Co-opting the Name of Christ

The clerk in Kentucky is still trying to avoid doing her job while arguing that religion means never having to sacrifice or compromise in any way. The war-on-Christmas crowd is still passing around that story about a red coffee cup lacking snowflakes. Those who believe in an eye-for-an-eye are cheering as bombs fall in the Middle East in response to another horrific terrorist attack. Many Christians are still ignoring the calls for justice coming from the streets of Chicago, Minneapolis, and cities all across the land.

Don’t you want to throw up your hands sometimes? Or maybe just throw up?

Then there’s the refugee crisis and those haunting images of starving, homeless, hopeless children — followed by those infuriating sound bites from politicians insisting we should ignore them because the children might be dangerous. Or maybe we should go ahead and care for a very few of them, but only if they’re Christian because, after all, only Christians deserve compassion.

What in God’s name is going on here? Or, to put it a different way: What isn’t going on here in God’s name?

Love. Sacrificial love. That’s what’s missing. It’s been purposely and pointedly edited out of the love-your-neighbor equation.

Given the timing, it’s pretty ironic. This past weekend, many Christian churches reflected on readings about kings and kingdoms. Even thought there aren’t many kings around these days, there are a lot of people who act like kings and would like to turn the world into their personal kingdom. The dynamic is the same – they cling to power, prestige, privilege, wealth, and violence to build, defend, and extend their thrones. They step all over the common people, ignoring the pain and misery that they cause.

And it’s not confined to Wall Street and Washington and capitals around the world. Many self-described religious folks turn their beliefs into thrones and insist others must confess allegiance or suffer consequences. They demand that they themselves should never be inconvenienced in any way. Instead, someone else who believes differently should have to sacrifice.

Missing from all of this is the sacrificial love that should be at the center of it all. Jesus liked to call it the kingdom of God – a place that’s very different from all that other stuff.

What kind of place is it?

A place where serving is more important than being served. Where the response to hatred is love. Where violence is met not with more violence, but with a firm and unflinching commitment to try new ways to make peace.

A place where we have the audacity to bring light into darkness and hope into the world’s despair. A place where we care for one another without reservation or question about whether others deserve our love.

A place where the needy are the priority. Where we share all that we have and all that we are. Where judgment is replaced by understanding. Where differences are seen as a blessing instead of a barrier. Where we’re willing to risk vulnerability to help others heal and grow.

A place where everyone is respected and treated as an equally beautiful and beloved child of the same unconditionally loving God.

A dream? Not at all. That alternative kingdom is already here. It’s not something that’s going to happen after we die or at some cataclysmic point in the future. As John Dominic Crossan puts it so beautifully: “God’s kingdom is here, but only insofar as you accept it, enter it, live it and thereby establish it.”

Well, here’s what we don’t do: argue over coffee cups and holiday greetings when so many people need a kind word or something to drink; turn our backs on the needy and the stranger; insist that we’ll only help those who are just like us.

Remember the good Samaritan? He took a great risk to stop on a dangerous stretch of the road and help a total stranger. Sacrificial love involves putting ourselves on the line and stepping way out of our comfort zones. It means allowing ourselves to be greatly inconvenienced. It means adapting and compromising and changing how we go about things in order to love others.

Sacrificial love is our calling. It’s the only thing that can redeem us and our world. The only way we can break the cycle of hatred and fear and self-importance and closed-mindedness and conflict – the great sins in our world. It involves the courage to bleed for others in an ongoing, divine and audacious act of redemption. And not only to bleed, but to bleed joyfully.