Follow Him Already!

 

I have a confession.  It is not much of one and if you know me. I will soften it a bit for this platform.  Here it is…I love Jesus, but I hate how his children treat each other. 

Those reading this blog on this site will likely claim a Christian faith.  And if you do not, you are more than welcome to keep reading.  I do not believe being honest about our foibles will keep others from believing in Jesus, if anything I believe it points more to Jesus than to his followers. 

If you claim the faith, think back to a time when someone in the church hurt you.  What happened? Were you able to address it? What was the response? What was the resolution? Were your feelings respected or dismissed? How did you feel in the process? Was an honest and sincere apology given? Was forgiveness granted or possible? Maybe no one hurt you, and your struggle was a result of life’s circumstances.  How would you answer the previous questions now?

Life is not possible without trauma and trauma comes in all shapes, sizes, resolutions, and lasting implications.  Trauma and hurt are not specific to the church.  The church should be the safest place to process trauma, or it can be an additional hurdle to overcome.  In my experience, I have found the church to be more often a hurdle to overcome. 

We study trauma - Lamentations, the Psalms, Job, the prophets.  The Bible chronicles the lost paradise and the effects of sin on this world.  Only too often when we share how sin is affecting our story in the present, we are given a verse to read and hold and sent on our way.  When we speak of faith having works we often think of physical tasks.  James 2:16, ‘If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good Is it?’  Yes, what good is it, to offer a platitude in the face of a need? Give that person water, clothing, food.  Likewise, what good is it to tell one suffering to be encouraged without being willing to enter into that suffering with them; like Jesus did? 

So many followers of Jesus refuse to follow in his way.  To follow him is to be like him, to imitate him.   Jesus recalls Isaiah 29:13 in Matthew 15:8-9 when he speaks to the Pharisees and reminds them of Isaiah’s prophesy, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; they teach as doctrine the precepts of men.”

Instead of the doctrine of suffering, we are taught the precept of denial.  Even Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:17 when he speaks of “light and momentary afflictions”, does not do so in a dismissive tone.  Rather, he uses hyperbole to highlight the glory of what is to come.  I do not picture him writing with a smile, I picture him writing with tears, a sacrifice of obedience. 

As a church, as his children, we must be willing to replace the either/or with the both/and.  We must be willing to enter into the suffering of another and push past the urge to preserve ourselves.  We must be willing to speak the truth of the glory of the resurrection and all it means for our benefit in the already and not yet, while at the same time acknowledging the existence of our very real feelings about the situation.  Jesus did, and so we must if we are to be like him.