My experiences have shown that Christian circles (or call them “communities” since throwing around that word like we understand what that means seems to be the in thing) have this tendency for conversation to think ourselves as great, and speak of heavenly things. As inherently good and necessary and exiting it is to shade our eyes with our hands and gaze up into the sky to watch what is happening (That which we can’t see happening. That which is beyond our comprehension), we first and foremost have got to drop our heads and realize who are we to even look up there? (One only hopes God is more touched and amused than irritated with our study of him and his ways.) All I mean to say is that I think we have to begin seeing ourselves as lowly and speak more and more of earthly things. By earthly things I mean the passions of the soul – the temptations we struggle with one a daily basis because in the end when all is said and done, this is what really matters.
Lately I’ve been wondering if the reason that we are tempted to focus on heavenly things is because we get to this point that we are no longer committing the “major” sins. Take sex for example. It’s like we become so comfortable knowing that we aren’t physically active that we become desensitized, unaware that the pool of non-physical sexual transgression that we once playfully waded in has since pulled us under, with the water now rushing into our lungs. It’s like we create some imaginary mental chasm between having casual sex, and thinking and being entertained by the very same thing as if they “aren’t a big deal.” It’s thoughts like these that the evil one loves, because unlike us, he never seems to forget that Jesus equates the thoughts of our hearts with the actual crimes, making anger, insult, and belittling tantamount to murder, and lust to adultery.
C.S. Lewis describes sin in terms of a slippery slope, emphasizing that the devil has figure out long ago that tragedies are far less effective than little sins that we pass without much a thought as no big deal. He’s so right. We have this tendency to dumb down sin. Like it’s naughty. But sin isn’t naughtiness, it’s tragedy. This idea isn’t supported by any moral base arguments; you can’t get or not get this. It just has to soak into one’s psyche.
Tonight I’m bummed and frustrated because I was with a group of committed guys that just weren’t thinking and passed off some “small” sins as anything but tragic. That said, I recognize we all do this daily and I’m probably more guilty than most, but tonight I just couldn’t see things as anything less than tragic. So I spoke out and said “this isn’t right.” Somehow I even managed to do this tricky little task in a totally un-abrasive way. What affect my words had, who knows. What I do know is that the responses of those who I later expressed my frustration with didn’t really seem to get me. I take that back, they understood my logic was good and that what was being said and done was not right, but I got this vibe that they thought I was taking things too far. Like I was forgetting to be graceful and being too judgmental (which is probably more or less an effect of our culture of tolerance).
But I wasn’t judging anyone. When God says that judgment is reserved for me alone, he’s talking about salvation. I didn’t come anywhere near to condemning anyone tonight. In fact, I firmly believe that every one of those guys will go on to do great things to further the gospel with their lives. No doubt about it. By saying I don’t think something that someone is doing isn’t right is not judging someone. If anything, it’s a form of grace.
It’s like we all want to love Jesus, but when someone goes as far as to strive for radical, un-compromising commitment as a thoughtful follower of Christ, we think they’re weird and begin to whisper the attractive message of the evil one to “chill out”. Just try and be a uncompromising, committed and thoughtful Christian, it’s terribly hard. And if you’re feeling especially daring, try and do it on a Christian college campus. Soon enough you’re likely to find yourself becoming rather unpopular.
Tonight I’m feeling some holy rage and it’s brought these dead bones of mine back to life. If only I could live with such passion every waking moment, fully embracing the beauty of such radical commitment in response to an all-consuming love for the One to whom we owe everything.
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