Do you know this famous passage from the Bible:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

I read the following quote from Crazy Love, by Francis Chan at Compassion in Politics:

Take the phrase Love is patient and substitute your name for the word love (For me, “Francis is patient…”) Do it for every phrase in the passage.

By the end, don’t you feel like a liar? If I meant to represent what love is, then I often fail to love people well.

I would like to offer a better suggestion: substitute “God” for “love” instead.

Why is this better? First, I think it’s more accurate. The Bible says that God is love, so putting “God” in there makes sense. Second, because it’s encouraging and inspiring rather than guilt inducing. People don’t change by making themselves feel extra bad. People change when they catch a vision for something better and go after it.

I love the title, Crazy Love (crazy by our standards), and maybe the book as a whole is a good one. But that question (”don’t you feel like a liar?”) really strikes me as wrong in a big way. It’s true that people lie and pretend a lot in religion. But isn’t guilt what drives us into pretending? In fact, you could see this as a case study in how pastors create (or amplify) a problem (setting the reader up to feel like a liar) and then offer a solution to make them feel better (and, honestly, a bit more dependent on the teacher and his book).

Love sets us free to be ourselves and to live without fear. Love alone transforms us in a way that lasts.

(God) is patient, (God) is kind. (God) does not envy, (God) does not boast, (God) is not proud. (God) is not rude, (God) is not self-seeking, (God) is not easily angered, (God) keeps no record of wrongs. (God) does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (God) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  (God) never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

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Today Don Rogers writes:

How many times have you as a member of a “church” heard: Do we have enough faith? Are we good enough? This may be something not preached from a pulpit every week, but the implication is there. If you are religious, chances are you see your standing before God  as dependent upon your earnestness in your religious life.

I grew up understanding in my head that “grace” means a free gift. If you asked me, I believed that we could do nothing to earn God’s grace and forgiveness. But I totally relate to Don’s words above. Only in recent years have I begun to grasp the reality of being loved by God without strings attached. I always thought those “strings” made everything work, and without them we’d just sit around doing nothing. What I failed to understand is that perfect love is much more motivating than fear and it’s associates, guilt and obligation.

Don continues:

Justification by grace is not about who goes to heaven and how you get there. I believe that this preoccupation with heaven came about in the Middle Ages when life was a tad tough and everyone, well almost everyone, looked forward to a time and place when things would be much better.  Almost always the term “Kingdom of Heaven” can be translated “Kingdom of God”, which Jesus said had already come.

Grace is not a new system for getting to heaven; it’s an invitation to life. God’s perfect love gives me the freedom to live in love, without fear, here and now.

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Greg Boyd writes compellingly about the catastrophic failure of Christianity. It’s a long article that’s worth reading. Here’s an excerpt (with some parts highlighted in bold letters by me):

A recent Letter to the Editor in my local newspaper went as follows:

When I read letters sent in by Bible thumping Christians telling us how sinful we are and how right they are, how God is on their side, not ours, how God hates gays, liberals and other evil people, I close my eyes for a moment and say a quiet prayer. “I thank thee oh Lord that I am not and never will be a Christian.”

I confess that I am entirely sympathetic to this editorial comment. In my own life, and in the lives of multitudes of people I’ve come across, the best and strongest argument against the truth of Christianity has been the Church…Just recently a young man responded to my invitation to faith by telling me, “I admit I feel the need for a savior, but I honestly just can’t stand Christians!” While he has perhaps not had a well-rounded exposure to Christians, I completely understood where this young man was coming from. Indeed, I’ve spend much of my professional life answering objections to the Christian faith from skeptics, and in all the scholarly tomes I’ve studied I’ve never found an argument against the Christian nearly as compelling as this one.

What makes this situation positively catastrophic is that, according to the New Testament, the Church – the community of those who follow Jesus – is supposed to be the main argument for the truth that Jesus is Lord. By God’s design, the radical love of those who follow Christ is supposed to convince the world that Jesus is for real (Jn13:35; 17:23). Instead, the Church has become the main argument for convincing people he’s not for real. I can’t imagine a greater crisis the Church could possibly face than this one.

Then there’s this:

How did this happen? To ask the question more pointedly, how is it that Jesus was a magnet for prostitutes and tax collectors – the two most despised classes of sinners in Jesus’ day – while the Church repels these types of people, just as the Pharisees did? The answer, I submit, is as inescapable as it is challenging. The Church, as a whole, is simply more like the Pharisees than it is like Jesus.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Bible, the Pharisees were sincerely religious people. Their problem, according to Jesus, was that religion (attending religious services and following rules and rituals) defined them, not intimately knowing and trusting God. And religion, when it comes to the center, is nothing more than a human system, serving selfish interests, and offering (an illusion of) comfort, goodness, and control.

But following Jesus is another matter. Following Jesus means rejecting pretense and embracing reality; it means living with my eyes open and engaged in loving the world, NOT sitting in a closed circle of “believers” trying to meet a minimal standard of grace. It’s not arduous or guilt induced. It’s the result of knowing Love that is so big that we can live without limits in its embrace (without the limits of fear, selfishness, greed, etc.).

This is something that I’ve been mulling over for a long time. That modern Christians resemble the Phasisees of the Bible is not really news in Christian circles. If you’ve spent much time in church, you can probably remember a discussion that went like this: Who do you related with in the passage (from the Bible)? The “tax collectors and sinners” or the “scribes and Pharisees?” (Another variation is the older brother/younger brother in the prodigal son story.) Invariably, many (or most) of the honest, long term Christians confess they identify with the latter group. They express a mild sense of guilt and a resolve to be more humble, and that’s it. They don’t question the very foundation of a religion that has formed them in the mold of those sincere, passionately religious and moral people who most strongly opposed Jesus.

But what a tragedy this is! It’s catastrophic. What is passed off so lightly is the reversal Jesus’ life and message. Somewhere along the way (probably starting long before Constantine declared Christianity the compulary religion of the Roman Empire) sincere people traded in Christ for religion.

Gandhi famously said: “I do so like your Jesus. I don’t like your Christians; they are so unlike your Jesus.” He also said that if Christians lived like Francis of Asisi then all of India would be Christian. But Francis was a radical. Jesus said many radical things, like: “Take up your cross and follow me.” A million Bible studies have established a million rationalizations not to take Jesus’ most radical ideas too literally. Why? Because we don’t believe in the reality behind the words. But Gandhi of all people did.

Greg Boyd concludes that the church of the future will be “religionless.” Jesus not Christianity (as a religion) will be at the center.

I’m not sure how Greg Boyd applies all this concretely, but here’s what I see happening in the world today. People are being attracted to Jesus but not to Christian religion. A flood of people raised in traditional churches are leaving BECAUSE they want to follow Jesus without the religion. Many are creating new structures (like house churches) and simply repackaging their damaged good (we crave comfort and control that much).They are still defined by fear (of getting it wrong) not by love.

Others are casting off religion and tasting freedom in Christ (something the Bible emphatically recommends). They may not get everything right, but here’s what they understand: God’s love is a reality, and it’s huge. They are not concerned about what form their relationships will take, or how to structure gatherings. The Bible says Christ is the Head, and all his followers are like the Body; these people trust the Head can put the Body in order and in motion, so they are resigning from the job (and removing themselves from under the authority of little “heads”).

Their journeys and the turbulence of their departure from religious Christianity may be messy, but who ever said messy is bad? Jesus created a real mess in his day. Really, we can celebrate the mess.

What if the world encountered more and more people living as Jesus did?
Living in fearless love and freedom, not having lives defined by fear?
Trusting and actually surrendering to the Reality encountered in Christ and living it out like Jesus did, rather than attempting to seize control force others to accept “God’s way or the highway” (like the Pharisees did)?

Cartoon source: http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/

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(This is meant to be read in 2 alternating voices.)

Those who follow this blog know I’ve been working on a presentation about children living with HIV/AIDS. Some people ask why, and I tell them I was never that interested in HIV/AIDS until I went to Cambodia and got to know children living with the virus (at Wat Opot). They are alive because they have access to generic (cheap) antiretroviral drugs. It’s not clear how long they can live this way. People say “indefinately,” because they don’t know. “Indefinately” may or may not mean a long life, but the kids I’ve met can teach us all something about living a full life today.

I was thinking of the girl in the photos above when I wrote this poem (To love a child with AIDS). She’s a precious child living with HIV — I hope she has a long and full life ahead of her.

Only 30 percent of the people in the world who need antiretroviral drugs (to stay alive) have access to them, and most (like these children) only have access to first and second line therapies. Each “line” of drug therapy is a progressively complex drug cocktail that usually works for a period of years and then loses effectiveness. When the “first line” fails, a child (or adult) must switch to “second line therapy” (then third line, etc.) or develop AIDS and die. In low income countries, second line therapy is very expensive, and third line is out of the question even for people under the care of well financed NGO’s. For the sake of the children I know, I hope for innovations, new generic drugs, and falling prices. Fifteen of them are on “first line” and five are on “second line” therapy right now. I also pray they will have the best of life in this moment — and the same for you and me.

Right now more than 30,000,000 people in the world have HIV/AIDS, and 2,500,000 are children. Last year 330,000 children died, and 420,000 children became infected with HIV.

Today is World AIDS Day. It’s a good day to learn, think, and do something to make a difference.

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I don’t know if you ‘ve seen this or not. I was a bit skeptical when I first heard the answer — too simplistic maybe. But I appreciate the point very much, especially like his application at the end. I think this is what I’m after with Global Adventure Project Friends.

What do you think?

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