Eggshells

Ever around people that make you behave? Or feel you should?

I call them 'eggshells.' Proper-parlor people.
But I don't walk on eggshells.

I'm more an omlete than hard-boiled type.
You gotta break a few now and then.

But some people don't.

Many people say those types are dull, straight-laced Christans,
but I find them inside and outside the Church.

Lots of do's and don'ts. Buckle up and recycle folks.
Save the wrappers... save the planet.

They say things with a straight face like,
'The insurance company won't let me do that.'

How easily some applecarts are upset.
Heaven help us; we might lose everything
... or anything.

But real church people say, 'Yeah. So what? It's all God's.'

A friend today referred to 'churched people' (positively)
as people who behave.

But did Jesus? Ever?

What does being proper have to do with looking for Jesus
in the face of strangers?

We don't even talk to strangers.
We certainly don't let our children.
(And so we never teach them how to make
strangers into friends when they go out on their own.)

Playing it safe makes a world full of strangers
and makes our world stranger every day.

What does walking on eggshells have to do with chasing
the Wind Blowing, Fire Breathing, Water Walking, Living God?

To me, God is a person who never leaves well enough alone.
Always stirring things up. Always doing something new.
Always jumping out of a perfectly good boat.

If that doesn't sound like any church you know,
maybe you don't know the real Church.

... at least the faith community God's forming here.

Yeah, we need a lot of people who keep things tidy.
But some of those are braver than you think.

Perhaps behind the mind-your-manners, mild-mannered
'behaves' are B-HAVs... big, hairy audacious visions.

Perhaps they know something others only suspect,
that right in front of our frightened eyes is an vision,
largely unseen, of what God will do.

The Resurrection One. Waiting to turn every dead seed,
into a towering oak.

Who'd a thunk it?

An amazingly greater Divine Potential Opportunity in
every moment wants to break through our eggshell lives.

Fragile. Safe. Thin. Crumbly.

So strong we act like we've got it all figured out.
So weak we can't be called an unfair name.
Don't talk to me that way. I might break!
At least I'll break away from you.

So we're left with an isolated society of self-serving,
never-sacrificing, small-minded, myoptic mini-me's.

Perhaps real 'churched people' are the ones who see that.

They grin impishly like they could walk on water.
I recognize people who're alive in Christ
They're different.

They're not afraid to die.
More importantly... they're not afraid to live.

We forgot that from Jesus' death for 300 years
that's what it meant to be Church... a target for death.

To be part of Christ's church was to have everything taken
(or given freely)... just because you belong to God.

Today the Barnabas Fund prays for Christians in Egypt,
Church People who are not allowed to pray together.
Not allowed to work. Not allowed to marry.
Not allowed to move.

We should pray for them. Pray they'll be free.
But we should also thank God for what they see,
a vision of a life worth dying for.

Some want church people to just behave.
To walk on eggshells and act like they're 'safe' or 'saved.'

Saved for what? A rainy day?
Church people are rain makers!
They let God make every day what it can be.

I don't want to be safe. I want to run the bases.
I don't want to be 'saved.' I want to swim the tides.

Church people suspect... that with Jesus we can.
The 'hidden church' knows that's what we do.

I googled 'hidden church' and was pleasantly surprised
to find a friend's blog
thefeatherblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/tillich-and-church.html

Charles and I agree that Tillich's Small, Averse Vision of church
as a SAVed community organization for an eggshell world is not
the hidden treasure God planted to grow out of bounds.

Charles and I often don't agree, but we less often conform.
And it was that egg-breaker St. Paul who said,

'Offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God.
Don't conform to the culture of this world.
But be transformed by renewed minds.
Then you can test and prove what is
the good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.'

Romans 12 sounds NOTHING like
play it safe... behave... go along... act like you're fine.

Only when you've offered your whole little life,
not as a sacrifice that lays down and dies,
but as a sacrifice that gets up and lives;

Only when you hear God's unbelievable words
(which 'incredible' means) and have your mind changed
can you have an inkling of what's 'good and acceptable.'

Proper eggshell-heads think they know.
But here's a hint: it's not your IRA.

We can know. But only when we break out
and lay it all on the line and stretch our wings,
can we test how high God wants us to fly.

Life is not a dinner party where God's serving hors d'oeuvres
and when he comes around with the silver platter we say,
'No thanks, G. I'm stuffed. But how bout some nice Chardonnay.'

God pushes back tables to make room for us to dance!

Church people are often criticized as being hypocrites
for striving for a standard higher than we can reach.
That is a problem if we pretend we can do it alone
or are somehow better than anyone else.

But Jesus says, 'If you want to cower and bury your gifts
and act like you've got it all together and are fine like you are
(which is what a 'hypocrite' literally mean, a 'super-actor')
then you're a stuffed-shirt, stuffed bird...
and don't have the guts to hang with me.'

Whether you're a tough biker or a smart lawyer
(and around here we have both, often in one person),
if you don't have the courage to jump out of the boat
(no matter how nice it is) and walk on water with Jesus,
I wouldn't say that you're weak and dumb,
but you're definitely missing out.

Because one day you will die.
In fact, you're dying right now.
And only Jesus can let you stop dying and finally live.

For church people, eternity begins today.

Because we're following the Resurrected Jesus who
doesn't edge along the shore or walk on eggshells.

But walks on the waves.