The Scandal of Grace
I was walking through the Albany Public Library recently and came across a book that's been catching my eye for awhile now. I had seen The Irresistable Revolution before in a Christian book store my friend hannah works at, but never had the guts or money to take it home, but this time it got to me.
The sub-title to the book is "living as an ordinary radical", red flags right? The interesting thing is however, that the author Shane Claiborne is simply following the words of Jesus, simply reminding his readers "what it's all about". Fortunatly (or should i put an UN in front of it?) that has never been safe.
Shane reminds us we're suppose to be feeding, visting and clothing the poor sick and imprisoned, that we are suppose to love our enemies (even Iraqis, death row inmates and democrats-or republicans- whoever that may be HA!), to turn the other cheek, et cetera. Shane writes about everything from Politics VS The Kingdom and the chruch in the west to the poor, community, tithe, and War. All with gentle yet hard words for white middle class christain boys like me, Jesus's words. And the funny thing is, none of this is new, it's all what i've heard since I was a child, it's all the gospel.
In a way this follows the line of thinking I wrote about a couple posts back, about this new christiandom. Yet Shane reminds the reader that this is all ancient stuff. Thankfully he is very careful not to slap labels (radical, evangelical, protestant etc.) and so draw lines, he's just talking about Jesus.
I would suggest the book to everyone. I'm even tempted to buy a bunch and loan them out to everyone I know. But I will warn you, it's not a safe book. Just like in The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe, He is not a safe Lion, or in the silver chair -i believe it is- when the girl longs to drink from the river but is afraid of Aslan, and asks him to promise not to eat her, Boy i love his response! "I have eaten whole armies, whole kingdoms! I make no promises".
Claiborne points out that you won't be killed for giving clothes to the salvation army, or giving to charaties, or sponsoring a child in uganda, or supporting the persecuted chruch. You won't be killed for writing checks, BUT for being poor, for stooping to thier level, for invinting the marginalized and hungry into your home, just as the church was ment to, we will be persecuted.
I mean isn't that what we are suppose to be doing? In Matthew 25 Jesus didn't say "for I was naked and you gave to the united way". Yes, they do good work, but what about showing love to our brothers and sisters? It just seems way too safe for us who have been plainly told to share and love and heal Prostitues and tax collectors and homeless bums and crack heads.
Remember, it wasn't for the religious that jesus came, but for the sick, the sick need a physician. Remember these words? "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit."?
As you can read this book has really shaken me. And as I look at my life and my community and the people I know I see where such better things could happen, where we could meet Jesus, but won't.
Shane Claiborne opens his book with this quote:
Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. But the one who has love courage and wisdom moves the world.
How Scandalous are the words of God! God give us mercy!
If you get the chance check out Claiborne's community here. He's really got something here folks.
Thankyou and much love all, please post about this one, say something! at least say if you agree or not with what I'm trying to get across.
Dave
2 comments:
You really have me intrigued about that book, I think I might by it. I agree with you 100%, its sad how we Christians, as a whole, have gotten to the place where when we see someone actually DOING what Jesus taught, it's considered too radical. I definitely had alot of conviction reading that...
My mom and I were listening to the Basement Tapes this morning about hospitality. (It is interesting that hospitality is mentioned in the context of the qualifications for an elder.)We are to be hospitable, but we are also not to eat with those who claim to be Christians but are living in sin with unrepenting hearts. We are to eat with those who are pagans. Practically we can do this in our homes and be efficient - like you mentioned of helping the poor. Reading books, not that this is one of them, that think about the big picture (the forest if you will) are discouraging instead of inspiring because of the lack of practicality. How do we help the widows and orphans? By providing their needs, and just being with them and sharing our abundance with then. We shouldn’t need programs and schedules to do these things. We should just do them.
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