I'm pissed off.
John the baptist preached and baptised on the desert, out of Jerusalem. He wore camel’s hair, a leather belt and ate locusts and wild honey. Jeremiah preached words the people never gave attention, day after day, and found himself in exile on the end of his life. His lamentations are a gathering of poems and tears turned into words, just after Jerusalem’s fall. Amos was a shepard, the first missionary in Samariah was a prostitute, the 12 apostles were fisherman, Jesus himself was a carpenter. Who told us God is mainstream?
In my years of Christianity, I’ve never found God in the crowds of Christians, never found Him in the big preachings with raised hands and people shouting Halleluja. Never found Him in the places people told me He was. It makes me sad how church is not the best place to find God. I don’t know, but something went wrong, very wrong. We were supposed to be Jesus feet on earth, we were supposed to walk, welcome those who are not accepted, love the unloved, listen to those who have no voice… Instead of it, we are too busy concerned with our own programs, our own agenda, lost in our own mediocre reality. Too busy trying not going to hell. I’ve never seen such a bigger lie and ilusion than this.
Jesus never went to theological school, had no diploma, wore no fancy clothes, never had a hype hair, was not a preeminent person on his local church and had no speeches on famous pulpits. Instead of it, he was considered a heresy, a crazy folk with some new ideas of love and forgiveness among a very religious and right people. Let us be frank, we as Christians would like so much the Pharisees… They had the right speech, the right attitude (they didn’t even say ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ and all these unholy words!), the right reasons.
And we say that we follow Jesus. If we followed Jesus, we should embrace the streets as he did, we would embrace the poor and unholy as he did. God is not where we think He is. I’m sorry, he is not mainstream, he hates the latest recording of your favorite gospel group, the latest book of your specialist on gospel stuff… God loves all the prostitutes that walk in the Stavanger sentrum after 22h, and I bet Jesus would be their best friend. He loves the ones we despise the most, the ones we judge unholy and filthy. Jesus rambles on the parties every Friday night, seating on the table with the ones we insist to despise. God is the one that carries the drunk back home.
“ I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21-24)
“Your eyes are closed when you're praying/ You sing right along with the band/ You shine up your shoes for services/ There's blood on your hands/ You turned your back on the homeless/ And the ones that don't fit in your plan/ Quit playing religion games/ There's blood on your hands” (The song, here)
They say there’s a revival coming to Stavanger. I pray it comes from the streets, from the dirty Christians are denying so much. I pray the drug addicts, beggars, helpless, hurt and depressed students, mental handicapped, party folks, drunks and broken families fill the churches with their need and thirsty for a God they heard about, a God that can bring reconciliation to their families, a God that can heal their scars, their pain, that can listen their voices when anyone hears them. A God that can love and save them from their own selves, even though they have trashed and drowned in a lake of sorrow, pain and sin.
This is the God I believe. Please, let us, Christians, be marginals as Jesus was. Otherwise, the stones will cry out (Luke 19:40) .
Grace be with you.
