Everything's Worth Redemption

This is something I struggle with, personally.  I am not a huge fan of wasting my time on doomed stuff.  And if you know me at all, then you know that I often weigh the risk of poorly investing.  And if you are paying any attention, there are plenty of reasons to not invest:

• Limited personal time
• Limited personal funds
• Incompatable alternate interests
• Personal fear
• Underqualified involvement
• Overqualified involvement
• Lack of personal interest

I don't typically think through all of this stuff.  Usually, I stop somewhere between feeling inadequate and being fearful on some level: affraid I will fail, affraid nothing good will come of my involvement, affraid of looking silly or affraid of what someone else might think. And I am going to be 37 years old this year!  Why in the world should I tollerate fear?  I am nearly past the point of no return in life, right?

Which brings me to my point: I am in my mid-30s affraid to commit to much of anything for fear of my own fickle heart and oft waining interest, wanting desperately to be attached regularly to something of eternal value yet regularly held back by the fear of risking foolishness. It's actually quite embarrasing how often I feel like Peter hiding from being over-identified with Jesus as the morning rooster announces the day.  I tell myself that I am really hiding from being over-identified with the many public failings of the Christian faith ( Hey, I am not like THOSE Christians over there.  Please, don't confuse me with them!?) so I heavily wield the saber of peaceable friendship wanting people to somehow have Jesus rub off on them like spiritual osmosis, convincing myself that I am an effectively living a quiet and magical pantamime for Yeshua. But then I stop fooling myself and just realize, I am pretty effective at being nice, but not so good about getting some Kingdom business done.

At the same time I am thinking about how Jesus really stuck His neck out, literrally.  At this age I find myself still weighing the challenge of the Christian cross, while at about this age Jesus was busy getting hung out on one.  I mean, I am contemplating my fears and He was completely willing to take action despite fear or worry.  He was litterally damning fear and cursing worry. Think about it. Some people want to paint this picture of Jesus where he was this very peaceable guy who didn't freak people out, boggle their minds, love the unloveable, confront sin and devistation in the lives of people, offer real help, unsettle broken systems and fakeness, etc.

Here is a real litmus test for how much of a rocker Jesus really was.  First, think only of the softer side of Him: loving, caring, comfortable with kids, feeding folks, loving people that would otherwise typically be ignored, etc.  Now, ask yourself, do people get crusified for this stuff?  When was the last time you saw someone like that and you instictively said, "Man, enough of THAT GUY... we gotta kill 'em!" I don't think that ever happened.  Now, sometimes folks get all cranked up if they find themselves resenting a truly nice person, but they aren't about to rally a crowd to end that person's life any time soon. The fact was that Jesus rocked people's boats all of the time.  Go back and read the gospels.

What Jesus didn't do was corner people and then just start beating on them like some sadistic older brother.  That is what some people think about when they hear the condemning voice of the Christian faith. The feel cornered and they feel judged.  Jesus didn't do it that way.  Here is a clue into how Jesus confronted the issues of His day in many such situations.

Jesus called himself the way.  So in the most litteral sense, Jesus was saying of Himself, "Hey, you're lost.  Follow me." It isn't much more complicated than that.  Following Him can sometimes get a little tricky, but He really is the way and intends that you follow Him.  It is true that a life of following Him is a journey, but Jesus basically says, not any Journey will do.  There is a way and that way is to follow Him.

So take nearly any story in the Gospels where Jesus is dealing with some sin or devistation.  He starts out by outlining the situation. It often goes something like this, "OK, this situation you are in ain't a good one. So, as you go forward, stop ending up in situations like this and for the sake of all that is Holy, don't come back here."  Then He leads them out.  It is like establishing points on a map.  Jesus starts by identifying "You are here." Then He basically says, follow me.

The other day I got a good reminder of how this works.  I was walking in the metro tunnels down a corrador I often travel and this guy was standing in front of a map and looking all confused.  As I got closer I noticed him looking increasingly nervous.  It is DC so naturally he could pose many different threats so I was a little guarded with my headphones in.  A moment later he cut me off and with concern he uttered in broken English, "Hey, ah... 23rd Street?" Now, I could tell he had never been in the area before.  The guy was lost and I knew the twists and turns ahead and the many ways he could get increasingly lost and not make it to 23rd Street.  I turned to the map and started to point out where he was standing now.  He looked at me as if to say, "Yeah man, I will have to take your word for it.  I am lost." I stopped talking and smiled and said, "Follow me," and this guy tagged along with me down the next mile of tunnels to 23rd Street.

And life is just so much more complicated. Imagine someone drawing you a map so you can make it through unscathed?  It can't be done.  BUT... now imagine someone helping you down the roads and through the turns.  Imagine someone giving you the best advice in the world about how to stay safe as your travel and how to identify unedible plants and how to look out for common dangers along the road. Priceless!

So back to the purpose of this blog post. I think I am learning a lesson right now about how while not everything will get redeamed (in this context I mean, not every situation will get fixed and not everyone will acknowledge they are lost and let Jesus guide them out of the hole they deny they are in), my attitude should rather be that everything is worthy of redemption: my neighbor, my job, my bad attitude and selfishness, our purpose and our lives.

The Apostle Paul said "Follow me as I follow Christ." He wasn't trying to replace our need to follow after Jesus as He becomes our Way, but rather was demonstraiting the fact that people new to following Jesus simply need some help learning how to follow, especially if they have been wandering around a hole for a long time.  We all know what that feels like.  And many of us have found our lives suddenly derailed and even though we want to follow Jesus we are wandering around a hole sidelined by some element in life. Maybe we haven't been willing to even admit that until now, this very minute. But amazingly enough, Jesus doesn't wander on down the road without us, lost in the fog of life saying "You should have kept up! Fail!" Instead, He is standing beside the hole right now gathering a number of people around you to help you out of the hole.

So here I am.  Bent over another hole not far from the one I fell into a short while ago myself, embarrassed and affraid, hesitantly calling down into the hole of a friend saying, "You are here! You don't want to be here do you? Here is my hand.  Follow me as I follow Christ."