Lost in Irrelevancy

The Church collective has lost its relevance.  

Before you go giving me a line of bull crap that sounds something like, "I'm not called to be relevant. I'm called to not be a part of the world,"  take a step back and consider the last time you gave any thought to something that did not directly impact you or something that you felt was irrelevant in your life.  You, like most humans, tuned it out because it was not relevant to the world you have created for yourself.  (I could write a blog post entirely about the ways in which we have abdicated our responsibilities because of our selfishness, but for now, I move on.)

Jesus was relevant when he positioned himself at a well and spoke with a woman that all religion at the time said he had no business speaking with (John 4:7-26).  Jesus was relevant when he followed a man to his home, touched his daughters hand and brought her back to life (Mark 5:35-42).  Jesus relevant when on the way to that home a woman reached out touched the hem of his garment finding a healing she had been missing for years (Matthew 9:20-22). Jesus' life and ministry was one of relevance.  His very coming was out of a choice to be relevant to the humanity he loved (John 3:16).  In fact, it was in his dwelling with us that he become all the more relevant, closely connected to us.  His final commission to his followers was to go and be relevant, to go and be love to the world, to heal, to listen, to share, to be closely connected. 

And yet, the Church collective has lost its relevance.  

We have chosen our rightness, our "truth," our own dependency on certainty over proximity and relevancy. We are like the Pharisees in the text and have shunned people who do not look like us or act like us.  We have told people they are less than ourselves because they do not live like we live.  We have withheld unconditional love for the sake of the Gospel...an act that actually forsakes the Gospel of Jesus, which is love and we have become irrelevant to the world. 

And again before you give me some bull crap that sounds something like, "I'm called to speak the truth in love," take a step back and consider the last time Jesus used those words with you.  Has he? I'm sure people saying they represent him have, but let me just say that Jesus' speaking the truth in love was his laying down his life, so that ALL would know his love.  His final words were tied directly to the task of being relevant, of loving people to the grave just as they are. He proclaimed "It is finished."  Mission complete.  UNCONDITIONAL LOVE POURED OUT FOR THE WORLD.  

Call me crazy. Tell me to shut up.  But all day long, I am going to be relevant to those around me and I long to be relevant to this world that is crying out for hope...for something to believe in...something that inspires, not chastises; that embraces, not defaces; that loves, not hates; that gives light, not darkness and that changes the world.  

Church, we can be that light. We can incarnate that love. We can embrace ALL, as they are. We can inspire hope! If we get over ourselves and become relevant to our world.