I said love disrupts. We don’t get to keep our same same each time we start a relationship. Things change. Some old dies and something new is born out of that an “us”. We like to say God is love. If love disrupts and god is love, ∴ God disrupts.
God shakes us. Being in a relationship with God interferes with our prior same-same. Our dominant paradigm gets attacked. We find that we can’t be who we were before starting this relationship with Him. He wants change. The bargain is simple. A relationship with God that insists on change or we have to break up with him. I’m not talking about the easy ones, the seven deadly sins or the four horsemen that destroy relationships: abuse, abandonment, addiction, or adultery. Those are obvious. Hurts, habits and hangups are often why we reach out to God. We want relief from the angst and pain brought on by our sin.
We want out of the foxhole into daylight where there is a minimum of disruption of our happy same-same we had before. We hope He can make it hurt less without also calling us into account and insisting we live differently. Where we have a hurt, habit or hangup that keeps us from God it’s pretty easy to admit our powerlessness, earnestly believe that God exists, consciously choose to commit ourselves to Him, openly confess our faults, and submit to the changes He asks of us [Celebrate Recovery].
That’s sort of kindergarten Christianity. We have to at least do that. I’m talking about the rut we get into. Ten thousand Sundays in the same pew, the same seat in that pew, across generations. Two mission trips a year to a third world country to build something or drop resources into a community. A few hours a year haranguing the public about the end times and the need to come to Cheeeezus right now. Maybe an occasional quarter given to that guy in your neighborhood who has a sign in his hand, has had that sign and stood on that corner for years. Faithfully writing a check for each special tithe announced through the years. The easy retail Christianity that we fall into. I’m also talking about our unchallenged biases and core beliefs. That guy who begs in our neighborhood and our habit of muttering, “he just wants money for drugs” under our breath. Or that the church is corrupt and our tithes just go to support an oppressive and corrupt hierarchy. Even little stuff like always sitting in the back third of the sanctuary without ever really considering why. Or the bickering that can erupt when the pastor changes the communion ceremony to use intinction.
God disrupts. If we are sincere in our faith it doesn’t stop at the baseline, obvious places in our lives where we need change. It continues to infect all of our lives and demand more of us as we grow in our faith. The revolution isn’t in Rome or Washington D.C or any other seat of power. It is within us. The demand for more of us continues, escalates, leaving us both infinitely blessed and infinitely further remaining for us to walk on our pilgrimage. He asks us to approach that beggar in our neighborhood and befriend him. He asks us to attend church at the local AME congregation and meet the team of volunteers who do the food pantry. He asks us to learn about the gifts of the ghetto instead of the needs. He challenges us to consider why we get so animated over the practice of intinction. He shows us neighbors who are makers. He introduces us to a family that gardens and only shops for essentials they can’t make on their own. He shakes our carefully conceived world and makes it something else, an “us” with God.