Authenticity

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity lately. I’m probably focusing on it because so much in my society is fake these days. Packaged foods have so many chemicals that there are barely traces of real ingredients, everything that Hollywood cranks out is retouched with CGI, and let’s face it, I don’t trust the standardized church father than I can chuck it.

There is a shockingly large amount of people that I feel as though expect me to behave in a certain fashion. I understand that in society people have different roles and are expected to fulfill those roles. My employers expect me to be a good worker, capitalism expects me to be a brainless consumer and the government expects me to obey the law and pay my taxes. That’s not what I struggle with. It’s the fact that I feel like I can’t have a bad day that bothers me, the fact that I can’t question or wrestle with God, the fact that I can’t have any problems.

Don’t problems and issues simply go with the territory of humanity? We are being perfected and refined by the Lord, sure, but who’s actually ever arrived? The last man I knew that claimed to go for long periods of time without sinning…well, was apparently soliciting a male prostitute regularly. That’s not the kind of life I want to lead. The idea of that kind of inner duality just discourages me. I want to know God and be known by Him, but how is that possible if I’m not honest about my shortcomings, which is the entire reason I NEED Him.

In a situation like this, when my thinking and belief seems to go against the typical Sunday school answers with which I was raised, I turn to the scriptures to see how far “off base” I might be. But the more I investigate, the more I see that if Jesus was anything while walking the face of this earth he was REAL. He was always sneaking away from the crowds and his disciples to spend time with the Father. That’s pretty legit. He loved His time with the Father so much that He put the rest of His life and ministry aside on a daily basis.

Then think about the disciples. HELLO, 11 of them died for him. Those are some real friends. Let’s be honest, I love my church leaders, but I would never actually die for them. The people I’d die for without batting an eyelash are the ones that have been there in my best and my worst moments. They are the people that know my secrets and trust me with theirs. They are the people that I have built lasting relationships with in the mundane beauty of everyday life.

Most people in the church would give me those two points without question. To know the Lord and be honest with him and then to have genuine friends within the church surrounding you are kind of a given in Christian society. But what about the heathens? Jesus hung out with the lowest of society. He hung out with the hookers and drug addicts and thieves of the day. Or, Maybe less extreme examples will be easier to identify with, he hung out with the sluts, adulterers, gamblers, partiers and foul-mouthed. Something about human nature desires to put people into a stereotype. If there is a group of kids standing around smoking weed, most people immediately associate all of them with that activity. It’s entirely possible that one of them has never smoked, but their reputation is ruined because of the company they were keeping. Jesus didn’t care about the way that people perceived him! He spent time with the worst of sinners, knowing that it would hurt his reputation in the religious world. But isn’t that the thing? Jesus wasn’t religious.

So if Jesus wasn’t religious, why the hell are we expected to be? Why is looking like you have everything together a prerequisite for entering the presence of God? That’s not the God I know. It breaks my heart but I have seen countless people in my generation give up on the Lord because of the church. Do you hear that? They’ve given up on a real God with real power, grace, forgiveness, and love because the “body of Christ” is obsessed with appearances. This problem is not new, however. There’s a nagging memory about someone calling church people white-washed sepulchers. I’m tired of a society filled with dead bones.