"But I thought..."
"Well, you thought wrong."
It's fun to say, rough to hear. But what if it goes something like this?
"But I was taught..."
"Well, you were taught wrong."
It's amazing how you can be taught something for so many years and then find out that you were taught wrong. This recently happened to me with two simple words: the world. Now if you are like me and you've grown up at all around the Church, hearing or reading the world makes you remember phrases like, "Be in the world but not of the world" or "Don't be like the world." And images of the world involve people like whores, drug dealers, thiefs, thugs, gays, pedophiles, and people like that. You know...religious outsiders. The people that aren't in the Church.
It's what I was taught; it's what I assumed to be true. The world consisted of the people outside the church. Then I discovered something. Jesus talks about the world in a different light entirely. For me, it all came about when I was doing my reading in preparation for our church's Bible study. I was reading John 15:18-27. The whole passage is about this concept of the world hating Jesus' disciples because of him.
Okay. No real problem so far. Everything's lining up. The religious outsiders are going to hate us because of Jesus. Then I got to this little statement in verse 25:
But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.
Did you catch that like I did? Their law? Whose law was it? It sure wasn't the whores and thiefs and the other religious outsiders. It was the Jews. It was the religious insiders, the most spiritual people of the culture. And then it "clicked." The outsiders never hated Jesus. It was the insiders who hated Jesus. It made sense. I've never been hated by the outsiders for living like Jesus. But there have been many times when I have been hated by the insiders for living like Jesus. (I should clarify here that there have been plently of times when I have been hated by the outsiders...but never bacause of living like Jesus. Outsiders hate me only when I act like I'm one of the insiders.)
This raises some pretty serious questions for the follower of Jesus, the person trying to live like Jesus. Like the familiar statement, "If the world (i.e. outsiders has a problem with you then you must be doing something right." According to how Jesus defines the world, that statement is wrong. Should it be more like, "If the Church has a problem with you then you must be doing something right?"
I think we have to be careful as we rethink this. Jesus doesn't say, "When the world hates you..." He says, "If the world hates you..." I think the goal is not angering churches. The goal is living like Jesus. Then we let the chips fall where they may.
But this idea of the world being the relgious insiders rather than the religious outsiders really has the potential to change things - the way we think and the way we live. I think the world has more to do with opposition to the Kingdom of God than it does a people group.
But that's not what I was taught!
Well, I was taught wrong...
2 comments:
Ive always associated the world, with what I can see touch, taste, feel and smell.... Basically the world is what I experience.
But do I not experience God also?
I associate God and the World as one and the same.
It is this Unity between the One and the Many that has been a core of my buddhist beliefs from the beginning.
In Zen, it is the Zendos and Zen Master that create the greatest obsticle for enlightenment. In fact the greates Masters have always questioned the autority of the Zendo and have left, to live the life of a common man. (ask doc about the story of Ikkyu.) Thats why so many Zen masters are every day people.
They experience God, through experiencing the World. This means that not only is a Zendo holy, but a sewer, a hut, a tea ceromony, even cleaning the house and daily living. This is why daily life plays such a Huge significance in Zen.
I love this topic, I could go on and on about this!!!
I agree with you again Jonathan, I am guilty of also having the attitude in my past, "The Outsiders" are against us and "The Insiders" are the church and they are on the "Right Side".I have definetly lost that attitude realizing that God loves ALL PEOPLE not just the insiders.We have lost the big picture if we are to reject the outsiders and just stand our ground with our prideful righteousness and criticize the outsiders because of their faults and the lack of love from the church(us).The church that I see is the church where nobody is excluded(whores,murderers,pedophiles,theives,racists,addicts,idol worshipers,athiests,pharasiees,Christians,budhists,muslums,voodooists,etc.,etc.,etc. and the list goes on and on) to sum it up, people like you and me and everyone we lay eyes on.This is the Church I believe Jesus was hoping for and that is the church I believe we need to strive for.I see it all the time, fellow Christians hating their brothers and sisters because they are not inline with the law of the church.Where did we get the authority to take control of Gods judgement on the people God still loves.The kingdom of God will never saturate this planet until we follow the 2 greatest commandments Jesus has called us to follow "Love your God with all your heart, and Love your neighbor as yourself" The question is, are we willing to follow these under ANY circumstance or are we going to pick and choose whom we are to love and invite into God's kindom ?
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