you say you want a revolution, well, you know... we all want to change the world.

I read a sermon the other day that the pastor began with "Thank God that he created highlighters." He then said that, "because without highlighters, how could we go through the bible and pick and choose what we want to listen to so easily and ignore the rest?"

Crazy? Yes, I suppose so. But he definately has a point. There's a lot in the bible that's hard to reconcile with our ideas of Christ and his mission both on earth and to us now that he's gone, and it's easy to focus on some things while forgetting others. For example, Leviticus 18:22 says, "you shall not lie with a male as with a female. it is an abomination." This text, along with two or three other verses, is a foundational one for many Christians that are outspoken critics of homosexuality. As the people with picket signs outside the Georgia Tech stadium on football game days have told me, "homos are going to hell!" So, it's obvious that they've highlighted that passage, and for them, that's foundational. My definition of foundational, however, is a topic or idea or rule of thumb that is absolutely quintessential and necessary for a faith, and I'd assume that it would be mentioned over and over by Christ, in an attempt to really drive the point home with his followers that "without this, there will be no new kingdom brought to earth."

By that logic, what's foundational about Christianity? Well, through a quick search on Bible Gateway.com, I can find 4 verses immediately that deal with homosexuality. I can also find 697 that mention love, 134 that reference justice, and 198 that deal with poverty and the poor.

So, maybe rather than taking justice into our own hands and condemning homosexuality, why not look at everything we've missed with our highlighters? What about love? Scandalous, impossible, rule-defying love? The kind of love that inspires hope, mends the broken, and pushes us to solve injustice with our voices, hands, and feet? Agape love, the kind that Paul challenges us to in Ephesians when he commissions men to love women as Christ so loved the church, and women to surrender our stubborn, independent wills to God for the world?

This brings me to another point. What does scandalous love really mean? if we've been commissioned to it, shouldn't we know? Because there's more to it than we originally thought. I think sometimes we forget to highlight the parts that specify what it means to agape the world, to love unconditionally like Christ did, because it's uncomfortable and shakes us in our view of a "good Christian life." Jesus said, "clothe the naked," not "donate clothes so someone else can." Jesus said, "feed the hungry," not "be sure to tithe 10% at church so someone else can." Jesus said to have active faith, and that means giving of more than our wallets--giving our time and our talents and space in our hearts to people that need it.

I'm not saying that everyone who has a guest room in their house should be giving it to a homeless person. If you're called to do that, that's awesome, but I really don't think all of us are. I do think, however, that we are all called to love, and to love actively and directly and with every bone in our body. It's easy to be active-- when you get close to the groaning of the poor, you begin to groan along with them.

All throughout the bible, there are awesome examples of people who took huge leaps for God. In Corinth, there is a church that is disgraced by paul for allowing some people to come to the table hungry while others are stuffed (1 Cor 11:21-22). Does this happen in America today? Everyday. I'd be willing to bet there are some people here, at grace, who have trouble feeding their families every week. And i think that we do an awesome job trying to help that, through the benevolent fund and the plethora of people here who, if asked, would totally come paint your walls or rewire your kitchen or help unclog a stuck bathroom drain. But not everywhere is like this, and it's a plague of today's society.

It's risky love that really makes a difference. Caring about people more than just writing a big check every week, bigger when you get a bonus at work, and feeling fulfilled. Not that that isn't helping, because it is, and it goes to allowing this church to help more and more people. But what's beautiful is what we're called to do--build a community of believers, relationships in the real world where you love people as individuals. It is about giving money. Yes. But it's also about so much more.

A Catholic bishop, Dom Helder Camara, once said, "when I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." This interests me on a number of different levels, but most people Bishop Camara believed and spoke out for the opinion that following Christ is as much about this world as the next. It's about change, and justice, and love for people that's so strong it forces you to desire these things. Tony Campolo, a really incredible pastor from pennsylvania, once asked a congregation, "even if there was no heaven and there was no hell, would you follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?" I'm not saying that anticipation of what's in store is a bad thing at all (goodness knows i'm excited for it.) but I think that Christ's message was no just to prepare us to die, but to teach us how to live. When people are hungry, we know to help feed them, because Christ taught us that, too. But, what's more, didn't Christ teach us to use our time on earth not only to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, but to work for justice for the poor as well? If we only think upwards and have heaven on our minds, do we then neglect the world around us until we reach that point? I don't believe that that's the truth that Christ taught.

This is the truth--that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. but there is more to it than there--there needs to be love, too. Because love is what Christ taught. Scandalous love. love for the Father and love for the world. I think a lot of us have the former. But what about the latter? Shane Claiborne has a really interesting book about all of this, and he mentions in it that "there are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth." This can't be the state of our world. The two go hand in hand, and if we are not shouting the gospel with our lives, what are we doing?

There is a comic strip that I've heard of that has two guys talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask God why he allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, "well, why don't you ask?" The guy shakes his head and says he's scared. when his friend asks why, he says, "I'm scared god will ask me the same question."