This is a rather long post. I apologize if it is a bit preachy.
I was laying in the grass on my lawn this afternoon reading through Acts, and I was wondering if there was a chance we could live in that love and power again. The early church did not have time to pursue wealth or become enamored with politics. They loved each other and their neighbors. Could it be that simple again? Could God break our hardened hearts, and set us free from the religion we have made?
George Bernard Shaw once said that, “God created us in his image, and then we returned the favor.”
“Love me, and Love your neighbor.” I feel like God tried to put it on our level, simple, with out any big words, and we turned it into 3 year study on what the word “neighbor” means. I want it to be simple again. I want to love like Christ did, and I want to surround myself with those who want the same.
Below is a portion from, the irresistible revolution by Shane Claiborne. His ministry, The Simple Way, is a partner with AIM in downtown Philadelphia. It is a description of what goes on in his ministry on the average day. I think it is beautiful.
“We had no idea what we were getting into. We had no big vision for programs or community development. We wanted only to be passionate lovers of God and people and to take the gospel way of life seriously.
Some of us dropped out of school; some finished. Some of us are pursuing careers; others left them. People sometimes ask us what we do all day on an “average day” at the Simple Way, and my answer has always been really short- either “nothing spectacular” or “what is an average day?” It gets a little crazy since our lives are full of surprises and interruptions. I’ll do my best to describe it to you.
We hang out with kids and help them with homework in our living room, and jump in open fire hydrants on hot summer days. We share food with folds who need it, and eat the beans and rice our neighbor Ms. Sunshine makes for us. Folks drop in all day to say hi, have a safe place to cry, or get some water or a blanket. Sometimes we turn people away, or play rock, paper, and scissors to see who answers the door on tired days. We run a community store out of our house. We call it the gathering and neighbors can come in and fill a grocery bag with clothes for a dollar or find a couch, a bed, or a refrigerator. Sometimes people donate beautiful things for us to share with our neighbors; other times they donate their used toothbrushes.
We reclaim abandoned lots and make gardens amid the concrete wreckage around us. We plant flowers inside old TV screens and computer monitors on our roof. We see our friends waste away from drug addiction, and on good day, someone is set free. We see police scare people, and on a good day, we find an officer who will play wiffleball with his billy club. We rehab abandoned houses. We try to make ugly things beautiful and to make murals. Instead of violence, we learn imagination and sharing. We share life with our neighbors and try to take care of each other. We hang out on the streets. We get fined for distributing food. We go to jail for sleeping under the stars. We win in court. We have friends in prison and on death row. We stand in the way of state-sanctioned execution and of the prison industrial complex.
We have always called ourselves a tax-exempt 501c3 antiprofit organization. We wrestle to free ourselves from macro-charity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community. We visit rich people and have them visit us. We preach, prophesy, and dream together about how to awaken the church from her violent slumber. Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. We are about ending poverty, not simply managing it. We give people fish and teach them to fish.
We fight terrorism- the terrorism within each of us, the terrorism of corporate greed, of American consumerism, of war. We are not pacifist hippies but passionate lovers who abhor passivity and violence. We spend our lives actively resisting everything that destroys life, whether that is terrorism or the war on terrorism. We try to make the world safe, knowing that the world will never be safe as long as millions live in poverty so the few can live as they wish. We believe in another way of life – the kingdom of God – which stands in opposition to the principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark world.
That is an average day”.
