I, Church

"It seems to me that God's richest blessing would be your own financial ruin.
That way you'd know what it means to rely on God alone."
-Matt Chandler-

On my mind lately has been this idea of God's blessing in our lives. The $100-haircut preacher reminds me that God wants me to have more money. . . .if only I'd send in a pledge offering. The best selling books convince me that if I just wait 30 days I'll be given what God has been wanting to give me all along. . . .he was just waiting for me to ask.


I wonder about our fluffy lives in America. We rattle off huge dollar amounts for holiday gifts, while an image of God starves to death. The man himself told us we'd always have the poor with us, but I'm sure he didn't mean that as justification.

Our plague is a nasty vile called sin. And don't get me wrong, sin isn't something you do and it's not something that can be stifled by following a set of rules. It's our disease. We live with it and we live in it. We are racked by how it eats at our consciences. Our thoughts are consumed by it. In some ways we are it. But our theology tells us not to use such words. Often we think we can pack it away and suffocate it by hiding it in a closet. But it eventually oozes out. We try to wash it off by entering a so-called sacred space and dancing for a time. But somewhere in our heads, the disease is just resting. We've tried filling our lives and our time with activities to keep our minds off our plague. But we've grown bored with ourselves. No activity has ever fully pleased, and no amount of pleasure has done anything but mask, for a time, our lonely hearts. And this leads us to our current scenario. Our place in history. . .

Our disease has allowed us to grow callused to a world outside our sterilized view of creation. Our Jesus-words are packaged like a big mac. Ready to be consumed and digested for a quick boost, but never life implicating. We dance on Sunday mornings and forget the steps during the week. This is how we can look upon the dying and feel no sorrow.


What would our lives look like if we began to realize God has not packaged himself into an hour on Sunday. What if we looked at each other and saw a person worth the very death of God? What if we got rid of the dance altogether? What would we become if we became the church?