Jesus is in the shit...

Without divulging into the personal issues that led to the statement in the title, I can give you the basics. It would seem that in the culture at large (and perhaps it has always been this way through all cultures in all times) there is a tendency to project the perfect life as one free from stress, with a perfect view of some exotic locale, a nice fat bank account, in perfect health with not a care in the world. In other words, the perfect life is viewed as an escape from the 'real 'world. Perhaps this is my own observation, a projection of the sheltered and often superficial world in which I was raised, both nationally in the United States and more locally in the Midwest.

But this is a dangerous way to live as such a worldview is, by and large, unattainable if it in fact attainable at all. It is something akin to retirement, working our entire lives in order that we can enjoy life when we are in our 60s. By and large, most people do not live to see such a retirement.

The religion of Christianity (and, arguably, other religions as well) seems to project this future oriented, pie-in-the-sky worldview that a better day is coming to there is no need to pay much attention to this one. It's somewhat nihilistic. If our sole focus is the future it leaves us no energy for the present. Christians long to see Jesus, to be with him, to live in eternal bliss free from pain and suffering. A noble goal, certainly. But what of this world? Is our sacrifice a life of fifty or more years of misery until that time? Is this why so many Christians fill their lives with the stuff of the world? Is this the disconnect?

In other words, since the future is not yet and is intangible, do Christians in fact give religious justification for the use of 'stuff' to fill the void left by the 'not yet' and thus give a religious stamp to materialism? We long for escape, for distraction. But what about the real stuff? What about finding the joy in the middle of it? What about finding ourselves content in any situation?

In my personal life at the moment there is a lot of stuff going on. It's 'real' world stuff, stuff where places exist in order for us not to have to deal with it (provided, of course, you have sufficient income), where we can shoo off these problems to some systemic solution. We tend to do this don't we? We send alcholics to rehab, the homeless to shelters, the aged to nursing homes, the mentally ill to psych wards, troubled teens to juvenile detention centers. In other words, we have the intermediary of a 'system' to handle problems we ourselves do not have the time, the money or the inclination to handle.

And we expect these systems to solve the problems, as if these systems are real people. But they are made up of people for whom their work is just a job. You may find the occasional individual who adds the personal element to their work but this is rare. In the end, these things just lead to more systems and less solutions. Prisons are not places of rehabilitation; homeless shelters don't solve the problem of homelessness; nursing homes provide a dumping ground for a society for whom a youthful, abundant and vivacious life is the ideal. Anything outside of this ideal tends to be marginalized and systematized.

I am aware that I am generalizing to a great degree. But these are observations from many years doing social work, including working with the homeless, with substance abusers, those living with a mental illness, those living with HIV/AIDS, the elderly and a combination of all of the above. It was in this work that I really learned about Jesus, more than I could ever learn in church or in school.

'The system' always fails. Yet to remove 'the system' would do more damage as it is embedded into the very fabric of our culture. To remove it would be foolish. But 'the system' will never save anyone.

No. It is we who must bring about the saving. It is through us, not some system, that God moves. He moves through His people. This is His story. He works through men. And so we have Jesus. Jesus came and brought a system to its knees. Jesus brought the personal to an impersonal system, a system that bound men rather than save them.

He came to the lost, to the sinners, the drunkards, the beat down and broken, the poor and the sick. He came to the lowest of the low. He got down in the shit. This is where salvation comes. This is where life is. This, my friends, is the real world. And it is finding joy and peace and contentment in it that is what the walk of faith is about.

Faith is not a provision for us to escape from the shit. Faith is the calling to walk in it.