What wond'rous love is this?

(I'm baaaaaaack, with my version of a fire-and-brimstone post. You ready? Okay.)

Many people have told me that I need to go to seminary. While I would LOVE to go to seminary (one of my pastors commented that my "theological curiousity warrants no less"), most people equate "going to seminary" with "becoming a pastor" or "going into ordained ministry", which, I'm sorry, is not going to happen. I have, at times, wanted that life--even just over a year ago, I was considering it--but it is very clear that that is not my calling. The other night, sitting out on the porch, I went on a passionate rant about what it means to follow Christ, and Rachel, a fellow AV Crew Theater Major, said, "Forget being a theater major, you need to go to seminary!" To which I laughed and said, "I can't be a pastor--they'd kick me out!"

Which is true. How you pastors do it, I have no idea, and therefore I have only the utmost respect for you and your lives.

For one thing, I cannot believe that Christianity is for everyone. I cannot even believe Christianity is for everyone who lives on the same block. This is not to say that I think Christianity should exclude anyone--quite the opposite. Christianity is open to everyone, but I don't think everyone would want to be a Christian. Similarly, I think many people come to religion seeking comfort, and I cannot offer comfort through Christianity.

In fact, in what may seem like an anti-Christian statement, I will boldly say: Christ's way is the way of death.

Christ didn't come to save your life.

Sorry.

It is also true that Christ's way is the way of eternal life.

To be Christians, there is one thing we must do: we must follow Christ. Following Christ is the entire point. Promotional images of Jesus sitting with little children on his lap (and a lamb nearby), looking up to the sky bathed in radiant light are not indicative of what it is to follow Christ. Jesus made it quite clear. The call to follow him is the call to give up everything you have ever known. The call to follow him leaves you homeless and penniless. The call to follow him leaves you estranged from friends, family, and community. The call to follow him is the call to take up your cross and join him in your own crucifixion at Golgotha. One of my favorite descriptions is by songwriter Ken Medema, who describes it as "A blood-stained invitation to a life of sacrifice." The image we must truly follow is the image of the broken, bruised, and bloody Christ.

A scripture that has been popping up a lot this summer is Luke (of course) 9:57-62. This is the three would-be-disciples fail. One offers to follow him, and Jesus says, "Well, you won't have a home ever again," and Would-Be-Disciple A isn't comfortable with that. Jesus calls Would-Be-Disciple B to follow him, and Would-Be-Disciple B says, "Sure, but my father's funeral is today, so I'll catch you after that," and Jesus says, "Nope, sorry," and Would-Be-Disciple B buries his father instead. Would-Be-Disciple C says, "Yo! Jesus! Totally want to follow you but let me say goodbye to my family," and Jesus again says, "Nope, sorry, you can't look back if you want to follow me." Really, a lot of this seems unfair. Especially the "burying your father" bit. That seems like a perfectly legitmate reason to wait an hour before following. And yet, it is the fact of what it is to be a Christian.

Following Christ requires you to die to your former life. Your baptism is a voluntary drowning. You must die in Adam to be made alive in Christ. Tim Rice put it rather succintly in Jesus Christ Superstar: "To conquer death, you only have to die." This is the miracle of death and resurrection; you accept a call that kills you, so that you may be made alive in God. It's the same kind of Buddhist idea that to rid yourself of suffering, you must rid yourself of attachments. Instead of living by taking, you live by giving, because to give more of yourself, you must simply require less of others, of the world.

But just as Christ's crucifixion truly, literally HURT, so does this death. To be torn from those that one loves dearly, whether this separation is physical or the unspoken gulf that forms between two people sitting next to each other, is maddening. To lose the support of communities that have been there for you your entire life is shocking. And to give up all your own plans for your life and trust in the work that God wants to do through you is frightening. At the enigmatic ending of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "Truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." As Paul said in his letter to the Hebrews, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

My own story is that, ironically or appropriately, shortly after my baptism, I lost my taste for living. I saw no point to it and simply did not understand why you would do something, especially something filled with so much pain, if there was no point. And I got to the point where I was fed up and couldn't find any way out and so I said to God, "Take it. Take my life--I don't want it anymore. If you're going to keep me alive, you better use me, because I'm done." And after that moment, I entered a period of depression that lasted many, many years. Nearly half of my life so far. I was one of the most depressed, cynical, bitter middle and high schoolers you could have possibly encountered, though only violent towards myself. I hid it rather well, I never saw a therapist or took medication, I simply pressed forward, trying to find things that made life tolerable. This was the part of my life where God broke every bone in my body to mold me from the image of Adam to the image of Christ.

The day over a year ago when I realized I had become an optimist was rather startling, and I voiced that observation in front of two of my teachers who immediately said things along the line of, "Well, DUH." People have probably remarked more on my positivity than anything else in the past two years. A fellow PHTS student once said to me, "You are the busiest person I know and yet you're always smiling." (which is kind of her; I'm not always smiling. But I smile often.) People are often confused as to how such a happy person can be so obsessed with dark and/or violent things. (I recently held an intelligent conversation about torture devices used in the Spanish Inquisition.) The "disconnect" between how I dress and how I act is often remarked upon. People have told me I can look quite intimidating walking around wearing black, a bowler hat, and a trenchcoat, which is silly because if you talk to me I'm like... a rainbow unicorn on the intimidating scale.

I do not see "I'm going to listen to death metal" Colleen and "I'm going to direct The Maker of Dreams" Colleen to be diametrically opposed. I do not feel "delivered" from that depression. I do not think that that was a bad part of my life and this is a good part of my life. And I still listen to death metal, and I watched the movie Perfume and thought it was beautiful (and Russ said, "Colleen, don't get any ideas..."). I don't even have, "Phew, glad that's over!" feelings. That depression was and still is essential to who I am. God did not deliver me from it--God plunged me into it (after all, I asked for it). It is part of the process of rebirth--to be born again, you first have to die.

Therefore, to say, "Christ saved my life," is hardly accurate. "Of course not," you say, "Christ saves souls." I will say that I have heard many people who are walking around with the presumption that Christ saved their lives so they could return to what they were doing previously with a slightly higher moral code.

In our attempts to spread Christianity, to show people the greatness of God's love, we have often made it too easy and therefore cheapened it. Bonhoeffer talks about "cheap grace" which says, "Well, Christ already atoned for all of our sins so we can just do whatever we want and as long as we pray about it afterwards we're fine!" That is not grace, nor is it love. Ask any teacher or parent about love, and they will tell you that love is not excusing everything that the child does, but continually helping them become what that can be, and sometimes hugs and kisses don't do the trick. I'm lucky enough to have had teachers who have loved me enough to (pardon my french) kick my ass every single time I've stepped into their classroom. They could've patted me on the back and said, "Aww, that's great!", which would have been the easy way out for both of us, but they cared and loved enough to bombard me with questions and never let me off the hook. And yes, sometimes I wanted to strangle them, but coming out of it I realized just how good that was for me. There were times this past year I saw God as an angry task-master; as I ran around frantically, exhausted, confused, and scared, God said, "You haven't even BEGUN." (Which was true.) It is love that holds someone up to high standards, and it is grace that never gives up on them, no matter how often they fall.

Similarly, it is true that God's forgiveness is freely given when you repent. But again, we should not cheapen the feeling of forgiveness by conjuring up a self-satisfied feeling that our injuries towards others are justified. The feeling of repentance is miserable. It is the feeling that comes from when you try to so long to do something or not to do something, and you fail. Next to Tobias Ragg, the character I identify with the most in Sweeney Todd is Judge Turpin. Why, yes, the creepy-rapist-pedophile villian character. There's a song in the musical that's often cut from the show because Hal Prince didn't include it in the original production (cut it after the first preview), that corresponds to a monologue in the Christopher Bond play, where the Judge tries to clear the lust he feels for his 16 year-old ward Johanna from his body and mind, but cannot. Everything he tries leads him back to that sin. There is a line in the Bond play that where the Judge says, "Heaven mocks my penitence, and turns my one good act into mockery." He is stuck in this endless cycle of the sin he is trying to strike from himself. It is such a tragic, human moment. It is in that despair that God's forgiveness washes over us like a balm, when we need it to jolt us out of the cycle.

It is important to note that Jesus fussed at his disciples often. The disciples in the Bible were often rather dull--not getting the message, or doing the exact opposite of what Jesus asked them to do. (How appropriate it is that they always fell asleep when Jesus told them to stay awake!) The process of rebirth is a process of growing up, just like in our human lives. As we try, even in our new lives, we fail. It is inevitable. And God's love is too strong to let us off the hook. God's love is too strong to let us continue to make ourselves and others miserable.

And yet, we allow that love to be cheapened by not following the call to die to ourselves and follow Christ.

Perhaps I am again being too bold in my interpretation here, but maybe the goal of the religion is not to convert people to it, but rather to care for the world. There are two callings the resurrected Christ issues to his disciples: one is "feed my flock" and one is "go and make disciples of all nations". The church, it seems, has ways to accomplish both. We do good work "feeding the flock" on mission trips rebuilding houses or serving in soup kitchens, and then we advertise with those peaceful pastel pictures of Jesus praying with doves, guaranteeing peace and comfort for all who join the church.

The word "evangelism" has always left a sour taste in my mouth. Joan Gray, who preached at Montreat for Worship and Music, accurately described the stereotypical forms of evangelism as attacking an unsuspecting stranger and shoving the Good News down their throats. But recently that sneaky little voice inside my head said, "Hey, Colleen, what were you doing all last year? What is your blog all about? Evangelism," and I was as shocked as when that voice said, "Hey, Colleen, wake up. You're an optimist." The truth us, evangelism is witnessing to God's work in your life. That's it. And there are many ways to witness to that. I suggest we lay aside the "Advertising" way of witness. ("This is wut Jesus Christ has done fer me and he can do it fer you too!" Preacher Clarence Brown called it, "Instant Christian--Just Add Water!")

When I look at the example of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, he doesn't really say, "Follow me and I'll make your lives better." When I look at what Jesus Christ does in the Gospels, I see that he heals. A lot. And sometimes he calls people after healing them, and sometimes he doesn't. He physically heals the sick, and he heals the outcast by doing things like sharing a meal with them.

The world is broken. Pretty much every religion I've encountered has some story or philosophy accounting for the amount of suffering in the world. Humanity has been grasping, trying to find reasons to keep living. We numb ourselves with television, we try to fill ourselves with social media. We climb career ladders to have some sense of accomplishment even though there's this haunting fear of, "Does it really matter?" Once we have the best house and the best cars, what then? People spend lifetimes searching for that person who will make them feel whole again. The lonely saint cries out to God in the desert. Each individual suffers with their own private hurts, of poverty, of injustice, of solitude, of illness or death. The only thing I have seen that heals is love. In the image of Christ, in the spirit of Christ, we are sent to heal souls with love. There are millions of stories of this kind of healing, so I'll save you another sermon illustration. But the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians is: can we die to ourselves and live to love patiently, radically, unconditionally, as Christ calls us to love?

Recent events both at Montreat and in the PCUSA (namely, General Assembly and the election of a new Moderator) have brought the issue of homosexuality in the church back to the forefront. Anyone reading this blog probably already knows my opinion on the matter, and I'm willing to battle your Leviticus, Sodom and Gomorrah, and letters of Paul. But I found myself looking up different denomenations stances on homosexuality, and one particular view shocked me. There are some congregations that WILL accept open, practicing homosexuals as members of the church, but deny them the sacraments of baptism and communion. It's horrifying. It's saying, "You're fun to have around, but you're not worthy enough to eat at the table with the rest of us." Even if you believe that homosexuality is a sin, it is the ultimate judgement to deny someone the gift of grace, and completely contrary to Jesus' teachings and example.

No one who is hungry should be denied food. No one who is thirsty should be denied water.

Will we be known to Christ when he separates the sheep from the goats? Where will we stand when faced with a Savior who did not condemn those who the Church condemned, but rather condemned those in the Church?

What if we focused first on feeding? What if we witnessed to the work that Christ has done in our lives through love? What if we stopped trying to collect lives, or even souls, but instead worked to turn hearts? Sometimes, people don't need to hear it. Often, they don't want to hear it. They've heard the promise of the love of God before--but they haven't seen it. We die to ourselves so that we can share the love of God with others, not by telling people how great it is, but by working to love them like God does. That is our responsibility, that is our joy. We get to spend our time on this earth loving people. That is life eternal. And I truly believe that it is by loving each person with the love of God that we make disciples of all nations, because eventually some will be curious and ask, "What wonderous love is this?" because a part of their heart longs for it, too. I'm sorry, but trying to "rack in the numbers" of "converts" holds no interest for me. Christ came for the world, so I will continue to spread that love for the world, and if nine out of ten healed lepers run away, they've run away and will live their lives whole again. But for the one who is curious, for the one who is hungry, there is plenty of room at the table.

Because, looking at it, the call to follow Christ is rough, violent, and fraught with death, the way to truly witness to what it does in our lives is in how we live. How we walk, how we speak, how we breathe must all be woven in love. Because, why would you choose such a difficult road? For me, once, there was no way out. And now, last night, I didn't make a wish at 11:11 because I had nothing else to wish for--I had everything. My life is following the tune of the love song creation sings.