There is a scene in the movie MEN IN BLACK where Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones visit a coin locker in a train station. When they open the locker we discover an entire tiny alien civilization living inside! I don’t know how these thousands of little aliens got inside this locker but it is obvious they have never left and the inside of the locker is all they know. The moment Will and Tommy open the locker, the extraterrestrial community goes wild, chanting their names and worshiping them as their king. After all, their only vantage point is from the inside of that locker; their entire worldview is limited to this incredibly limited perspective. They have no idea what exists outside the locker and to show them or even try to explain the rest of planet Earth to them would probably cause their little alien brains to explode. I feel like one of those tiny aliens worshipping Will Smith.
And I am now realizing that he is all I need. All I really need is Will Smith. I don’t need to know everything God expects and wants and has planned and trying to know everything would be impossible to comprehend. But God gave me Will Smith and if I keep my eyes on him… I think that is enough of a glimpse for me to start with. I can’t wrap my mind around eternity. I can’t begin to understand or figure out the King of the Universe. At times I barely understand the Bible. But I can follow someone. That simplifies everything.
What if THAT was our Christian agenda: Believe Jesus really is God and follow His every move. What if the somewhat limited and short anecdotes of his life that we DO HAVE from thousands of years ago are enough to get a peak into what and why we were created? Maybe trying to figure out the universe in order to know God and please him is just way to monstrous for a reason and following Jesus is really the most strategic course of action? I know the Christian way is to embrace Jesus ethically and philosophically, but what if we are over spiritualizing his instructions, behaviors, and parables? What if he meant it when he told his followers that we who don’t visit people in prison, or clothe the needy, or spend time with sick, or feed hungry people, we have never really known God and will never know God into eternity? Matt. 25:31-46
Part of my circle of friends have been talking a lot about what is “The Church” and what should The Church look like and blah blah blah blah…. What if we just look at what we CAN see… it may only look like a giant WILL SMITH, but isn’t that enough?
I want to surround myself with people who are content with simply following what Jesus did: Healing, loving, & serving. Being a friend to the lonely and outcast. Valuing relationships where you get nothing out of it other than friendship. Addressing injustice and poverty. Making fun of religious people (just kidding!) I want to spend my time doing things like him; mimicking him, borderline imitating him. Fake it til you make it, right?
I want to posture myself in this way not only because that is what Jesus DID, but that is where Jesus IS! Jesus said when you do take care of the sick, or feed the hungry, or visit the imprisoned, or help keep someone warm… you are not doing it FOR him or just on behalf of him, but we are doing it TO HIM! That is how we MEET him. That is where HE IS. He lives in that place. I’m realizing that I can study the Bible six ways til Sunday, but if I don’t spend time with the lonely, marginalized, impoverished, and abandoned… I become spiritually lonely and spiritually impoverished because that is where Jesus is waiting for me. It is so easy to miss Him.
I am tired of people talking about how to “do church” and Father forgive me for being one of those people. But my ears can’t take anymore talk about methodologies, systems, or philosophies. And please, just take my word when I say that this is not coming from any place of personal bitterness or self-righteousness. Guess you’ll just have to believe me ☺
But for the love of God (literally) will someone put their money in a hat with me and come do laundry for some single moms at the Laundromat in Highland Park? Or baby-sit their kids with me so they can go on a date? Or plan a BBQ with me at the little park on the corner of YORK and FIGUEROIA where all the homeless hang out every single day. Or play some shuffleboard with the retired army veterans at the Community Senior Center. Ill be the first person to admit that I don’t know what having a “RELATIONSHIP with God” means. Sometimes I feel like I am sitting on God the Father’s lap with my arms around his neck and sometimes I don’t even know if he exists or if He is a million miles away in outer space. I know that because of Jesus I am now cleaned up and forgiven, but lately, if I want to visit Him, He has been leaving breadcrumbs leading from my “quiet time” into the dirtiest and most uncomfortable places of my community. And it would really help if I had a team of people (we can call it “church” if you want, I think Jesus would) who would make these issues a priority and do it with me. Because trying to do it on my own just never works out. Never.
Thank you God for giving me WILL SMITH, even if I can only see a short timeline and few dozen stories of his life. And thank you for giving me the local church so we can unite as your body, hands, and feet.
An unconventional approach to an eternal question. When do we get to stop talking about the church and transition to actually being the church?! Love your heart, Justice, keep up your creative and passionate thinking. Don’t ever loose that!
I know we’ve talked about you attending my alma mater, Fuller Seminary, one day and becoming the next big theological expert/master/overlord in our church one day :p But that’s not really what I got out of the experience…what I really learned is the way people TRY to comprehend God and how they PERCEIVE their relationship with Him.
For myself, before I got saved, I saw God from the point of view of a goth dude, so He was like the Force from Star Wars, except that I had a tendency to prefer the “Dark Side.” He was something or someone I could existentially control and use. Then, when I got saved, He became like Gandalf or Aslan, someone who saved the world and wanted to teach me how. Finally, one day I attended a conference with this pastor who imparted to me the “Father’s Heart,” and it changed something… Suddenly, I felt like I was in love with God, and I wanted to pursue Him, except that I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of loving a “Him” and not a “her”. That is until I noticed something very curious. I could sense how others were feeling, as if their feelings were totally my own…and I knew those feelings weren’t mine…and I felt drawn to do something for them, because even if I didn’t know them, I just knew, I was IN LOVE with them. There was Something in me that I knew was definitely not mine, because loving someone I don’t even know was not me at all, at least not in the way I perceived myself. God was teaching me how to love Him, and in a very personal and tangible way.
Yet, when you’re in love, how do you really comprehend the one that you’re in love with?? I don’t think you can, at least not completely. You just know how to get to that place deep, deep down inside whenever you experience that amazing connection with that person. Then your heart opens and you go into cosmic displacement, and you start saying and doing the most wonderful things
You feel like going through machine gun fire or walking on 500 miles of broken glass with bare feet or, at least, opening the door for that special object of your affection!! Isn’t that how we get to know someone we love…to share their heart…So to know God is, perhaps, to share His Heart even with the lowest of the low, because even the darkest, most evil creatures, were created with the capacity to love.
So I want to call you a heretic, but I can’t. Great thoughts. The “what is church”/”how to do church” questions are starting to get old I agree. It makes it about ‘what is the gathering time’ and not about ‘what is it to simply follow Christ’.
I didn’t grow up in the church and I remember being 15 and completely living in the dark. Then here comes Brita and tells me about this great big God. I wanted nothing more then to follow him! It was as if I was a tiny alien and someone opened up the locker and Will Smith- God (haha… talk about heretic!) himself was standing there starring at me. I would have done anything and gone anywhere he told me to because he was just that cool. That big!
How soon we forget that new fervor. That new passion. We start to get all religious and forget about the great big God who showed us the light and asked us to follow him. I told God I’d follow him anywhere He asked me to go yet it’s taken me years to anywhere. Now why’s that?
Our God didn’t ask people to come sit in a church with him, put on a performance with him, etc… He walked the roads.. healing, teaching, feeding, helping and befriending. Isn’t it time we do the same?
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! Always enjoy them.
Lace
Sure I’ll help you bbq or give out quarters or whatever, calm down. Let me know your available dates. Btw, you should capitalize the pronoun he when referring to God, he did create the universe it’s the least one can do.
Justice, Much love bro. It has been a long time, and I am encouraged by how God is shaping you and you are allowing Him to move in your life. It is a tremendous encouragement. I appreciate your blog and your passion. I understand your desire to serve. It is, after all, part of who God created us to be. I think it is also wise to remember that we need to be rooted in the Word, and spending time in prayer as well as fellowship with those in the body of Christ. Jesus is a perfect example, and while His time healing, loving, and serving is undeniable we must also remember how He often went away to solitary places by Himself to spend time with the Father. We have been created like a circuit. If all we do is feed on the Word we will become fat and lazy. If all we do is serve we will get burned out. We must complete the circuit – input from the Father by spending time with Jesus and being led and empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve where the Father would have us serve in order to bring Him glory. I love your passion for Jesus and your heart for Him. I miss you bro and look forward to seeing you soon. By the way, congratulations for your part in empowered21. I would love to hear about you, your family, and how you got connected to empowered21. Shalom!