Yesterday was an interesting day. It has been a very long time where I posted a personal and gritty post, since the last few (hundred) have been mostly what God has showing me through sermons, scripture, quotes, and the interwebs.
I finally managed to go to church after 3 weeks of not going. There was a bit of guilt in not going to church, not going to lie, but those Sundays I did my best to watch sermons and be fed through scripture and prayer. I also got work done those mornings and was fully awake and functional to serve on Vision School staff, so all in all those Sundays were not too shabby. Not so yesterday. I woke up at 9, and was immediately feeling quite terrible. My perpetual headaches were up again, and this time the pain traveled to my neck, gave me a tingling feeling in my nose and face (still here now), and eventually led to a fever and body aches. I guess I got a virus, or maybe Satan sent a virus to spiritually and physically oppress me, I am not sure, but I managed to overcome it with willpower and the need to go to church. But once I got on that bus I just felt an overwhelming feeling of people being uncaring that morning. I felt like no one really wanted to talk to me. Or maybe it was just the girls, since M and MS sought me out and A wanted to do workshop with me. But yeah, it just felt like no one gave a damn that I managed to make it to church. No one really wanted to talk to me. I just passed out in the sermon (though I magically recall most of it), and would have slept through the workshop as well if I hadn't accidentally went to the only one that was interactive. So I got to muddle through Luke 18 and learning how to share that parable as a story to seekers and new believers. I think the weight room analogy was a decent one, which got better when I actually thought about it. The point of the parable is that the Pharisee was self-righteous, but the audience all see them in a good light. Unlike modern Christians, who only know Pharisees as legalistic, bigots, and enemies of Jesus, the audience back them treated them as honorable, wishing their children will be selected to be come pharisees. When the pharisees told the Jews to crucify Jesus, the Jews immediately responded with the cries "crucify him!" Clearly they were people with power, and people that others looked up to, heroes of the age so to speak. Then we have the tax collector. No he isn't similar to the IRS people, he is something far worse. A traitor of Israel, a dog of the Romans, a destroyer of dreams, a theft of hard-earned money, one who takes your children and throws them into slavery! If a tax collector were to enter your house, you would call the police. If a tax collector entered your church, you would sent the doormen to kick him out. If a tax collector entered the temple, he was shunned by all and sequestered into a dark and musty corner. He is the scum of the earth. That is who a tax collector is. The best modern analogy I could come up with is that he is a pimp, one who exploits lust and the needs of poor women for money, one who traffics abducted girls and sells them to rapists. Come on, imagine if a someone took your sister or your mother or your wife or your daughter and sold her? That is the kind of hatred you would have for a tax collector. I felt like I hit the true meaning of the parable in an instant, reconciling the context of the passage and the how drastically big the impact of why Jesus compared a tax collector with a pharisee, why He chose a tax collector (Matthew) to be one of His disciples, and why people were shocked when He chose Zacchaeus' house to eat dinner. Seriously it was a big deal, how important Grace is. But when I presented this new story, it was immediately subjected to criticism and eventually shunned. I ended up feeling dejected at how many people never let me finish talking, how it is so easy to just start talking to another person when it's me who is talking. When talking about potential BME advisers. When talking about graduate fellowships. When talking about fellowship. When talking about cute animals by poolside. It is like I'm talking...but not talking. Like at any point people can just exit the conversation. Each of these events is burned into my mind, and is just a reciprocation of the past, the sad sad past of abandonment and neglect and depression and worthlessness. I remember my lack of presence, how people seemed to look over me or not hear me when I talk, like I have a negligible presence...like Kuroko. I tried to talk to the new freshmen that I first met at the fellowship fair and beckoned him to sit next to me, but in the end my mood and my physical illness got the better of me and I don't think I did a good job connecting with him.
In the end I hid in the Cathedral of Learning and the questions started flowing. Why did I bother going to church? What is the purpose of church? Isn't God alone, Christ alone, enough for me? Why can't I just stay at home and watch Francis Chan or Ravi Zacharias or Matt Chandler or Darrin Patrick or Mark Gungor? I seem to learn so much more from their sermons. Why shouldn't I spend the 5 hours on Sundays at home, praying to God and reading scripture by myself, catching up on work, delighting in what God has provided for me in my room? Even my own cooking would taste better than the church food yesterday. I DON'T NEED PEOPLE, ALL I NEED IS GOD!
God decided to use this moment to bonk me (hard) on the head. "It is about love," He said. "It is about humility," He said. "It is about teaching you to be selfless," He said. C.S. Lewis' quote
Love is unselfishly choosing for another's highest good popped into my mind. The message of the Gospel, how God loved us even when we were not worth loving at all came to my mind. The point of how Love is supposed to be hard, not easy, came to my mind (man I haven't been convicted like this in a long time).
God didn't let off during Vision School either. He kept on hitting me, drudging memories of my past, like how the Cthaeh does except for my own good. How the young adults ignored me to take high school girls into their apartments to do who-knows-what with them. How my insecure and worldly fellowship at Washu abandoned me when I need them the most, even at the edge of physical and spiritual and emotional and mental death. God told me, "look at all these people in your past who have failed you. Well guess what, you are acting like them right now, all selfish and high and mighty and ignorant and unloving and complaining and about to abandon those I have placed in your path." No I cannot save anyone, only God can do that. But the message of "oh God is enough" that people tell me when I ask them for help is just a freaking big excuse to not love when it is hard for them to love. DO NOT EVER USE GOD AS AN EXCUSE TO NOT LOVE! It is a joke and flies in the face of the purpose of the Body, of the Church. There are verses about accountability and discipleship and helping the poor and faint-hearted and the lost and those near despair. There are verses about being patient and loving to ALL brothers and sisters. We are to be honest with one another, respect one another, care for one another, build one another up, encourage one another, hold one another, keep meeting one another, confess sins to one another, immediately call each other out on sin (but in truth and love and gentleness and a breaking of heart), show hope to one another, and LOVE one another! (Go biblegateway "one another" for the scripture references, or just look
here for some, courtesy of Tim Keller). Guess what, I neglected all of these things lately. God is not going to let me neglect the students in Vision School. God is not going to let me neglect the ACF bros. God is not going to let me neglect my GCF guys. God is not going to let me neglect my KC brothers back home. God is not going to let me neglect all those who were faithful to the Cross and loyal to me as a friend all across the US and in the world. God is God and all of this is for His glory, and He is NOT DONE WITH ME! Real genuine love is hard, and it is even harder when loving other broken people with tons of flaws and sins. But that is the point of being a Christian, we are to love those who are hard to love. Only pagans love those who love them back. We love because God first loved us, and have forgiven the unforgivable in us. We love because it teaches us how unloving we truly are, and it humbles us and then it makes God look GREAT!
So yeah, I ended up crying in front of the Vision School staff (for like 5 seconds, then I composed myself...pride). I don't think anyone has seen me cry in Pittsburgh. Yes, the pain and bitterness of the past came up, but it hurt even more that I was doing the same thing as they did to me. As what others did to them too. As what I have also done to hurt people.
So yeah...just another Sunday for me.
(and yes this is what I write when I don't want to finish my NSF personal statement)