Thoughts on Religion

I've been reading Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz these past couple of weeks. The blurb reads: "Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality" and I love that. I love the way he writes it as well, he's just kinda rambling along and then all of a sudden whammo! he's got a point. And it's a damn good one as well.

It just reminds me of how so often we get caught up in "religion" and what we are and aren't supposed to do. We lose the fact that Christianity is less about what we do - and more about our connection with God. (Note that I'm as guilty of this as the next person...) If we want a religion that's about what we do we might as well just go back to Judeaism - because that's what it was. It was all about the Law. No, not the law (small 'l') but the Law (big 'L'). Their lives revolved around it.

Then all of a sudden along comes Jesus with his 'Blessed are the poor...' speech. That must have totally blown their minds. Here he was saying that the poor people, the marginalised people, the people who suffer and struggle with every day life, they are blessed. Can't you just see the Pharisees sitting there shaking their heads. Their entire way of life was being questioned. Jesus walked in and he loved people. He loved the people no one else had the courage to love - he loved the people no one else wanted to love.

Wow.

He was a hard act to follow, he still is. If you look through the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) you'll see that it's all about how Jesus changed the law. He took the hard line on things like adultery and divorce. It seems like such a tough sermon. To me, it's a reminder about how I'll never really be enough. Y'know, I cover my light when it's convinient, I find it extremely hard to love my enemies, sometimes I don't really want to be a good person.

But I was thinking about this yesterday, and really, instead of reminding me that I'm not good enough, it should remind me about God's grace. And I think maybe that's the point of the Sermon on the Mount - to show us that we'll never live up to the standard that God sets for us, but that at the same time, it's okay. It's the standard we should try to reach, but it's still okay if we don't reach it. Because we can't.

I will never be able to live up to the standard Jesus set.

And guess what?

That's okay.

It really is. It doesn't mean I stop trying to meet that standard. On the contrary, I still try (and I still fail) - but I want to try. I want to try because that's what God asks me to do. It's not blind obediance, but it is done out of love.

That may sound cheesy and corny and all number of stupid things. But that's okay too. It doesn't mean that I'm here living my 'happy clappy' christian life. If I'm being honest I actually really dislike happy clappy christians - probably because they're that way because they've either reached some sort of strange nirvana that I've yet to reach. Or because they're so happy and clappy they must be faking it.

In any case, I find myself constantly amazed by Jesus. Which is probably a good thing, right?

How's that for a first post?