Don't Celebrate the Fourth of July!

The claims I will make in this note will be bold. You will probably be offended, but I am about a life of transparency.

Over and over again we hear about how Christians are called to be "set apart". But lately, myself, as well as others, are realizing that being "set apart" holds a much deeper meaning than what we previously thought.

What does it mean to truly love our enemies? In the sermon on the mount, Jesus speaks about enemy love and he also speaks about retaliation back to back. He tells us that we shouldn't resist the evildoer and that we should love our enemies. We see several examples of this enemy love from the life of Jesus. One of the most profound examples (to me) is when Jesus is in the garden and the soldiers come to arrest him. Peter reacts by chopping one of the soldiers ear off. Jesus then picks up the soldiers ear and puts it back onto the soldier. Can you imagine this mans thoughts?!?! How do you arrest someone that just put your ear back onto your head?

[This is where things will get controversial]
Let's look at the story of the crucifixion. Jesus was hated by Caesar because, back then, the political rulers were seen as messiahs and son's of God. So naturally, when a baby was born that people were calling the messiah and son of God, there was tension. Eventually, it came down to a struggle of power. Jesus was living as a homeless man with a lifestyle that transcended the oppressive lifestyle of the empire. People begin to see that his way of life offered more (to everyone) than the empire's. As his popularity grew, Rome knew something needed to be done. This something (obviously) was death. Jesus was hung on a cross beside two criminals to die. The word used for these two men, back then, was "lestes". When this is translated it means "terrorist" or "insurrectionist". We see two acts of tremendous enemy love happen on this day. First, Jesus forgives one of the "terrorists" and tells him that today he will be with his father in heaven. Secondly, in possibly the greatest act of enemy love ever to be shown to us, Jesus, in his final breath's, begs for the forgiveness of those killing him. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Now lets step back to the words of the prophet Isaiah and see what he says about Jesus and the crucifixion. In Isaiah 53:7 it says, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before it's shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth".

The definition of Christian would be a lifestyle that is Christ-like. But Jesus was a homeless man that was nomadic (moved from place to place). Obviously we aren't all called to replicate the lifestyle of Jesus exactly (If you are homeless and checking your facebook, you have issues). The part we are called to, according to scripture, is taking up our cross and following him. What does this mean? Overcoming through suffering. This is what Jesus accomplished with the cross. Prior to the way many people see this historical event, it was very untriumphant. But here, Jesus showed that not even death can contain him. Martin Luther King Jr. really understood this when he said, "To our most bitter opponents we say: 'Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our houses and threaten our children and we will still love you. Beat us and leave us half dead, and we will still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.'"

Brothers and Sisters, there is no such thing as redemptive violence. It is impossible to love your enemies and kill them too. The way of the empire is oppressive. People are dying from poverty, people are dying from war, people are being enslaved everyday and our nations continue to draw lines in the sand dividing us even further from our brothers and sisters in other nations. I'm proclaiming that the life of Jesus is a very relevant one. We are commanded to love our enemies, not destroy them. To rely on war and military power to protect us is to call Jesus naive and unrealistic.

I am not celebrating the fourth of July because I realize that this holiday represents nothing but empire. I realize that I serve a God of peace and scandalous grace. Afterall, half of the bible is written by a converted terrorist (Paul). I respect the men and women who are fighting or have fought in our military, but this respect only furthers my beliefs of peace and non-violence. In 2005, 17 war veterans a day were committing suicide. Furthermore, every tragedy in our nation for the past several years that involved mass killings resulted in suicide. This is because we are created to love and be loved and when we begin to live outside of that, we lose purpose.

I am calling everyone to abandon hope in the empire and to come follow the ways of Jesus, who lived a lifestyle that was "set apart" from the nations. I am calling everyone to a lifestyle of suffering with those who are oppressed. If there are people in this world without food, may we fast until they they are fed. If there are people who are struggling financially, may we sell all that we know as wealth so that we may meet their needs (We see both of these examples in the early church of the book of Acts).

Finally, may we not only live this lifestyle on days such as the fourth of July, but may we live indifferently to the politics of this world forever. May we learn that being pro-life means more than wearing shirts proclaiming that abortion is murder. Life begins at conception, but it doesn't end at birth. May we continue to beat our swords into plowshares (or guns into gardening tools), and learn the peaceful way's of Jesus (Isaiah 2:4). May we refuse to pledge allegiance to a nation who has never exemplified Jesus but rather pledge allegiance to Jesus himself.

Long live the slaughtered lamb!

Don't celebrate the fourth of July!

Homosexuality and Christianity

I read an article today that upset me a little. I wanted to comment on it and so I did.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/not-another-word-on-gay-m_b_152282.html

For anyone that knows digg.com, this is where i found the article and as soon as i commented my comment was "buried" which means that the people online at the time hated everything about it. Surprisingly enough, the guy who eventually decided he liked what i said and "revived" my comment had previously stated some pretty negative things towards christianity in the posts above mine.

Here is my comment (Please go read the article to understand fully what I am saying here):

I want to apologize to the author of this article and to anyone else who feels the same way that he does towards christianity. I think that America has done some pretty horrible things with our religion. We are at a point where our religion has become more of a manipulation technique in the midst of politics rather than a way of life. Jesus taught ways of peace and love to all of humanity, not just those of a certain race, sexual preference, or nationality. The issue isn't whether or not being gay is wrong, the issue lies in the fact that christians are called to be lovers. I believe the author of this article as well as many other members of humanity have been extremely misinformed about what it means to follow Jesus and possibly very hurt. For this I apologize. Regardless of the way politics has sadly reversed our gospel, may it be known that Jesus Christ lived and died for the sake of everyone, everywhere.

Patriotism and Christianity

There are some things I have been dealing with recently and I feel like I have finally explored this issue enough to comment on it.

The issue(s) at hand is whether or not christians should be patriotic, whether patriotism has a place in the church, and the "unpatriotic" individual.

I have tried to take a very objective stance on this issue during my time of exploring it and I must say that I do not believe a did a very good job of that. Regardless, I will try to make this commentary as objective as possible.

I have been through my fair share of rebellious stages in life. Sometimes, I even feel like I do the exact opposite of what I see everyone else doing, just for the sake of being different. In discovering the obsession/torture that is politics near the end of my senior year in high school, I developed a pretty strong distaste for government and nationality. Then, like was stated earlier, it may have been just an attempt to be unlike everyone else. But over the years I have developed pretty good (in my opinion) reasons as to why I am unpatriotic and unhappy with government. I had some pretty nice ammunition for debates with people. I was ready for debate anywhere I went, desperate to spread my distrust of the government and nation. As of late, though, I have realized that being cynical does not change anyone nor does it help anyone. So I decided to explore the patriotism of Jesus and the things we can learn about being patriotic in the bible.

One of the biggest arguments that I heard during my debates with individuals on this subject was that Jesus was not, in fact, unpatriotic. As a matter of fact, Jesus never went and protested against wars, or rallied for renewable energy sources or plotted to overthrow the government. There is even a story in the bible about the Roman empire trying to pin Jesus for not paying taxes and they ask him if he is going to pay taxes with his money. In response to this Jesus asks them to look at the money and tell him whose face is on it. Of course they see Caesars face and then Jesus goes on to say let Caesar have what is rightfully his (Matthew 22:15-22). Last year I wrote a series of letters to the newspaper back home about how income taxes were unconstitutional. When I came across this story in the bible, I was a little stunned. I didn't know what to think at first. After fighting it for a while, I finally realized that these people I was debating were right, Jesus is not unpatriotic. He may not be the most patriotic individual, but he certainly was not unpatriotic.

Here, we arrive at the core of what I want to convey through this post. If you are casually reading this and not paying a whole lot of attention, please read these next words carefully and take them into consideration. Jesus was not against the empires, but the empires have always been against him. The thought on everyones mind now, of course, is America. I think that we can collectively agree that while we may be the "greatest nation in the world", we are still largely evil and corrupt. This is human nature. During the act of communion in churches, I have realized that we tend to largely discuss that the bread and wine (or juice) is symbolic of Jesus' suffering that took place for us. However, this story only begins to hold meaning when we see which side of this story we were on. We are the Romans. We are the reason Jesus suffered. And during his suffering he cried out for us "Father forgive them, they know not what they do". Jesus was murdered because his ideas posed a threat to the empire then, and this is no different today.

Every time I think of presidents, I struggle with the things that God says to Israel during their downfall. "You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, 'Give me a king and princes'? "(Hosea 13:9-10). God tries to warn us over and over again in the bible of the evil that empire brings, of the oppressive nature it has and always will have. I think that what I have come to know recently is that patriotism isn't bad, it's the idolization of patriotism that so many individuals fall into that skews our vision of God's kingdom. I urge every individual to carefully be aware of what it means to pledge allegiance to a nation. In America, a lot of the things that we do are good and honorable, however, still quite a few of those things are very against everything God teaches us. It has become apparent to me that we are, as a country, beginning to rewrite a lot of what God teaches because it doesn't fit into our agendas as the strongest country in the world. A nice example of this is something we can see in our wealth as a country. When Moses is leading the Israelites out of egypt and into the promised land, they begin to starve in the desert. During this time they pray to God for food. God then rains down manna from heaven for them to eat and he instructs them to only take "their daily bread". He says don't take more than you need to survive for one day basically. What we can see in this is that God wanted the israelites to rely on him to provide for them. Instead of doing this, the Israelites take more than enough (just in case they run out I suppose) and God then sends maggots to devour their bread that they took and as a result a ton of people die of starvation. We are at a place, as a nation, where it is possible that we need some maggots to come and show us that materialism is not the way of Jesus. It amazes me that things such as the "health and wealth gospel" even exist. This is proof enough that at least some christians are losing themselves in patriotism. Health and wealth is the american dream, not the gospel of Jesus.

It is my prayer that we begin to question what it means to be truly free. May we begin to reject the ideas that America will bring justice to the world, especially through force, and begin to rely solely on the only true king to redeem our broken world.

Hopefully my comments have been insightful. Please feel free to give your opinions in a comment.