I joined The Revolution and all I got was this Bonded Leather Study Bible

I had a mentor/professor in college who before becoming a professor was a Franciscan Friar.   Keeping to the Franciscan tradition, he took a vow of poverty and followed it strictly.  For thirteen years, he traveled across Europe with little more than the clothes on his back, living off the kindness of strangers.  In class and in life, he would recite little spiritual clichés, the type of maxims elderly women cross-stitch into throw pillows.  They were phrases that my jaded mind would have completely rejected had they come from any other source; elementary aphorisms like “God is all good, all the time.  All the time, God is good.” or “Having faith is like having a new set of eyes that allow you to see the world as it truly is.” However, there was something different in the words as they were spoken from his mouth.  His voice somehow added weight to these quippy little anecdotes.  They did not sound like regurgitated sunday school lessons or drugstore sympathy cards.  This was because they were words spoken by a man who, by his own life experience, found them not to be comforting or pleasing to the ears, but undeniably true.
 
        “God is good.” 
        “God answers prayer.”
        “Christ died for you”
        “He is risen.  He is risen, indeed.”
        “Jesus loves you.”

The problem is…  Sometimes God isn’t good.  Not the type of good that we would want him to be.  Sometimes God doesn’t answer prayer.  Sometimes it seems like Jesus may as well be in the tomb.  Sometimes we can’t love ourselves or others enough to really believe that Jesus does.  I can’t help but believe that thoughts like these were a reality for a man with no possessions wandering around the most poverty stricken regions of Europe.  I’m sure the sick were prayed for, yet remained sick.  I have to believe the Spirit seemed very distant at times.  However, if you are drifting around a continent sans-food, sans-money, sans-shelter, sans-pillow, the last thing you do is stop praying.  Allowing yourself to be loved is not a choice. It’s a method of survival.  When you take a Franciscan Vow, the love of God through the love of strangers is your only means of sustenance.  Pretty soon, you realize these aren’t just words to cheer you up, set you straight, or make you more “purpose driven”.  This is the breath of God, and it is your only shot at life.  Then, these words become true, and like my teacher, the friar, they sit heavy on heart and on your tongue.
 
GK Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”  Could those words be more true than we are ready to admit?  Is it possible that the Gospel is a revolutionary, spirit-transforming way of life that we are leaving untried?  The first chapter of Romans talks about exchanging the truth of God for a lie.  Have we traded a mystical, supernatural relationship with the creator and sustainer of the universe, for a comfortable, self-tailored, “personal spirituality”?  The Gospel is the terrifying mystery of the transcendent becoming tangible, the eternal stepping into the timeline of history, the unfathomable making Himself known.  It’s the tragedy of all tragedies:  the death of God.  And the triumph of all triumphs:  the death of death.  Have we exchanged it for a collection of aphorisms that make us feel better? Annotated study bibles that pre-package a text that was tailor made for each of our souls? A system of oughts and ought-nots? Another self-help path to comfort and security?

Reading:
Romans 1-2

Playlist:
Beck – The Golden Age
U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Pedro the Lion – The Fleecing
Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamond
*Micah Dalton – Honestly Lion
*Red Mountain Church – This Breaks My Heart of Stone
Ben Harper – Power of The Gospel
*Red Mountain Church – Melt My Soul to Love
*Jon Black – Declaration
Flobots – Rise

*Independent Artist. Purchase. Don’t Pirate.