I once
heard a pastor read about John the Baptist and he said, “You have no idea of
the context here. To say that John was ‘Dressed in camel’s hair with a leather
belt eating locust and wild honey’ is the equivalent to saying ‘John had a foot
tall green Mohawk, punk vest, and kilt and ate what he found in garbage cans.’”
This resonated with me for obvious reasons, but it is much deeper than “God
uses weirdoes.”
The way we
live our lives should not make sense to the World. That’s not to say we should
run around overtly offensive and odd but we should stand out a bit. Our desires
should be different because God has changed them. Our view on the world should
be different because He has taken the scales off our eyes.
Our
behavior change needs to bleed from a changed heart or it doesn’t matter.
Church is not about getting single people to have less sex or getting punkers
to shop at Old Navy. It is so much deeper. It is about the fabric of which we
are made not the fabric of which our clothes are made.
We are so
afraid to offend because so many Christians in the past have made themselves
offensive as opposed to let the Gospel do it’s thing. The Gospel is offensive
enough. We don’t have to use our behavior modification techniques and guilt
about our mortgages to add to it. If somebody is offended by the Gospel of
Christ, good, God is using that. If people are offended because of us then we
need to knock it off.
This is
hardest when we want to fit in. We don’t want to get all camel’s hair and
locust so we rush to the other side of everything is okay. We either try to get
people to not accept us up front or we beg, borrow, and steal to get people to
like us. This is short sighted and defensive at best. I need to trust that God
is in every interaction and in every reaction.
This is a
fine line to ride on. Sometimes we doubt that we are serving God because nobody
is listening. God doesn’t guarantee that people will listen and change their
lives. Some will, some won’t. Look at the ministry of Jesus. Where the faith in
Christ comes needs to take hold is in how we decide what to do and when we need
to change. John the Baptist didn’t change his message or tactics even when it
made him unpopular. This only shows his faith in God.
“He must
increase, and I must decrease,” was one of John’s famous lines. If we apply
this to our love for God we will spend a lot less time wondering about how we
should be behaving around people.
Images taken from:
http://haveravitoriaquandosatanvier.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
and
http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Bernardino-Luini/Salome-With-The-Head-Of-St-John-The-Baptist.html
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