so i was thinking about this in the car today... how when i was younger i was taught a certain way about christianity, religion, and how to 'share my faith'... i was given this great illustration about how all people are 'diseased' and i alone (or perhaps some of my other christian friends, too) have this 'antedote' that i can give the diseased people...
the disease, of course, was sin...
the effect of the disease, of course, was hell...
and my antedote, of course, was jesus and a ticket to heaven...
so, i have been thinking alot lately (like for the past year or so) about the self-centered gospel that the american church (gross generalization, i know...) has embraced and what that has caused in the western church/missionary movement of late... you know, consumer-driven churches, big 'shows', celebrity pastors, anything to 'keep' people or 'market' to people...
and you know, everything is about the personal relationship with god, which really means becoming a more moral person who perhaps stops associating with certain things in 'the world'... except to convert others with the antedote...
well, anchor point is going through the old testament and we are just now in the part of genesis where god talks to abraham and says some stuff like, 'i'm making this pact with you that i will involve you in my mission of healing the world (tikkun olam) and blessing others'... abraham immediately acts on this in the story of the 3 messenger/angel/whatevers where he lives generously, a theme which jesus revisits several times in all four gospels...
okay, stop for a minute... do you know the word 'elect'?... like as in 'doctrine of the elect'?... alot comes from peter's works i believe... you know, that god 'chose' certain people?... remember?... predestination?...
when i was in high school and college, since i understood saved to be 'going to heaven', i understood 'the elect' as those god allowed into heaven, the afterlife consumation of god's love... i think most evangelicals will embrace this, though many of us always wondered if it was predestination or foreknowledge... doesnt matter for this conversation...
okay, my point: back to abraham, he was called 'the elect' of god, like god had chosen him... but you know what for?... not heaven ever after or some moral superiority or even a place of standing with god that would help him convert others to his religion... it was for service...
service...
tikkun olam - healing the world... redeeming humanity to a more whole place, you know?...
and jesus was the utmost embodiment of this as people spat on him and cursed him (specifically the religous people mind you) as he brought life to the outcast, to the prostitute, to the broken, to the poor... are you hearing this?!?... am i hearing this?...
my god, i am beginning to see...
the kindgom of god is like this: a woman went out to the beach to pick up trash and rake the sand into its proper place... and she found a man on the beach sitting there, looking at himself in the mirror, fixing his hair, preoccupied... the woman said to the man, 'would you like to help me pick the trash up off this beach and put things into their proper place?... the stones in the ocean, the kelp and seaweed... where do they go?...'
the man responds by getting up and answering, the kelp can be used as a fertilizer for gardens and plants since they are very rich in nutrients...' the woman learns from the man, not threatened by his enlightening understandings of the world, the ocean, and how to help heal the place... and on and on...
okay, i need to think about this now... thoughts?... anyone want to build on this parable or create their own around this notion?...
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