The Church is a thorn in the world’s side.

Okay – now that its written and out there, let me explain what I mean.

I like to think of the Church as an alien race, or a immigrant citizenry.  We have no green cards, no real rights in this world (though we fight for the rights of others).  We live, eat, sleep, breath, vote, and more through the lens of living “in the world, but not of it.”

That’s the idea – but too often we fall off one side of the horse or the other.  For instance, we may become so embedded in our culture that we lose our heavenly citizenship – forget our allegiances, and start taking on the values of Wal-Mart, Hollywood, or an earthly nation.  Or we may swing the other direction, holding so tightly to our heavenly home-world that we disconnect and judge the world… in which we are still very much entangled.  Its easy to get so hopeful about heaven that we miss our point on earth. “We become so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good.”

These are only two ways to fall off the horse…there are many…many more.  But how do we stay on?  I think this metaphor is helpful –

The Church is a wedge into our culture.  A thorn in its side.  We are embedded into a culture without necessarily being overtly visible.  We are very much in the world, but we are foreign, alien, and a nuisance to the prevailing power structures and systems of brokenness.

The Church as a thorn may critique the values of greed, pride, selfishness, hoarding of resources, the destroying and devaluing of human life, bigotry, and more.

We may as a thorn introduce other things that irritate the skin of the “world.”  Things like peace, reconciliation, justice, abundant life, family, healing, hope. This alternative life is announced as the “Gospel” (Good News) and like a thorn begins to infect parts of the local body – spreading its infection like a virus throughout the system.  This is, of course, an offense to the world, and something it cannot understand. (John 1:10)

And by the way, a thorn only goes deeper into the darkness when pressure is applied.  It “incarnates” itself by being immersed (baptized) with flesh (taking after its Lord, Jesus).

So!

Plunge deeply into the world as a wedge – prying open the doors leaving the world in the dark.  See yourself and specifically your church as a part of a thorn – charging ever deeper into the flesh of the world, irritating and paralyzing the dying corpse, and introducing a virus that leads to unending life!

60 Minutes did a piece recently interviewing Patriarch Bartholomew, the official leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, a body of about 300 Million people – the approximate population of the United States.

You’d think that with that kind of following they’d be in good company, but no – they are in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople).  This city in Turkey has been the dividing line between East and West – Muslim and Christian.  Istanbul stands at 99% Muslim, with only about 4,000 Greek Orthodox dotting the city landscape.  While 60 Minutes was taping the interview, Bartholomew was informed another attempt had been made on his life.

How do you love your neighbor in such a circumstance?

In fact, this is one instance when we can literally ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” because there is a record of this exact situation.  Surrounded by people furious at his very existence, Jesus used the opportunity not to lay down and die, but to be crucified on a hill for all the world to see.  This wasn’t self-righteousness, it was displaying what love looks like in public.

Some might say that Christianity always has the most trouble truly communicating it’s raison d’être in an environment where it is generally accepted or revered as the cultural norm.  Christianity was born into a political and social circumstance where exile, humiliation and persecution where expected by all followers of Jesus.  That’s why in Matthew 5:11 when Jesus said “When (not IF) you are persecuted you are blessed by God.”  He supposes that each person who chooses to live the alternative lifestyle of Jesus Christ will by their very nature be targets of mockery and destruction by others.  And what do you do when (not ‘if’) it happens?  Two things: remember that prophets who came before you were also persecuted, and then turn the other cheek.

But what about in America?

Even in an age when statistically few people are actively engaging a Christian faith, most see America as a “Christian Nation” if only in name.  Even still, you can bet that Christians living out the Christ life will have it confirmed to them when they find themselves being persecuted.  Live different, and there will always be dissenters trying to rope you back into the mainstream.  Our political system might keep you from getting executed (by the Government anyway,) but keep showing your love – and you will be attacked.  It will take you to jail, make you misunderstood and maligned by friends, and harassed by cynics, hypocrites and nay-sayers. You will be given threats at every level to stop shaking up the status-quo.  You will be underfunded and overexposed.

And if you’re reading this today and can’t think of a time when you were brought down to your knees for your beliefs – maybe its because that’s all they were — beliefs.  Put some of your radical beliefs into action.  Loving your enemies, being a peace-maker, mourning with those who mourn…it will quickly make you see just how surrounded you are by people who don’t understand you – but nevertheless keep at it – they are desperately in need of Love.

Yesterday Katrina and I went to the Rogers Park house church that has been meeting for the last few months at Charmer’s Cafe coffee house, a funky little corner shop that holds down one of the corners of the artsy community on Chicago’s far north side.

One of the guys that normally meets with us was already there.  He was reading Richard Foster’s The Challenge of the Disciplined Life, one of my favorite books I’ve never read.  In fact, I may decide not to read it until I find a copy of the book under its old title, Money, Sex and Power. Much better title don’t you think?  Our friend is on his way to pursuing Christ and the Christian life after years of slowly neglecting God.  Only a few weeks ago, he had begun to read Simply Christian by N.T. Wright.  I’m super thankful and excited for the spiritual progress he’s made, and for the tangible changes I can see in his life.  It’s another proof of Christ’s power.  He, like all of us, are trying to discover how to follow Jesus in Chicago, 2009.

Anyway, we got our drinks and sat down together outside under a canopy and enjoyed the sunshine.  We chatted and caught up on life, then we dove into our text for the week.  Each week we’ll read through a section of Scripture, usually two or three times, then we’ll have another person try to retell the story in his or her own words.  Afterwords, we’ll focus on listening to God, trying to discern what we’ll do in response to what we’ve read and discussed.  Learning to incorporate obedience to God and his Word is an essential value of our house church network.

So we read Luke 4: 18-30 this week.  The passage describes Jesus, after returning from his desert experience, is seated in the synagogue in his home town.  As part of the gathering, he stands up and reads from Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Right at about this point in the text,  an overweight man with stained clothes and greasy hair approaches us and asks us if he can have some money to get something to eat.  I’ve learned that this is a fairly common thing in Chicago, and I’ve come to a place where I make as few contingency plans regarding helping or not helping beggars  as I can.  It keeps me listening to the Spirit.  We all stopped reading and focused on him.  His speech was slurred and hard to understand.  We took up a collection to get him some food inside the coffee shop and invited him to sit down with us for the rest of our gathering.

The rest of the story takes Jesus from a place of great favor with the crowds to almost being thrown off the cliff.

We each went around the circle and mentioned what stood out to us in the passage.  Each of us had something meaningful and insightful to add to the discussion.  One of the things that stood out for me was the turning point; when Jesus made it clear that the passage in Isaiah and the focus of Jesus’ ministry was not focused on rescuing the Jews from their oppressors, but rather in pursuit of being a light to the world.

But it was Chris who turned the conversation sideways.  He didn’t wax eloquent on the meaning of the Scripture, or divulge deep secrets, he simply said how thankful he was for being able to eat today, and how he planned to give one of his blankets to someone else who needed one – like Jesus would.  He smiled and squinted his eyes into the sun, with veggie hummus on the corner of his lips.  With nothing more to say, I was stunned at how softened my heart was to Chris, a mentally handicapped homeless man who seemed to have the simplest and yet most tangible, obedient response to the love of Christ.  I found myself as part of the angry crowd that dismissed Christ’s pursuit of the poor and the oppressed as being something related to me, a Gentile.  Certainly with my skills, wit, training, heritage and more I am the focus of Christ’s mission.  But then someone like Chris shows up – with a gentle spirit and a willing heart, and turns my paradigm and self-centered spirituality upside down.

With Chris sitting right there, we talked openly about how God saw it fit to introduce us to Chris, a homeless, poor man, who is exactly the person Isaiah writes about and Christ proclaims Good News to.

As I left the gathering, I concluded: If we want to hear the Good News of Christ, we have to listen to Chris.