Today I was reading Irresistible Revolution again, and there were two paragraphs that specifically stuck out to me, I just felt like posting them in here:
Not long ago, a few friends and i were talking with some very wealthy executives about what it means to be the church and to follow Jesus. One businessman confided, "I too have been thinking about following Christ and what that means, so I had this made." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a bracelet engraved with WWJD. It was custom-made of twenty-four karat gold. Maybe each of us can relate to this man - bound up in the materialism of our culture, his distorted execution of that desire.
It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don't feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organization and never have to open up our homes, our beds, our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will be separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me," or "When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me." Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: "you fed me... you visited me in prison... you welcomed me into your home... you clothed me."
Again neither of these are my thoughts they are just thoughts I agree with. Gotta love Shane Claiborne.
3 comments:
and so I ask what have you done, other than post.
I don't know who this 'anonymous' is, but I like 'em. It's true, those books are very easy to read and vehemently agree with.
And then what?
Controversial comments Rye Eye! Ditto...I'm reading that book atm also
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