I'm recalling how all my life I've been affected by and drawn to sacrificial love, creative, non violent solutions, and risky generosity portrayed in story, film, and memoir.
The 1st rule of story is "Show, don't tell." In these artistic portrayals, I *saw* how self-emptying, co-suffering love, and restorative justice were the way to salvation. Both for me individually -- saving me from selfish preoccupations and all the petty sins, fear, and isolation that follow -- but also the only way to save the world, to save us from each other and from isolation.
All this left me wondering, why didn't I *see* this in the teaching and activity of the church, the body of the Christ on earth, those with whom the self-emptying love gospel of Jesus was entrusted?
Don't get me wrong, I saw a lot of very nice people being very nice to each other. But like Jesus said, what credit is that, even those who don't know the good news are nice to those in their tribe. (Paraphrased)
Then I realized that the good news is a living reality. Like water, it finds a way through rock. When the "church" gets the story wrong and equates God with the capricious, vengeful gods feared by ancient cultures, and curries favor with violent empire rather than the Kin-dom of Jesus's Abba, the beauty of the Way finds expression in story, film, and more importantly, the fools for Christ who risk all for the joy of living in the beauty that will save the world.
The 1st rule of story is "Show, don't tell." In these artistic portrayals, I *saw* how self-emptying, co-suffering love, and restorative justice were the way to salvation. Both for me individually -- saving me from selfish preoccupations and all the petty sins, fear, and isolation that follow -- but also the only way to save the world, to save us from each other and from isolation.
All this left me wondering, why didn't I *see* this in the teaching and activity of the church, the body of the Christ on earth, those with whom the self-emptying love gospel of Jesus was entrusted?
Don't get me wrong, I saw a lot of very nice people being very nice to each other. But like Jesus said, what credit is that, even those who don't know the good news are nice to those in their tribe. (Paraphrased)
Then I realized that the good news is a living reality. Like water, it finds a way through rock. When the "church" gets the story wrong and equates God with the capricious, vengeful gods feared by ancient cultures, and curries favor with violent empire rather than the Kin-dom of Jesus's Abba, the beauty of the Way finds expression in story, film, and more importantly, the fools for Christ who risk all for the joy of living in the beauty that will save the world.
