fight for rights
A few weeks ago I was sitting in Starbucks with a guy who is just about to enter law school. He had large dreams of going into politics, prosecuting the life out of perpetrators, and making his way to the big time. As I sat and listened to him talk the thing he seemed to circle around constantly was this idea of fighting. Not with fists, but with something that seems to do much more damage, words, ideas and agendas. He kept on talking about his rights. The rights of Christians. How he was continually victimized by the anti-Christian culture that existed in America. He went on about prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and how the church in America is scrutinized by the media.
After hearing him talk for about 35 minutes, I finally asked him a question. The question I asked him has caused me to think about my own heart, and the way that I view life, and living it. More so, it has caused me to think about the way the church in America is living. How we view life in our time and culture. I said to him, “I have listened to you talk for a while about your rights, and how you will change the world someday. I have not however, heard you speak about the rights of the poor and disenfranchised in our culture, and the world. Why are you so taken with what you perceive you deserve, while not seemingly being interested in what all people deserve?”
As a good future law student, he promptly spoke louder and with more generalisms to make his point. I kept on asking him that question over and over. Then I would add things like, “Was Jesus more concerned about his rights, or the rights of the poor in his midst?” While I was asking him these questions, I was asking myself the same thing. As we continued to speak with one another I began to realize something. That is this.
If the Church in America spent as much energy on issues of social justice, racism, extreme poverty, hunger, and peace as we did on getting prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in the courthouses, smut off the airwaves, and “our guy” in the Whitehouse … our world may well look much different than it does today. It is interesting to me that Jesus in his day, never went after the “pagans” waving a cardboard protest sign that said, “Shame on You for What You Do!” Rather, Jesus spoke to his followers about meekness, humility, turning the other cheek, caring for the least of these, and ultimately being willing to give our own lives to make disciples of all nations.
Somehow we have become more like The Sons of Thunder only wanting to know who will be in the positions of power when Jesus restores all things to himself. This imperialism we have somehow stumbled upon, and mistakenly labeled “Christian” has marked the Church far too long. Lest we think this is a 20th Century American phenomenon, let us not forget an ugly thing called The Crusades. Many of the people who are living this way honestly are doing their best to serve Jesus. But when we are teaching our kids to sing, “Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before …” we sound more like, as one journalist recently wrote, “… Al Qaeda than a group of people who supposedly follow a guy who died for the whole world.”
Although this may sound like doom and gloom, I do not think that it is. I am beginning to see a movement back to being a people who do not fight for our rights as Christians, but stand up for the rights of all men and women because they are made in the image and likeness of God. I see many men and women today who have understood the call of Jesus to decrease so that He may increase. There is a movement that is more concerned with feeding the poor, visiting the sick, clothing the naked and giving water to the thirsty. I see men and women who are post-conquest in their view of Jesus and culture, and are doing all they can to move toward being people who serve culture. I pray that we will all continue to move in this direction, for it is in this, that we truly find Jesus, and that others will find him too.