I know a middle schooler who went to a youth conference this summer. She left her world feeling just like every other middle school girl in our society...fat, ugly, lonely. (Even though she is not any of these things...in any way...) She came home reminded that she is a beautiful, beloved, child of God...celebrating and able to see the beauty in herself, her family, her community, and her church--local and global.
Almost as soon as she got home and reported the transformative power of choosing to spend a week in Christian community focused on learning, worshiping, and serving God, she began grieving the impossibility of living in that world in her "real life." Too bad it can't last. There is no way to live like that except at church camp.
It is definitively more difficult, but is our very call, is it not? I have often wanted to be one of those early church fathers...living alone in the desert with the other hermits living alone in the desert...and being fed and supported by people from the surrounding towns who brought food and supplies to support the mystics in their prayerful search for the divine. Their wisdom is beautiful. Their words, inspirational. Their lives, unreal. Jesus Christ didn't separate himself from very messy humanity. He did the exact opposite of the church folks of the day...instead of excluding those fat, lonely, ugly people, he loved them. He reached out and showed them God's unconditional love, and in so doing, brought the Kingdom of God to the here and now. Though it is easier to be spiritual as a desert hermit, it is not what God calls most of us to do.
One of our youth spent a week at a counselor at the same camp and posted on Facebook that she had just arrived home and wanted to go right back. True. It is soooo much easier to live in the presence of God without the messy reality we call life. But we are called to that messy world. The ability, with God's help, to live as a beautiful, beloved, child of God in the midst of the message of insignificance and devaluation that surrounds us is the greatest evangelism work ever.
No one does it perfectly. There are days that we all slip into the ugly, fat, lonely selves. That's when we need to reach out to our fellow disciples and ask for help. And if we are remembering our beautiful, beloved, children of God...we better be reaching out our hands and our message to the world...because that is why we are here...to bring God's love to the world.
Our middle schooler's parents were wise and challenging. They reminded her that she could choose the world in which she lives. Now that you have experienced God's Kingdom, do you want to choose to live there, or in the American kingdom of consumption, power, and status that leaves all but a few feeling fat, ugly and lonely? We who have experienced the love of God have that choice. Our call is to be sure we have shown that kingdom to the world so they, too, have the choice.
It's not about us changing the world. God has already acted to do that. We just choose to live there...or not.
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