It is very difficult to be a follower of Jesus Christ and not be an irritant to your culture.
Some succeed in not being a full-blown offence to those around them, but most in one or shape or form make those who live in their culture rather uncomfortable. This is not a deliberate ploy to be agitators – it is a by-product of being peacemakers. A peacemaker works on the premise that peace needs to be made and that is based on the notion that peace has not as yet been made.
That notion is troublesome for people who have got comfortable in their life of ambivalence. By that I mean there are people who recognise that the state of their lives as well as their world is not what it should be, yet the cost, effort and hard work required to make a positive change seems far too onerous. So as to ease the pain, the compromise is made to live in the uneasy truce between the two positions. Where a follower of Christ blunders in and says that this unholy pact need not stay in the statutes of the mind. Rather real lasting and life-giving peace can be found in looking beyond the price to pay for that peace and consider the One who paid the price for that peace.
This however, upsets the status quo. So well established are our customs, coping mechanisms and responses to the craziness of life that for someone to challenge that and point to something different even in the knowledge of a better outcome, is still too much for us. What are we going to do without our precious opportunity to do what we did before? What if this new way doesn’t work? Why should I risk it? Better the devil you know, etc.
The people I have the opportunity to serve in my job typify this approach. The majority have been unemployed for over six months and give the nominal indication that they would like a job. They don’t like lazing around at home, they want a job so they can get some money coming in and they feel almost worthless having to accept the benefit system. Yet when they begin to map out their journey from no-job land to job land, suddenly some of their current comforts appear far more appealing. They want the prize, without paying the price.
Followers of Jesus acknowledge that He paid the price, but for us to get the prize ourselves we also need to acknowledge the need to pay our own price. That’s not promoting works salvation at all. I’m not talking about to be saved. I’m talking about something far more important than that. I’m talking about being able to embrace the Saviour and truly live as though we were saved.
Followers of Jesus recognise the journey and the price we pay in terms of suffering, rejection, misunderstanding and hurt. Followers of Jesus see this and remember the Example who has gone before them and for the greatness of that prize, happily blunder into the comfortable compromised state of current culture and express an alternative that is in turn appealing and attractive and yet threatening and life-shifting.
I don’t wake up every morning and jump up, punch the air and give a Holy High-Five at the thought of being that element of the Kingdom dweller. There have been occasions when I’ve tried to shirk that part of it and just tried to luxuriate in the godly goodies I get from being a child of the King. That doesn’t last long, though as reality hits home again that pursuing the passionate path of peace with its Prince necessitates expressing that journey for others to witness. That will be unsettling and discomfiting as it asks questions from others that they do not want answered or address out of fear. Yet there’s no choice.
Even as good works stirrers among ourselves, we shall have to prepare upset the status quo.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 