June 22, 2018

What Gospel Do You Hear?

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

– 2 Corinthians 11:3-4

What happens when following Jesus collides with protecting what you hold dear? Do you make the hard choice or do you cling to what you know, what’s comfortable, what you have “earned”?

Many of us are willing to share our excess but we aren’t willing to sacrifice anything to give to others. Our own hands may be outstretched to borrow and receive but not necessarily to give and to share.

And we’re happy to pull out a Bible verse to back it up. Ah, yes. Let’s pick and choose what we want to believe. Let’s twist the meaning of God’s Word so that it aligns up with what we desire.

It’s how some truly well-meaning religious people justify their hatred and anger at others. It’s how places such as Facebook end up being the catalyst that fuels bigotry and lies. We aren’t particularly concerned about truth so long as it lines up with what we want to believe.

Somehow, we think we’ve “earned” the right to be greedy. Somehow, we believe we are better than others who were born to different circumstances. We tell them to work to better themselves without offering a shred of hope. We cling to what is “mine” without any real understanding that it all belongs to God.

When did we come to believe that only certain parts of the gospel are directed at us? When did we start watering down what we don’t like and building up what we do like? When did we decide that labels such as “Republican” or “Democrat” are more valuable that “Christian” and “Righteous”?

Our country is being torn apart by hatred among people who say they are Christians. We no longer believe in kindness unless it’s directed as someone we know and approve of. We act as though mercy and grace are only available to those of our choosing. We judge what we do not know based on lies generated to protect all that we hold dear.

And what do we know? We feel threatened by anything and anyone who might take what we think we deserve. We forget that so much of what we have began with the happenstance of our birth. Yes. We might work hard but there’s so much more to what we gain than hard work. Some of the hardest workers on this earth are people who barely get by. That’s not a truth we want to hear.

We are a greedy people. We “need” this and we “need” that. Most of us have no idea what true need is. We’ve never wondered where our next meal will come from. We’ve never desperately sought a job, any job, so that we could keep a roof over our heads. We’ve never done without medical care because all the small jobs we’ve managed to put together don’t offer insurance. But we judge others as though we truly understand.

The gospel isn’t about judging; it’s about loving. The gospel isn’t about storing up on this earth; it’s about sharing. The gospel isn’t about us; it’s about others. We don’t hear that because it interferes with what we hold dear. And that’s not Jesus, no matter how many Sundays we sit on a church pew.