Beans, Jesus, Reading, Beans, Jesus, Gas

Here's an update...

It was a snow day today and I wanted to get going on my new read "Jesus Wants to Save Christians." Still love the title. So I've read and eaten beans and rice all day. Remember in "Ice Castles?" (Please tell me someone besides me has seen this movie.) Remember when Lexie is blind at the end of the movie and no one knows she blind - and she trips on the roses and now everyone knows she's blind. And Robbie Benson has to get her off the ice, so he goes out to retrieve her and when he gets to her he says,

"We forgot about the roses." And they did.

Well, I ate beans, and guess what?

"I forgot about the roses." Only they weren't roses. They DEFINITELY weren't roses.

Okay - so I took Chloe to gymnastics this evening and sat in the balcony of the gym and read, read, read. And I am... speechless... don't even know what to say. I'm sad, inspired, challenged and moved, angry and overwhelmed and powerless... yet hopeful and happy and enlightened... and capable, equipped, and power-FULL!

Let me give you just a couple quotes from this anointed (I don't use this word lightly) book...

"A church's authority comes from how we've been broken open and poured out, not from how well we've pursued power and lobbied and organized ourselves to triumph. This is why when Christians organize politically and start flexing that muscle, making threats about how they are going to impose their way on others, so many people turn away from Jesus.

"Jesus' followers at that point are claiming to be the voice of God, but they are speaking the language of Caesar [of the empire] and using the methods of Rome, and for millions of us it has the stench of Solomon. (and then this... which I love) This is not the path of descent, it's not weak resonating with weak, it's not the Way."

LOVE IT!

So our authority, STILL, (as it was always meant to be) comes from surrender... from weakness. Jesus in the garden... swords drawn to defend him... a guy's ear cut off, and what? He puts and end to it. Says "this isn't going to work... put your swords away." We still haven't learned our lesson, have we? We get backed into a religious corner and we draw our sword. And Jesus would rebuke us, of this I'm certain.

Okay - how about this quote?

" 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you (us - you and me - the church) out of Egypt.' ...The church must cling to her memory of exodus, because if that memory is forgotten, the church may forget the poor, and if the poor are forgotten, the church may forget what it was like to be enslaved, and that would be forgetting the grace of God. And that would be forgetting who we are."

Beautiful.

Okay, last one...

"Isaiah declared that Egypt, Assyria and Israel would worship together. Egypt? The enemy? Assyria? The hated? If the prophet were to speak to us today, painting pictures of what it will look like when Jesus comes to town, what pictures would he give us? Who are our enemies today? What would be the modern equivalent of this? Taliban, my son? Al Qaeda, my beloved? Communion (the Lord's supper... the Eucharist) is about the church setting the table for the whole world."

THE WHOLE WORLD. I love this. I've had my own thoughts about "personal salvation" for quite some time - and how, yes, I need to be saved. But Jesus' salvation is for EVERYONE IN THE WORLD - and His salvation puts us all on level ground. My "enemies" are my brothers and sisters. Like really they are. And if God is not locked into loving America more that any other country (that would be favoritism), and we are supposed to be like Him, then shouldn't we esteem those countries, our enemies, our brothers and sisters, above our ourselves?

Shouldn't we put THEM before US?

Shouldn't WE set the table so THEY can eat first?

Nods and amens won't do anything though, will they?

God help me.

For real... God, help me.