The Following is an excerpt from “Tales from the Secret Annex” written by Anne Frank. The quote inspired this post that I wrote a few days ago.

“I wonder if any of the people sitting in warm, comfortable homes have any idea what it must be like to be a beggar. Have any of those “good, dear people” ever asked themselves about the lives of poor people or children around them? All right, everyone gives a beggar a few coppers now and then. But it is usually pushed hurriedly into his hands, and the door is closed with a bang. And what is more, the generous donor usually shudders at having to touch such a dirty hand. Is it true, or isn’t it? And then people are surprised that beggars become so rude. Wouldn’t anyone, who was treated more like a beast than a human being?

It is bad, very bad indeed, that in a country which claims to have good social laws and a high standard of culture people should treat each other in this way. Most of the well-to-do people regard a beggar as someone to be despised, dirty and uncared for, rude and uncivilized. But have any of them ever asked themselves how these poor wretches have become like this? Just compare your own children with these poor children. Whatever is the difference, really? Your children are clean and tidy, the others dirty and uncared for. Is that all? Yes, that’s really the only difference. But if a poor beggar’s child were to receive good clothes and learn nice manners, then there wouldn’t be any difference at all.

We are all born alike; they were helpless and innocent too. Everyone breathes the same air, a great many people believe in the same God! And yet, the difference can be so immeasurably great, because so many people have never realized where the difference really lies. Because if they had realized it, they would have discovered that there really wasn’t any difference at all. Everyone is born the same, everyone has to die, and nothing remains of their worldly glory. Riches, power and fame last only for a few years! Why do people cling so desperately to these transitory things? Why can’t people who have more than they need for themselves give that surplus to their fellow citizens? Why should some people have such a hard time during their few years on this earth? But above all, let the gifts be given kindly and not just flung in their faces; everyone has the right to a friendly word! Why should one be nicer to a rich woman than to a poor one? Has anyone sorted out the difference in character between the two? The true greatness of a person does not lie in riches or power, but in character and goodness. Everyone is human, everyone has his faults and shortcomings, but everyone is born with a great deal that is good in him. And if one were to begin by encouraging the good, instead of smothering it, by giving poor people the feeling that they are human beings too, one would not even need money or possessions to do this.

Everything begins with the little things. For instance, don’t only stand up in a tram for the rich mothers; no, remember the poor ones too. Say you are sorry if you step on a poor person’s toes as you would for someone rich. People will always follow a good example; be the one to set the good example. Then it won’t be long before others follow. More and more people will become friendly and generous, until finally poor people will not be looked down upon any more.

Oh, if only we were that far already, that our country and then Europe and finally the whole world would realize that people were really kindly disposed toward one another, that they are all equal and everything else is just transitory!

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment; we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straight away! Just as with so many things, most people seek justice in quite another quarter; they grumble because they receive so little of it themselves. Open your eyes. First make sure that you are always fair yourself! Give of yourself, give as much as you can! And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! If everyone were to do this and would not be as mean with a kindly word, then there would be much more justice and love in the world. Give and you shall receive, much more than you would have ever thought possible. Give, give again and again, don’t lose courage, keep it up and go on giving! No one has ever become poor from giving! If you do this, then in a few generations no one will need to pity the beggar children any more, because they will not exist!

There is plenty of room for everyone in the world, enough money, riches and beauty for all to share! God has made enough for everyone! Let us all begin then by sharing it fairly.”

“When I respect the image of God in others, I protect the image of God in me”
-Rob Bell-

I’m really struggling with what it means to be with the poor. I grew up never really thinking about it. There were poor people and that sucked but I cared about where I was. As I grew in my faith and my friends and environment started to change I noticed a trend of it being cool to love the poor. Poor people was where it was at. We started to focus on the many verses where Jesus talked and admired the poor. We started to realize how close the poor people were to Jesus’ message of the good news. It became a hot topic. We talked about it, ran conferences about it and eventually I found myself living among the poorer neighborhoods of Sarnia. The question that still lingers is why? Sure we know what. For some reason our society and faith can always tell us what we need to do. So we know that we should be with the poor. So now I’m starting to wonder and understand why.

What do poor people got that the wealthy folk don’t? Well I’m sure we could all list a bunch of great spiritual answers to that like simplicity, the Sabbath, community and they are all important. But I feel like anyone with money can attain all these same things. It’s easier for poor people maybe to get them, but wealthy people aren’t absent of them.

I think the secret lies in that there is no secret. Poor people aren’t better than rich people. Poor people don’t have a secret access to the Kingdom that rich people can’t get to. That is what is so surprising though. We are always looking for the right kind of people to be around. There is no special person that has a better chance than anyone else. Some people say that if you don’t have poor friends well then you’re not following Jesus. I just can’t buy it.

I think what Jesus was doing was undermining the system that said that those without money were less human than those with money. He wasn’t creating new classes that said the poor are the best and powerful and the rich are the outcasts. He created a system that said there was no powerful anymore besides God, there was no rich or poor or male or female. He did it with money, health and power. The point was never to take the people at the bottom and make them rich, powerful and healthy later on so that they get their turn to have all the perks. The point was to say that no matter where you find yourself, with money or without it, with power or health or without it, you are still valuable and you are still human and you deserve to be treated the same as everyone else and God still loves you.

It sucks to say, but I don’t think that moving downtown to where the poor people are at is going to make you any more of a Christian or any closer to following Jesus. It’s not where you are and who you are with, but how you treat and love those people wherever you are. We tend to pedestalize people who are doing either what we wish we had the guts to do or whatever our bubble says is cool and holy. It sucks because we are falling into the same traps that we hated and pulled away from. Instead of going to bible studies every week, it’s moving near the poor. Instead of going to church every Sunday it’s getting a bus pass to save the enviroment. Instead of buying only Christian music it’s not shopping at Wal Mart. We’ve created another list of righteous and unrighteous things to do and we judge people on whether they do them or not.

I’m tired of jumping on one band wagon after another. Judging people by where they shop, live or how they spend their money. I think it’s time that we learned to treat and love humans as humans no matter what class, race or gender. Rachel and I are not living in this ‘poor neighborhood’ because there is something spectacular about this place. We’re not living here because we want to look cool for moving downtown. We are not living here because God told us to or there is something more spiritual about it. We are living here because it didn’t matter to us where we lived. We are living here because people are people in the rich areas, nice areas or poor areas and this house was a good deal.

Below is my rough transcript for what I shared at the Cultivate Gathering this weekend. This a long one to read, but hopefully it gets you thinking. I wanted to come at it from something that I was currently trying to understand and grasp a hold of as opposed to something that I give the impression that I’ve figured it out; and because of that its probably more broken apart than it should be. If you were at Cultivate this probably says a lot more than I do by talking.

Easter Sunday was a day of celebration for us. We left Friday morning in a downer; with the bad taste in our mouths that we were the ones that crucified our God. It wasn’t a happy ending. In contrast, Sunday we thought we’d bring more of a celebration to our gathering. We told everyone to bring their instruments. Drums, guitars, bass, more drums, instruments that have no name and keyboards were all part of the band on Sunday. So you can imagine what it sounded like. All these musicians in one room following the chords which we put up on the overhead PowerPoint, the sound was horrible. Nothing was on beat, let alone in tune, you couldn’t really hear any of the good musicians, and it was a blur of chords that didn’t really go together.

It is this Sunday that I want to talk about. There was something about this Sunday which put me on a journey of discovering beauty in places that are usually offensive.

Let’s contrast this Sunday with a regular worship service. Worship services nowadays are pretty awesome. At the bigger churches we have CD quality musicians and sound guys putting on a seamless performance while everyone lifts up their praise to God. The lights are just right, the PowerPoint slides are transitioning perfect and every song flows into another. Most of the other churches are just wannabe’s of these churches. They play Hillsongs as if they won’t ever be putting out another CD again, they try and get the perfect sounding mix, after all its worship to our creator right? We better do it with excellence. In fact, even the suggestion of a Sunday like we had would almost be blasphemous. Some churches pay their musicians because they require such high standards of music coming from the stage. Why would we ever take the leadership away from our trained worship leaders and offer it out to the crowd? To do anything less than excellence for many churches is wrong and sacrilegious and there is a list of other reasons that people make up for the need of concert sounding worship music and experiences.

In many ways I think that we on Easter Sunday made a spectacle out of the entire praise and worship culture that has hit Christianity with quite a force over the last few years. We took what was sacred to some (perfect music, perfect atmosphere) and we crapped all over it. We said the music is going to suck, the atmosphere is going to be annoying and it is still going to be beautiful. And it was.

Let me give you another example. How many of you have seen Little Miss Sunshine (Spoiler Ahead)? I want to show you a clip from the movie, but let me set it up for you first. The entire movie is set around this young girl who gets into a Little Miss Sunshine competition. Basically it’s a competition where girls that are 6 dress up like 18 year old strippers and put on fake to win the competition. Throughout the movie this little girl is practicing her routine with her grandpa who taught it to her. No one knows what the routine is except her Grandpa who is basically her only source of self confidence in the movie who dies before she ever performs it. Her gay, suicidal uncle is the guy who gets up and claps first. Her overachiever, motivational speaker (not a very good one) dad is the one who starts dancing with her, the brother who refuses to speak for over 6 months is the younger guy and the mom is a trying to make ends meet sweet lady who wants her daughter to be happy. Those are the characters, and it is absolutely beautiful how they all come together.
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In the end, her entire recital was almost a mockery of the whole competition. Yet, there is something beautiful about this mockery. Her family is reunited through it. She is debunking something that objectifies these little girls and has for as long as anyone can remember made little girls feel insecure. As her family gets up on stage they are saying with her that she is beautiful because of who she is and not because they judge her a certain way. The other competitors, the judges and the organizers were disgusted by who she was and what she was doing, yet the movie was absolutely beautiful and said more to our culture than most preachers do in a year about what true beauty is. Why is something so offensive to one person so beautiful to the next?

Let me give you another example. It’s found in John 2. Jesus is at a wedding. They run out of wine and so Jesus’ mother comes up to him and tells him to do something. Jesus says fine and goes and does what his mother says. So he tells the servants at the wedding to go and grab six stone water jars, the same kind of jars that are used in ceremonial washing totaling between 120 and 180 gallons (8-12 kegs). He tells them to fill them up and take some and bring it to the master of the banquet. I’m not sure what Jesus was trying to pull here. But he takes what is most precious to the Jews, obedience to their rules, because it was their job to cleanse themselves with this water before times of worship, in which the wedding would be considered one. So here is Jesus taking an important ceremony of Jewish Culture and their rules, taking all that water that should be used for spiritual cleansing and turning it into wine. We have enough people now that would be upset if Jesus turned our mini shot glasses of grape juice into alcohol, so imagine 12 kegs.

If you’ve read Walter Wink’s book The Power’s that Be, he explains culturally the three stories of turning the other cheek, carrying the pack the extra mile and if someone wants your coat give them your undergarment too. These stories are loaded with undertones that eventually put the one being slapped twice, the one carrying the pack and the one getting naked in a position where they are making a spectacle out of the oppressor. The stories are fascinating; maybe I’ll post in more detail about them soon, if anyone is interested. Basically though Jesus is telling these people who are being oppressed to make a spectacle out of their oppressor; to put them in a position where their foolishness is exposed. Or what about Jesus healing on the Sabbath? The Pharisees would get so low that they actually got upset that Jesus was healing someone on the Sabbath. If that didn’t look ridiculous, I don’t know what would.

And finally there is the ultimate spectacle; the crucifixion. Jesus, the perfect, innocent man who came to heal and save all mankind was brutalized, beaten and killed. The Passion was uncomfortable and awkward. It’s supposed to be. It was never supposed to happen. But God let humankind get to its most ridiculous state and ridiculous it was and really in many ways communicated a lot about humanity.
So with all these examples, I’m just left thinking. What is the role of a spectacle in our lives? Is it a valid form of communication? It seems to work in our culture and in cultures before us. Look at Stephen Colbert for instance. His entire show is him over exaggerating culture’s weaknesses to a point where it’s made into a spectacle and you can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous it is. When someone challenges the Bible he gets all upset and starts challenging them by telling them that of course “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.” And he will keep saying it over and over again until the other person gives up. He fights so hard government, religion, and other things that culture loves and always goes too far and in doing so makes a spectacle of what he was fighting for and revealing all sorts of truth about it in the midst. There are statistics now that say that just as many people get their news from Stephen Colbert and John Stewart as the main news channels. So maybe there is something to this spectacle thing? Maybe cultures throughout time respond to spectacles made out of ridiculousness. Is part of our calling to living in the Kingdom and this culture to make a spectacle out of religion and culture in hopes to actually help people see the Kingdom?

If it is; this demands creativity. What would it look like to make a spectacle out of capitalism? Or to make a spectacle out of materialism? Or to make a spectacle out of religion? I’m not saying do things out of spite, anger or even retaliation. I think there is an art in confronting with a spectacle that we as Christians need to learn. Spectacles communicate something to culture that regular conversations don’t. I think we need to uncover this practice of Jesus and not be afraid to make spectacles of ideals and standards that the church and culture holds over our heads. What this looks like I have no idea. How to do it with love, I think will be a challenge, but I think its part of our calling. I think its natural for the Kingdom to make spectacles of all other kingdoms. Not in a sense to make fun of it like Stephen Colbert maybe does but in a sense that actually living as part of this paradoxical Kingdom makes anything else seem ridiculous.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2:13-15

Last night I couldn’t sleep and having to leave at 5am for the Free Methodist Class that I’m sitting in right now it only seemed normal with my sleep patterns to be up at 2am watching The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. On The Daily Show, John Stewart was interviewing the 2006 Nobel Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, about his amazing accomplishment with the Grameen Bank that eventually won him this prize. Maybe this is my sheltered self, but I had no idea who this guy was or what he has and is doing, so when I was watching this episode I could feel my entire heart soften at simply how amazing this was. This truly was an amazing invention.

His invention? Banking to poor people. He gives loans to those who have no money. He said that he really didn’t understand why the people that have lots of money can get more and those that have none can’t get any at all. It just made sense to him. It just made sense. He said that baking built on trust works, and he knows it works because he’s doing it right now. He said that there is no better people to give money to than those that are desperate and need to make a life for those around them.

He has seven million borrowers. 97% of them are women. They all were poor and had no credit rating.

It is men like Muhammad Yunus who will change the world. Why the hell haven’t we figured out yet that the only way to change a system as corrupt as ours is to stop continually pour into it to try to fix it. How does lending money to rich people and people who have had money already in anyway help stop a system of keeping the poor the way they are and the rich the way they are? How does throwing money to rich people in poor neighbourhoods to help get the poor neighbourhoods of their feet ever actually give the poor neighbourhoods a chance to work at getting off the ground instead of patching bandages over the issues?

All this to say that I think the Kingdom is in many ways a lot simpler than we make it. Muhammad Yunus is changing the world by looking at a problem and offering the most simple solution. It’s as almost as he woke up and said “Well, Duh, of course let’s give the people that don’t have any money, money to help them get started.” Instead, we work up elaborate plans of welfare and other social assistant programs and government projects while banks sit back and give the rich people more money and put themselves more in debt. I am not a social economist by any means, but are we just lying to ourselves and making this more complicated?

As the church, we need to give to those that are in need. We need to stop serving a system that keeps people poor and in lives of oppression. We need to stop pretending to ourselves that everything is ok, because the only reason we think that is because we are the benefactors (or so we think) of this system. It’s time for us as the church to act subversive to these systems that are destroying us and take our selfish priorities out of the way so we can see how simple some of these answers really are, because as I see it, its our selfishness that makes things more complicated.

I’ve been trying to understand better what the kingdom of God is like. I’ve read through the parables, and they all amaze me. Here is a few things that are shaped by the parables that I read that help me understand what maybe the kingdom of God (heaven) is like.

Let us say there is an immigrant from Italy named Tony. Tony however, now lives in Canada. Tony lives in Canada, does all kinds of things in Canada like eat, work and spend time with people. Yet Tony is Italian at heart. His true identity comes from being Italian. When Italy one the World Cup, he was out on the streets dancing. If Italy goes to war, he is out on the streets mourning. Tony lives in a house with his family and his wife is also Italian and only cooks Italian food. Tony also sends his kids to an Italian school and he doesn’t even speak English, he only speaks Italian. How many people would say that Tony isn’t Italian anymore because he lives in Canada?

I think the Kingdom of God works like this. Even though we live in the world. Even though we do not leave the world. We are still kingdom people. We talk kingdom talk. We live the kingdom way. We look at every circumstance through a kingdom filter. We have given our allegiance to the Kingdom, not to the world. Our goal is not to get to Italy….heaven. Our goal is to stay here and to make more people experience the kingdom.

Now if we added to this story a bit. Let’s say that along with Italy comes a bunch of values that they uphold. They go to every major league soccer game that is played in their local city, they finish eating everything that is front of them and they never wear socks. Italy has values, and therefore Tony has the same values no matter where he is because his heart is with Italy. So Tony starts to go to a lot of soccer, eating a bit more and not spending money on socks. Let’s say though that Tony wears socks one day because his feet are cold. This does not mean that Italy has changed; all it means is that Tony isn’t living inside the values of Italy.

I think the Kingdom of God is bigger than just members of the Kingdom. I think it works and is progressed by values of the kingdom like the fruits of the spirit. There are kingdom ways of doing things, and not every kingdom member does them all the time. This is why it’s hard to look at someone and say if they are a kingdom member or not. It’s bigger than just one person here and one person there. God is advancing his kingdom in members and non-members.

The kingdom is a mentality that we hold. It’s a way of life. It’s a different kingdom than that of money, power and sex. To value a kingdom mentality is to value the kingdom. To live a kingdom mentality is to live in the kingdom. Could this be what John was talking about all through his gospel? Some say that the term “eternal life” is synonymous with “kingdom of god” and “kingdom of heaven” in the other gospels. So to live a kingdom mentality is to live in the kingdom which is to possess eternal life.

I’ve been torn lately. I’m struggling with how to look at things that are happening to people around the world. I brought this up in the car on the ride home with Rachel and Darryl last night and I’m still not satisfied.

Jesus message makes no sense. Let’s just say that straight up and get it out of the way. When we think about violence, most of us think that it’s ok or necessary to fight violence with violence. Jesus way though, is to fight violence with non-violence and because we are uncreative we justify using violence. When we think about careers, Jesus tells his followers to drop their nets, their careers and start to follow him, most of us just stay where we are and don’t even think that far into following Jesus. When we think about getting something stolen, all we can think about is to get it back and punish the person that did it, Jesus just tells us to give the person something else of ours too. It makes no sense.

So we have the stories in the bible about what Jesus way looks like. It’s selfless, it’s courageous and it’s crazy. Now though we are facing new questions. What does Jesus say to do when 1/3 of the world doesn’t have water and millions more are dying of Aids? What does Jesus say to do in the face of corrupt corporations using sweatshops to provide us with a great product? What does all this mean to us?

So here is my question. When I look at, for instance, AIDS, I want to help not just the people that have AIDS but help prevent more people from getting it. It’s like the story that Mike Todd talks about from Brian McLaren about mercy injustice (you can read it here). I’m not just interested in administering mercy to people and loving them as they become victims of the system. Instead I want to change the system that is screwing them. But as soon as I say that, “I want to change the system,” people get afraid, scared and usually disagree. It sounds like politics and they just want to love people. That is ok, totally ok, but I don’t think we are called to stop there, I think we are called to be administers of change; the change of the system that creates all these victims.

It scares me to say that, because does that mean I’m going to end up running for MP and sitting in conference rooms and just talking all my life? How do I follow Jesus, and still help change the system and not just take care of the systems rejects? Or is that not our job? Maybe our job is to take care of those that the system hurts. Maybe, but I don’t think so. How do we as Christians become so revolutionary that our voice is heard, but not from a political booth, but from within the body of Christ that is working.

I’m starting to see that following Jesus maybe, for me, doesn’t mean to run for government and try to make Sarnia, Ontario or Canada a better place that creates less victims. Maybe following Jesus more looks like discipling one person at a time to think the way of the kingdom and slowly, like Jesus did it, a revolution of kingdom minded people will begin to rise up through the cracks and in the margins and start to have more impact on nations and hurting people than governments have and it would never be motivated out of power and only out of love.

While this happens, it still hurts so much to see how our money system keeps people in poverty. How our social system keeps people insecure. How our value system keeps the poor away from the rich. It hurts to see that, and I groan along with the Spirit and creation while Jesus slowly seeps through the cracks of the system and starts a new system. Thank-God we live in this new system now as Christians and may we learn to live the way of the Kingdom system more and more each day.