The Clear Danger of Spotless Christianity

I was sitting in the window seat of Starbucks when I saw him. People were walking on the downtown sidewalk, busy and preoccupied. They didn’t see him because he was small and insignificant. I couldn’t see the look in his eyes, but I was sure he was out for blood, his kind always are. He was right outside of the window, tapping on it, trying to make contact without arousing suspicion. He kept tapping the window, confused by his inability to connect, over and over, furiously, but nobody paid attention to him. I watched him until he finally left, following someone on the sidewalk, I knew there would be blood, with his kind there always is.

He was a mosquito. Sorry, I know that must seem so anticlimactic, but it makes a clear illustration. I had been sitting there in that Starbucks on a hot summer day, the elements and the street noise, the pollutants and the mosquitos were all held at bay by a clear, thin sheet of glass. The world was there, I could see it, but I was “safe” from it, sitting in my window seat thinking about Jesus. The thing that separated me from the world was invisible, like the kingdom of God. I started looking at the glass, not focusing through it, but focusing on it.

That was what Jesus came to do, to help man stop looking through the kingdom and start seeing it, right in front of their faces. He had contempt for the hierarchy that covered the kingdom in blue robes and gold shutters. That’s what we do. We cover the kingdom with fancy covers and scrub it squeaky clean on the inside, maybe that’s why people call clergy “men of the cloth.”

There is a movement abroad, though, to take the covers off of the kingdom, to make the kingdom clear to everyone, but I have to warn you about the danger of uncovering the kingdom and leaving it clean.

When I was in the fifth grade I lived in Odessa, Texas. That summer I took a road trip with the local Boy’s Club. We drove about two and a half hours north to Lubbock, Texas to go to a boxing match. It was great! Everyone was excited and we met the boxing champion, Sugar Ray Leonard. He even signed the back of my Boy’s Club member card.

We left there and on the way home we stopped in a little town called Seagraves at a Dairy Queen. I jumped out of the bus, racing the director to get inside. Neither of us saw the glass enclosure, it was so clean it was invisible. I never slowed down, not even a slight pause, and I hit the glass at full force. Just before I reached it I sensed it was there and threw my hands out. Both of my hands busted through the glass. I remember looking up, confused and scared. I yanked my hands back instinctively and eight feet of clean jagged shards of glass rained down on my face. The noise was incredible, the blood was terrifying, people were screaming. I had fallen backward and was covered in glass and blood. It was all over my face and both of my arms and hands were lacerated. I was in a state of shock. Both of my lips are scarred and I have a scar on my right forearm and just above my left elbow. They are there, permanently reminding me of the danger of invisible enclosures.

Jesus came proclaiming a kingdom but He didn’t allow it to be so clinical, so sterile and clean that people could look right through it. No, he smeared it with mud (literally in the blind man’s case) and blotched it with prostitutes and tax collectors and dead people and Romans and demoniacs. You can see glass, even clear glass, but only when it’s dirty. He wants the world to be able to see the kingdom, but the church has been so busy trying to rub out the spots that it’s still invisible. We seem to think that we have to represent the church as perfect, spotless with no messy smudges or smears. The Pharisees of Jesus day spent most of their time washing the window and never seeing the lost and broken humanity walking by and being pursued by the enemy. We’re still employed as Holy Window Washers, doing the same thing. We pay each other with knowing looks and airs of self righteousness as the holiness challenged common man walks by outside of the window. (That’s politically correct speak for low-down and dirty, good for nothing sinner.)

The danger is when the world tries to come to God, they come running, not slowing down, not even a slight pause and hit it at full force. They are wounded when it comes crashing down on them because they think everything is going to be perfect. Here in America they think they are going to get a fancy car and a big house and a perfect marriage and all of their blemishes and imperfections are going to clear up, and they don’t.

Their life keeps grinding on and they still get diagnosed with cancer and have to live with aids. We tell them that God will multiply their offering ten times and they give ten bucks and then go spend $90 on a new shirt and tie and get their electricity cut off. I’ve watched them walk around dazed at church, ran into them at Wal-Mart and seen the scars on their faces and arms and hands. They’re in a state of shock and it’s our fault. We’re trying to make the church transparent, but we can’t keep pretending everything is perfect once you give your life to God. We are promised abundant life, not abundant perfection. Life is life. Sometimes it’s incredibly good, sometimes it’s incredibly bad, sometimes it’s incredibly routine, but it’s life. The beauty isn’t perfection, it’s the blend of the invisible kingdom and flawed humanity.

I was sharing this with my friend, Lowery Stallings, and he made a great point. When the world comes crashing in and they’re wounded and lying on the floor covered in blood and glass, we don’t reach out to them, pick them up and hold them, or render aid. We stand there in our self righteousness, with our arms crossed or our hand on our hip and index finger in their face and berate them for breaking the window! “Hey, stupid, you must not have repented right or you would be able to see the invisible kingdom. Let me teach you some doctrine.”

That’s it, really. It’s kind of like the old story of the emperor’s clothes. In his story the swindlers convince the emperor that only the smart people can see the invisible cloth, in ours the swindlers say that only the “holy” people or the ones that give more in the offering or have the right denominational affiliation can see the invisible kingdom. YOU CAN’T SEE SOMETHING THAT’S INVISIBLE! That’s what invisible means. It doesn’t matter how smart or holy or righteous or indoctrinated you are.

On the sixth day of creation, God took dust and covered man’s invisible soul blended with His Spirit. When man sinned he was kicked out of the garden and Adam and Eve left the garden, dust without Spirit. Jesus came to bring the invisible kingdom back to the dust and on the day of Pentecost God finally reunited Spirit with dust. Religion is pretending that you can combine Living Water with dust and not get dirty.

Of course, God knows that in our self-righteousness, we have an aversion to the dirty. He knows that we use the kingdom as our insulator instead of making it a refuge for the hurting, so He has enacted plan A.2 (there’s no plan B, right?) You know what plan A.2 is?

Signs. Yup, signs.

You hang a big fluorescent green sign in the middle of a clean window and even though you still can’t see the glass, you know it must be there. There are some incredible moves of God in churches and sometimes it’s not because of the ministry staff, but in spite of it. When we rub out the blemishes and run off the dirty, God will post a sign on the kingdom for the sake of the people walking by. We thought it was all about us, huh? Tongues and miraculous signs, all of these things are done for the unbeliever to have something to believe in, because they can’t see the kingdom in us.

The kingdom of God will declare itself when the prostitute’s life is transformed and the demoniac is delivered and the drug addict is cleansed. Jesus said that His works declared His identity. He prayed that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, what He did among humanity, the healing and the serving, the restitution and reconciliation, these things were his proof of the kingdom, they were signs so we knew where the kingdom was. He came to bring the human element into the eternal kingdom and the eternal kingdom into the human element.

On a good day, when the kingdom is in the right position, the Light will reflect so brilliantly that you won’t be able to see past it. The only thing you’ll see, of course, is the reflection of the Son.

Squint, but don’t close your eyes, you might miss something.

The Benefit of the Doubt

It was really a question of motives, but it seemed more than that. Some friends of mine were not sure about what my motives were in a particular area. The situation probably dragged on further than it should have without communication between us. The important questions were left to assumption, and assumption, unfortunately, rarely ever visits long without doubt.

In the course of our conversations I was given the “benefit of the doubt” over three different things. When I found that out I didn’t feel like I had really benefited much. It was the slight chance that my motive might be right that kept me from being pronounced wrong. In a court proceeding you can only pronounce someone guilty without a shadow of a doubt, otherwise they are declared innocent or a mistrial is declared and the case must be heard again. I’m glad there was a glimmer of hope there, however faint, and we’re working everything out, but I wonder how many times we do the same thing to God.

We don’t see God or understand His motive sometimes, but we give Him the “benefit of the doubt.”

“I hope God has my best intentions in mind. I don’t like what I’m going through right now, but I doubt He would do anything to harm me, even though it seems like He hates me.”

We don’t focus on His goodness or His past record or promises, because we can only see through our own tainted perceptions. I’m suspect to failure and selfishness or I have been hurt by people or circumstances so I project them on Him and instead of receiving the “benefit of faith,” I shortchange myself by handing out the “benefit of doubt.”

It seems to me that the “benefit of the doubt” is a concept that works only in the vacuum created by a lack of relationship. The jurors are impartial because they lack a relationship with the defendant. Relationship nullifies the power of distance and therefore disqualifies the juror. If I give God the “benefit of the doubt” I have to do it at a distance, minus relationship. This leads me to a deeper understanding of the significance of faith in my life. Faith is not the absence of knowledge or sight. Faith is the “confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.” (dictionary.com)

When I give God the “benefit of the doubt” I change Him from capital “G” God to lower case “g” god, in my life because I declare Him unworthy of trust, therefore unacceptable as God. It doesn’t change Him, He’s immutable (or unchangeable) but it changes how capable I am of receiving from Him. Doubt is only dispelled by faith which only comes through communication. That’s why Paul wrote to the church in Rome and explained that faith only comes by “hearing the word of God.”

Communication, not blind acceptance, is the basis for faith. I was in a hotel lobby several years ago when I overheard a teenage girl asking her grandmother questions about sin and God and the Bible. The grandmother was obviously not knowledgeable about the Bible and gave several pat answers until out of frustration she said, “Why can’t you just take it by faith.” Of course, she really meant “blind acceptance” not “faith.” The girl was willing to, even trying to, accept something by faith, but hadn’t been given anything substantial to believe in.

Blind acceptance leads to “situational faith.” I’ll believe as long as the situation is favorable, because the lack of relationship keeps me in the dark when it comes to motives. So I operate in doubt, not in faith, and though I never pronounce God as guilty, I never really see Him as innocent or righteous or trustworthy, either, because I don’t know Him well enough to see beyond the situation.

The “benefit of faith” is like walking with a lamp on a pole I’m carrying out in front of me, understanding the heart and motive enough to see beyond the current situation, good or bad, and being able to keep moving. The “benefit of the doubt” is more like a stationary lamp post that casts light on a fixed and very limited area. I feel safe only when I hug the lamp post and stay away from the dark edges. So, really, I am not liberated by the light as much as I am afraid of the dark. Remember, doubt always shows up with assumptions, but fear is the “benefit” of doubt, and the opposite of faith, and without faith, it is impossible to please God.