Light

"Let your light shine before people that they may see your good works and glorify God."

There's this guy I know who's devoted his whole life, every bit of his being, to building stuff for people. From houses to water wells to medical trailers, Kim goes around Texas and Northern Mexico with his F-250 and trailer just building. I've had the chance to go on a few trips with Kim to Mexico, and they were nothing short of amazing. I've done stuff with him that I never thought I'd ever be able to do - like putting shingles on roofs and installing water pipes underground. 

And the thing about the dude is, when you try to talk theology with him, he doesn't know much and he doesn't really care. But when it comes to building stuff for people, he's an ox. He doesn't stop. And because of it, people's lives are being dramatically changed by the dozens. 

He's got so much stuff going on that churches are jumping on his bandwagon to find stuff to do. He's taking groups of twenty and thirty people around so they can do mission work. 

On one of these trips I went on, I overheard a conversation between two of the church people. One of the guys asked the other guy, "You know Kim's not a Christian right?" Immediately after hearing this, I wanted to choke the guy because in this Christian's opinion, everything Kim did hinged on whether he believed the right things. Yet, people's lives were being changed by the light that Kim was shining.

In my opinion, there's not enough people like Kim around - people who care less about getting other people to believe certain things and more about loving people in a way that has the divine written all over it.

And that's where I want to go today. 

"Let your light shine before people so they may see your good works and glorify God."

In a Christianity that has splintered into over 40,000 different denominations, there should be plenty reason to see why the whole beliefs thing isn't working. These days, there are churches within blocks of each other, but most of the time they're blind to each others existence. They each have their own agendas, their own philosophies, their own programs. But why has Christianity splintered into so many directions? 

Because at some point in time, people decided that what they believed was more important than what they did.

I believe there's a reason why Jesus didn't say, . . . so they may see your good words . . .

People can't see words. People aren't nearly as affected by being told they need to do [blank] in order to get [blank], as they are watching someone cut a homeless man's hair or watching a church officiate a marriage between two gay people. 

Yet, here we are 2,000 years later, and around every corner is a different church, with a different catchy slogan, with a different philosophy. All words. Did words ever really get people to change? 

Did Martin Luther King, Jr. start a revolution by talking alot or did he get his hands dirty and do things that blew people away, pissed people off, and essentially got him killed?

Ever since I met Kim, I thought that if I was Jewish I would've picked him as my rabbi. He talks very little, and does very much. Yet, he's not going around worrying about who's a Christian and who's not, who believes in Jesus and who doesn't. He's doing what he does based on the simple fact that he cares about people. 

"Let your light shine before people so they may see your good works and glorify the God they believe in."

Lets take it a step further than this.

What if the light I shine before others isn't an attempt to get them to believe in the God I believe in, but rather pushes them to explore their own connections with the divine? 

This is where I stand today. As much doubt as I have about the "authority" of the scriptures, and with all the research I've done on the authorization of the scriptures, I've learned that I just don't know. I don't have enough faith in my own understanding to even care about trying to sway people any direction. If there is a direction I try to get people to go in, it's trying to get them to wake up to the present reality in their own lives, the presence of Ultimate Reality, the glimpses of the divine in their own journeys. 

Frankly, I don't care if people are Christians or not. I believe that Christianity has revealed herself to be a flawed, broken system among many flawed and broken systems. She's exposed herself to be just as brittle, just as corrupt, just as prejudiced as any other man-made religious system. Yet, she's still moving, still progressing, and still changing people's lives for the better. The Christian Church is still opening peoples' minds and hearts to the beauty of God. 

Just recently, the American Presbyterian Church redefined her position on marriage as "between two persons." In an era where the Church seems to be taking way more steps back than forward, this is a prime example of what it looks like for not just an individual, but an institution to shine its light before people. Because of this historical landmark in the faith tradition, there's no telling how many lives are gonna be changed, how many people are going to wake up to the Ultimate Reality of God being right here, right now, and working for and with humanity instead of the still-common-philosophy that God's against humanity or certain populations of humanity. 

Recently, I posted the following question on a large atheist group on Facebook: What's one thing every Christian can do to help restore the relationship between atheism and Christianity? And the most common answer had to do with being open-minded to other styles of thinking. 

We've come to a time when culture is evolving (in a good way) faster than the Church is. In many cases, the Church still thinks that clinging on to thousand year old letters and poems is the only way to God, yet culture is moving forward in ways that are incredible. Non-profit organizations and the waking conscious of a hurting world and hurting people is gaining steam by the minute, and I wonder if the Church is ever gonna catch up. Only time will tell. 

"Let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and awaken to the beauty of God's presence in their own lives."