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!

A lot of news and talk has been floating around lately about the world of food. It’s no wonder – I guess we humans have a little addiction to the stuff! But these days there’s a lot more to talk about – the unbridled growth of the organic food movement, locavores and the the 100-mile diet, I’ve seen choices at restaurants increase more and more to include vegetarian and vegan, and this morning I even read about “rescued” food (trash treasures, or dumpster diving, whatever suits ya).

In every country I’ve traveled to, the uniqueness of the culture seems to reveal itself most around issues of the bathroom and the dinner table. People eat differently in Japan than they do in Argentina! (Eat with your hands above the table in Argentina (prove you don’t have a switchblade) and keep your sticks out of your food when you’re not eating it (or your hosts will think you consider their food as delicious as a funeral).

I’ve been reading Jesus for President, (seeing as how this is an election year and I want to research all my options,) here’s a quote:

“How do Christians eat? Christians eat with the poor folks, with the outcast, the marginalized, and the excluded – all who were never invited to anyone else’s party. Ours is a different kind of party. It’s more like a divine banquet than another political program. Society’s misfits are our people, our ‘constituency.’” (pg.241)

And some words from Jesus’ political manifesto:

Luke 14: “When you throw a banquet do not invite your friends…invite the poor.” (Jesus)

Mark 2: “But when some of the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with people like that, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

Jesus was a Pooravore.

He surrounded himself with the overlooked and the outcast, the misfits and the marginalized. He gave his rapt attention to those who had been ignored all day as they begged in the streets. They were his posse, his “supper club.”

Today Kat and I were walking through our neighborhood’s market streets with some great friends of ours from Chicago’s south side. I had been thinking and talking with God about some of this all morning. And there as we were walking past the Ten Thousand Villages store (a store about fair trade and justice for the poor) sat an elderly man with no teeth asking for money (the irony was hard to get past). Turns out his name is Bill (name changed to protect the innocent) and he lives in a nursing home not far from where we were.

Bill, like others at the home, is allowed $30 a month from the home (they keep the rest of his social security check, plus any money he makes at a job). He was out of cash and hungry for some hot dogs. I had a $1.25 on me so it we hightailed it down to the corner market and got some juicy ones. The store clerk even mircowaved ‘em for us.

I noticed that everyone in the store and everyone on the sidewalk was from the nursing home, which doubled as a mental institution. He and I sat under the shade of a tree in a park across the street from where he lives his life. He was just as interested in me as I was in him. I got the feeling he was lonely – his family rarely comes to visit him, though they all live in the city.

As I sat there talking with him about coffee crystals and cigarettes, it dawned on me that Jesus made it very clear what kind of diet Christians were to be on. A steady diet of conversation with the oppressed, for that is where their Jesus is. Though those hot dogs left a “mechanically separated” taste in my mouth, it was the best food I’d eat all day long.

Become a Pooravore, and watch your life change.

I am back to reading the life of the Messiah Jesus. It is so full of rich, political overtones. I am so thankful to be reading this text now in an election year, as I’m considering the major shifts this country and world are undergoing. I am ready to expand my imagination on who Jesus was in his day, and who he is in this day. He was called “Lord” when Cesar was “Lord,” but today in this country might Jesus be known as the “Commander in Chief”? He certainly seems to cause chaos and fears of revolution even on the cusp of his birth. Herod the Great, the Roman’s puppet King for the area, was troubled, as was the whole city of Jerusalem, when the wise men of Persia came to Herod to see and worship his newest son and next king of the Jews. The only problem was, Herod had not just had a child; which confused and troubled everyone present. I can imagine Herod thinking, “Who is this so-called King? Where is he? If he is allowed to live, he will be a threat to me and my dynasty.”

Joseph and Mary smuggle Jesus out of town just before the infanticide of a terrified Herod. After crossing bandit and desert country, they arrive as refugees in Egypt, and stay there until Herod’s rule is past. The writer Matthew eloquently connects this with the fulfilled prophecy, “Out of Egypt, I will call my son.”

“Come out,” is used all over the Bible as a rallying cry to Israelites who draw back on the imagery of the Exodus. In Jesus’ life and times in Egypt, and his leaving, he is participating in the largest mythos of the Israelite people. Only Jesus turns their common narrative on its head. Now the oppressive regime is not in Egypt, but in the Holy Land of Bethlehem. The very city of David of which Jesus is a descendant and rightful heir to the throne, is now calling for his blood. Israel, co-opted with the Roman Empire under Herod, has become the evil Egypt in the fullest sense. Jesus’ Promised Land is in exile – living in Egypt as a refugee. Jesus’ return to Israel several years later brings him back as a special ops agent of God. Still a young child, Jesus returns to the flock of Israel as the Anointed One, prepared to reinterpret their history as the people of God on his own terms, and prepared to address the “Egypt” of Rome under which all Israelites were afflicted. He brought a message that was not “spiritualized” “privatized” or “apolitical.”

Jesus was not interested in violently overthrowing the pervasive Roman regime as were so many contemporary zealots and revolutionaries of his day. Nor was he going to, like the Essenes, retreat to the hinterlands and set up a new society completely “off the grid.” His plan was to be subordinate to and then creatively subvert the laws, and paradigms of Roman authority, Jewish Priestly authority, and even his own diverse followers. He came proclaiming another Kingdom that was intriguing, much like Martin Luther King’s dream, it was so real and yet seemed so far from the current reality. It would take trust in this crazy Jesus to follow him out of the Matrix and into a new world where there was “enough for everyone’s need by not enough for everyone’s greed.”

Jesus was a revolutionary. He brought a message that spoke to the political issues of the day, and offered an alternative. To some it seemed foolish, to many it seemed dangerous. But to a few it seemed like the only chance at a life of complete peace from all the tumult of high gas prices, outsourced slavery, broken families, a war with no end, abortion, and the crisis of immigration.

The events surrounding his birth set him on a course to become an “enemy of the state” before he could even walk. His life, and his death was a statement against the path of empires and corporations – the bottom line and the bloodshed of desperately grabbing at power and fighting to hold on to it. Jesus’ message wasn’t, and isn’t, a message relegated to the “self-help” or “religion” section of the bookstore. It impacts every aspect of our lives.