What happens when the herd is moving south, and a lone bison is seeking to go north?
What happens when the school is swimming downstream, and a few fish are going upstream?
What happens when the culture is moving in one direction and Scripture points us in the opposite direction?
Collisions.
I’ve had several similar conversations lately:
· A teenager told me that his classmates in his new school are mocking him for carrying a Bible and praying before meals.
· A housewife said she’s being excluded from the kinds of activities she’s always done with neighborhood friends since she stopped delighting in gossip and just got quiet as they discussed other people.
· After going to rehab and getting more serious about his faith, another friend told me that his buddies stopped inviting him to play golf and fish together.
· Finally, one woman said her professional mobility has been capped at work because the executives above her on the corporate ladder think her ethics and sense of morality are not flexible enough to get things done.
If just one of these were a friend of yours, what would you say to him/her?
Before answering, consider this:
· In the opening lines of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), Jesus encouraged us to be totally dependent on God for spiritual survival and eternal life. This crashes into the worldly goal of self-sufficiency.
· Jesus promises comfort to those who would recognize and mourn their own sin and the sin of the world. This puts us on a collision course with those celebrating their sin and interpreting our mourning as judgement.
· Jesus promises that the meek will inherit the earth. The world tends to interpret “meekness” as “weakness” and not only disrespects it but seeks to prey upon it.
· Jesus says that only those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. Though the world longs first and foremost for what it can see and touch.
· Jesus calls us to put compassion into action through acts of mercy. Yet, those acts shed light on those who have chosen to overlook the needs around them. The resulting embarrassment often prompts less than favorable responses.
· Jesus’ call to be single-mindedly focused on Him is in sharp contrast to a me-first, self-centered culture.
· In following Jesus’ call to be a true peacemaker, we often expose those who have given peace public lip-service while privately waging a cold war.
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”
John 15:18-20
“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,”
2 Timothy 3:12
“so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.”
1 Thessalonians 3:3-4
Whether we call them persecutions or collisions, those seeking to follow Jesus in this world are going to encounter them.
The absence of these collisions serves as an indicator that there are no distinctions between one’s life and the lives of unbelievers, or between the church and the world.
If there are no distinctions between the church and the world, there is no church. Perhaps there is an institution, a civic organization, or even a collection of traditions, but there are no people of God seeking to follow Jesus without some level of collisions with a world living in sharp contrast to the One we follow.
So, what did I say to each of those sharing grievances with me?
I said, “Well done. Thank you for following Jesus when it seems easier to go with the flow. Be kind and love those with whom you collide. At some point, many who collide with you will realize their path is misguided. Then they will need to know someone on a better path. I pray you’re still on that path and that they will see you or recognize what they have seen in you in someone else. Then perhaps Jesus may reach them and save them through the testimony of your life. ‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.’”