Repenting of Christianity

Forgive us Father, for we know not what we do.

Humans have a tendency to lose the essence of things. We take concepts, ideas, principles and movements, and after a certain period of time we humanize them. In our attempts to define, explain, and put into practice, we more times than not lose the original purpose and essence of the thing itself.

Games meant for joy lose their sense of fun. MTV becomes more about reality T.V. than music. College becomes more about completing tasks rather than actually learning. We do jobs we don't like for reasons that don't matter. Cellphones meant to bring people together push us farther apart. Clocks supposed to help us manage our time better turn us into scheduled robots.

A law meant to better a people group, to liberate everyone and to care for all humanity; decrees to make the Jews into a light for the entire world turns into a 613 page rulebook used to oppress and yoke the broken and the impoverished.

A movement started to liberate, to free, to save, to enchant, to inspire, to restore, to change the world, to produce love slowly becomes a set of rules used to condemn, a reason to place some ahead of others, useful for justifying oneself. Slowly people confuse the movement with their other agenda's and allegiances like patriotism, political parties, wars. It becomes prostituted with tradition and term's like, "That's how it always has been done." In our attempts to do something "for the kingdom," we forget what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom. The Way, the term the earliest church used to define themselves, slowly but surely gets replaced with Christendom.

Somewhere along the way we as flawed and maimed humans have lost the essence of what it meant to be a Jesus people. We traded freedom for rules, acceptance of all for outcast of different. We traded the liberation to remove the masks that continually strain us for the shame and arrogance to put new ones on; we switched love and pure joy for ritual and conformity. Over the years we made it about buildings, crosses, programs, Paul's letters, getting people to say a sinner's prayer, tradition and our churchy appearances. Somewhere in translation we lost the wonder of it all, the wonder of the reality that the God who created all things was incarnate and willing died for us to "rebecome" what we were always meant to be.

But how then shall we return? How do we escape all that Christianity has become and return to what it was always intended for? Luckily a few thousand years ago someone asked the same question. Teacher, what is the greatest commandment? If I can focus on one thing, if there's one principle I should master, what is it? The rabbi replies, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. And then love your neighbor as yourself. All that matters is an unquenchable love for God and His people, and this is the essence of what it means to be a follower of mine.

Jesus wanted us to nail two things, love God and love people. Everything else is an additive, and should certainly not take away from the greatest command. To be apart of the Way means to pursue God and to pursue people ahead of all other things.

In what ways do you need to repent of Christianity? How will you have a change of mind about what following Jesus is really about?