Jesus Wrecked My Life

In 1998 I attended the North Indiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church at Purdue University. At one point they were showing a video (a staple of Annual Conference sessions now that we have giant screens on stage) and a woman was on the screen from one of the largest churches in the conference saying: "Ever since I've met Jesus everything has gone right in my life." I remember wanting to scream - "What! What! What are you talking about -- ever since I met Jesus everything in my life has got harder!"

I thought of that recently when I was reading a new book by Shane Clairborne entitled The Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical. In it he says:

I know there are people out there who say, "My life was such a mess. I was drinking, partying, sleeping around...and then I met Jesus and my whole life came together." God bless those people [Shane is obviously much kinder than me]. But me, I had it together. I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my life. The more I read the gospel the more it messed me up, turning everything I believed in, valued, and hoped for upside-down. I am still recovering from conversion.

Yes...Shane is a lot kinder than me. I was meeting with a group from our church a year ago and someone said, "I want a religion that's easy." I shot back (without thinking, which is often the case) "well, then you will want to go to a fundamentalist church." Now -- I'm sure that wasn't a fair or gracious thing to say in that moment. At the same time it is often what I feel. It makes life a lot more tricky to take seriously the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Back in 2001 I visited the simple way, which is the community which Shane and his friends founded. They were living in a house -- no, I should use the word home, because of the sense of hospitality there -- in the Kensington section of Philly. the simple way appeared to be a group of twenty-somethings who had walked into the arms of the poor in that community. That evening we went with them as they set up dinner down underneath the train about a block or two from where they lived. Down in the basement, as you would your way between boxes of government surplus food there was a white sheet that separated the rest of the basement from a small area where they prayed and left their prayers (as had many who had visited -- stuck in cracks of the wall -- it reminded me a bit of the wailing wall in Jerusalem -- except, you know, smaller and in a basement in a dilapadated home in Philly).

We talked with the folks who lived there -- laughing and eating and struggling with important questions. We laughed a lot of the incongruities that arise when you don't have much money -- they were getting government surplus food -- so one time that meant they had received a shipment of six cases of KitKat bars! Those boxes were stacked behind the couch that we were sitting on.

We looked at a building that they were working on fixing up so that it could be turned into a bakery and some housing for folks. They were making their home with their neighbors...and enjoying themselves considerably.

What a delight to find these folks -- with so much joy - but absolutely clearly not with anything in their life made easier -- since they had come to know Jesus.

Jesus wrecks our lives -- he turns the world upside down. He makes it harder -- but in the end we know our true abundance and joy and love and forgiveness because of it. It's not trying to get God's forgiveness that's hard...and then everything is easy. It's trying to live like God has not only forgiven me, but my enemy as well. That's tough.

At Broadway Christian Parish UMC in South Bend, Guy Rowe played the guitar for us in worship. He has fragile X syndrome which I understand is also a form of autism. Guy would often punctuate sermons, prayers and readings with excited utterances. Usually they were right on point...if you were paying attention. One of the things that would often come up is that Guy would say, "That's hard." or "Now, that's the blues." He was always right. And when Guy said it he would slap his thigh and a big grin would break out on his face. He knew...he knew...his life had been wrecked by Jesus -- and he couldn't have been happier.