that. We've got to stop selling easy faith--do this and you'll get this. It's never been about houses and cars and soccer practices, our biggest worries being what bill to pay off next. Here in America, we have this idea that we're supposed to be happy first, but no, Jesus doesn't send us that message. He never promises a life with less pain and less worry, a life with secure jobs and more money, a life with a gym membership and a dog.

We're creating something different, something not following Jesus. We say the first step is accepting Jesus into your life. Your life. That's a fine theology, but it's not based on Jesus (if that's who we're claiming to follow). Gandhi said once that he loved Jesus, he just wished Christians would take him more seriously, because everybody knows what Jesus was teaching except for Christians.

Jesus doesn't ask to be invited into our hearts, to enter into our lives. Jesus calls us to come and die. Our old selves? Dead. Our nice houses and new cars? Sold. We're to come and kill everything--our wants, our goals, our securities, our comforts, our possessions, everything. If we say we want to follow Jesus, then we're entering into lives of sacrifice and poverty and homelessness and suffering. If anything, a life that follows Jesus is one of more pain. However, if we say we want to follow Jesus, then we're also entering into lives of purpose and peace and love and freedom. And ultimately, if we say we want to follow Jesus, then we're entering into a new plane where change is finally possible.

Jesus lived an extreme and radical life, a life of sacrifice and poverty and homelessness and suffering. Does he call us all to be that radical? Yes he does, because radical people can change the world. But radical people are the only ones who can change the world.

A Favorite Hymn of Mine

1/10 to Jesus I surrender
1/10 to him I freely give
I will weekly love and praise him
In his presence Sunday live

I surrender 1/10
I surrender 1/10
1/10 to thee, my Precious Savior
I surrender 1/10

Come on God! Almost all of us are surrendering to you what you asked of us. When are you going to change this world?

Silly boy, Jesus doesn't mean it...

Ah shit. I almost forgot. When Jesus says, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me," (Luke 18: 22), what he means is you must be willing to give up everything. He means that you must figuratively give up everything, meaning it's okay to have stuff, just make sure you tithe and go to church and God's first in your life. It's so easy. I can't believe I almost forgot.

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I've mentioned before that I go with Don Horacio occassionally and help out with the homeless ministry. Well, I went again, and it was powerful! I made such a lasting difference in this world for Jesus! I handed out cups of coffee and water and sandwiches! I sang my heart out and clapped so everyone could hear these worship songs to Jesus! I hugged those stinky alcoholics and drug addicts and told them that Jesus loves them! Oh, and guess what happened...a homeless man came up to me and asked me to pray for him! He told me that it was his first time ever coming to this park and seeing what we do here! He said it's the first time he's seen Christians do something like this! He asked if I would tell him why I'm here helping them when I could be in the states! He questioned who is this Jesus guy! He explained all about his addictions and his problems with his family and how he's been on the streets since he was a kid and how he has this woman that he's in love with but she's crazy and so addicted that she'll run off with anyone for just a quick fix and how gosh this sandwich is amazing and this coffee tastes so good! And he asked if I could pray for him and the woman he's in love with, that God will prove He can not just handle all this but make it better! And we hugged and prayed and hugged again, and it was awesome, because I'm being obedient to God and loving people!!!

A different man came up to me. I counted 3 toes through his shoes and 4 teeth behind his beard. Pleading with me through the damaged, glazed eyes of alcoholism, he asked me for my shoes. "I sleep on cardboard, mae. I only have this one pair of shoes, and you can see they don't serve shit. It's the rainy season, so they're constantly getting wet and giving me blisters. You come here because you're a Christian, right? See I knew God would send me a new pair of shoes."

Uhhhhhhhh....yeeeaaaaah....

Don Horacio, his wife, and a couple other missionaries were right there with me. They redirected the man back to the coffee line. I thought about it for a couple minutes, and decided. The way of Jesus isn't supposed to be easy. We're called to come and die, not live comfortably. Giving a pair of shoes is the least I can do. I slipped off the shoes and started walking barefoot over to the man. Immediately, 3 missionaries surrounded me, deterring me from my mission. "You can't give him those shoes. We understand you feel bad and want to help. You just don't understand. That man is clearly an alcoholic and a drug addict. He'd probably just keep his old shoes and sell your nice ones for a couple dollars so he could have some drug money. Trust us. We're out here all the time." So I slipped my $120 Nike shox back on my feet and walked away.

Because I almost forgot that when Jesus said, "If someone takes your tunic, give him your cloak as well" (Matthew 5: 40), what he really meant was, "...but check their motives first!" and when Jesus said, "Sell everything and give it to the poor," he meant just don't get attached to your possessions, but you can keep them. For a minute there, I forgot that Jesus says radical things and talks a big game, but he doesn't mean what he says in a literal sense. I almost forgot the most important thing about Jesus: that he's just like our generation.

Our generation. We go to school for 12 years, and then to college, and often to graduate school. We learn about Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry, Literature, Composition, History, Geography, Foreign Languages, Psychology, Philosophy. Our generation has more knowledge than any previous generation. We've become an age that values knowledge and reflection so much, that now all we do is talk, as if that's going to solve the world's problems. And so we talk. And reflect. And talk. And reflect... In the end, we do nothing, and nothing is changed. We've even reduced the great teachings to the same abstractions. But, every once in a while, someone of our generation will stand up and move. They'll act on the vision God's given them and try to do something. However,  it takes no time at all before a well-meaning parent or a friend or other Christians (especially other Christians), calm us down. Sober us. Deaden our passion. See, our generation is one of immediate enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that quickly dies, an enthusiasm that our thought and our logic and our reflection kills before it can grow into authentic passion.

And I yell out to God: "God, I'm done with this life! I want to be radical for you so badly! You're asking, 'Whom shall I send?' Send me! I'll go! We can change this world! I'll do anything to open the cracks in this world for Love to crash in!"

"Our own age is essentially one of understanding, and on the average, perhaps, more knowledgeable than any former generation, but it is without passion. Everyone knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and all the different ways we can go, but nobody is willing to move." (Soren Kierkegaard, The Present Age)

And all too quickly, God answers me back: "You want to be radical? No, Keith. You don't mean that."