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Last year, my college had a big end-of-the-year party with a hypnotist, vendors, bands, food, and games. One of the vendors was a Christian clothing company, and their booth was set up right next to my Campus Crusade group’s table, so, at some point during the day, a friend and I wandered over to their table. The guy who owned the company was a young, seemingly cool guy with tattoos and a backwards hat – the kind of guy who looks just alt rock enough to be “Seeker friendly.”
So my friend and I started talking to the guy while we looked at some of the tee shirts he was selling. We had been visiting with him for a few minutes when my friend picked up one of the shirts, a black tee with a screen print of a gas mask on the front and a logo on the back, and asked the guy what the gas mask symbolized.
“I kind of had the idea of how, like, Jesus is like a gas mask that we put on to filter out all of the crap that’s in the world,” he explained.
Personally, I was shocked. Not because Gas Mask guy is anyone special, and certainly not because his view is unique or different. I was shocked only because of the absolutely ordinary opinion he held. It's an opinion of Jesus that we all run into, and some of us hold, for better or for worse.
I kind of feel sorry for the Gas Mask guy. For me, it seems as if his Jesus is awfully small. It seems to me that if all Jesus is good for is just to be our gas mask, then Jesus isn’t really worth very much.
And yet Gas Mask guy can probably back up his position with verses. And let’s face it, Gas Mask guy isn’t all wrong, he’s just missing huge chunks of the story. And, really, it seems to me like he’s really missing out on what makes Jesus so great – The fact that, in encountering the risen Christ, we begin a journey on a path of becoming one with Jesus. It seems to me like he’s too busy worrying about heaven and hell and the evil in the world to see the underlying beauty of the whole thing – the fact that it’s really not about heaven or hell at all; instead it’s about God coming into the world to reunite us to Him.
I guess I really feel sorry for Gas Mask guy because it seems to me like he’s just trying to escape the world. Like Jesus is just there to protect him from the world while he’s here and to be his ticket into heaven when he needs to get there.
For me, when Jesus says in John’s gospel that he is the Way, he doesn’t mean that he’s our ticket into heaven. For me, he’s saying that he is so much more than just a gas mask to put on. He’s so much more than just a bridge to walk over on my way to heaven. He’s so much more than just a means to health and wealth. Jesus is the Way. His teachings and his life create a Way, a path in which to walk, and a guiding companion for that path. But even more than that, Jesus is God. Jesus is the God who was willing to come down into a broken mess in order to restore that mess back to the way God intended.
And so I think that’s really the problem with Gas Mask guy’s idea of Jesus. He’s got Jesus, but it’s Jesus by the numbers. And that’s one thing that God always has tried to keep us away from. I feel like God’s real message for us, the message of the Gospel, is that religious pills don’t work. That God wants something other than right theology or religious practices or sacrifices or being moral. God wants to love us, and for us to love him back. God wants to reunite creation with Himself, and, ultimately, I think that’s what Gas Mask Guy is really missing out on – God’s mission of reunifying everything to Him.
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We’re not comfortable hanging out with those sinners.
More often than not, we treat the lost, those outside the Church, as if they have some sort of “Social Leprosy”. We’re afraid we’ll catch what they’ve got, so we avoid contact with them. We create Christian versions of the world so that we never have to interact with these “Social Lepers”. We have Christian Radio Stations, Christian Yellow Pages, Christian Coffee Shops, Christian Book Stores, and all sorts of private avenues where our contact with non-Christians is minimized.
I’m convicted when I realize that Jesus didn’t even treat people who had actual leprosy this way, and yet I treat those who think differently than I do as if they had some infectious disease that I might catch if I’m exposed to them for any extended period of time.
The ironic thing is that Jesus expected that his disciples would be salt and light in the world, not hidden under a basket waiting for the second coming.
Paul the Apostle echoed the prayer of Jesus when he instructed the Christians in Corinth about their interactions with non-believers - “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-10)
Have we removed ourselves from the world? If so, we’ve allowed the Enemy to pacify us into complacency.
It’s time to awaken from our slumber and burst out of our Christian bubble.
We're all sinners. We all need Jesus.
I get what you are saying about the gas mask guy, but I also had a couple of other thoughts. First of all, Jesus himself used some simple metaphors to describe himself, and maybe would have declared "I am your gas mask in a poisonous world" but of course, the gas mask hadn't been invented yet, so he said "I am the [door, way, shepherd ...]". The other thought I had was this: if I am being bombarded by chemical or biological agents, a gas mask may be the one thing that I need the most. Maybe we shouldn't be too hard on the gas mask guy, but rather applaud and celebrate his visual 21st century parable. After all, it's not a bad starting place :-)
Hugh- I respectfully disagree. Jesus never referred to the World as something toxic. He treated those "sinners" as his friends, not as people we needed protection from, as if they had some virus we're afraid to catch.
Jesus commanded us to be known for love, not for division. We're commanded to be salt and light in the world and that means we have to be involved, connected and engaged with "those sinners" - and to do that we'll have to leave our gas masks at home.
-kg
Jesus was a mentally ill Jewish person who may or may not have lived about 2000 years ago. The "teachings" of the bible are as verifiable as myths. Religion is a safe-haven so that people don't have to deal with "objective" realities. Wake up and smell the coffee. The rocks don't lie.
The fact that, in encountering the risen Christ, we begin a journey on a path of becoming one with Jesus.
That is not a fact. Read a dictionary and you will learn what a FACT is. Some hogwash a thick as pig-dung middle eastern nomad wrote 2000 years ago does not match the definition of a fact the majority of the rest of the world understands. Get with the program. Nothing in any religious document is a "fact".
Keith, since you commented on my comment, I'll reply to yours. I wasn't actually saying I believed that Jesus would tell that parable - I don't pretend to be in a position to say one way or the other. I was just lending an ear with empathy to what was being said: would it have helped if I would have put different words in Jesus' mouth, like "I am your gas mask, in a toxic RELIGIOUS environment"? I agree with you, but I was just trying to be gracious to the gas mask guy, whoever he may be. One of the qualities that seems to be sorely lacking in religious circles is the ability to see anything from anyone else's viewpoint other than our own. But I may be wrong about that.
Hello, my response was a little long so I posted it on my blog at http://mark834.blogspot.com.
Rich
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We’re not comfortable hanging out with those sinners.
More often than not, we treat the lost, those outside the Church, as if they have some sort of “Social Leprosy”. We’re afraid we’ll catch what they’ve got, so we avoid contact with them. We create Christian versions of the world so that we never have to interact with these “Social Lepers”. We have Christian Radio Stations, Christian Yellow Pages, Christian Coffee Shops, Christian Book Stores, and all sorts of private avenues where our contact with non-Christians is minimized.
I’m convicted when I realize that Jesus didn’t even treat people who had actual leprosy this way, and yet I treat those who think differently than I do as if they had some infectious disease that I might catch if I’m exposed to them for any extended period of time.
The ironic thing is that Jesus expected that his disciples would be salt and light in the world, not hidden under a basket waiting for the second coming.
Paul the Apostle echoed the prayer of Jesus when he instructed the Christians in Corinth about their interactions with non-believers - “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-10)
Have we removed ourselves from the world? If so, we’ve allowed the Enemy to pacify us into complacency.
It’s time to awaken from our slumber and burst out of our Christian bubble.
We're all sinners. We all need Jesus.
Posted by Keith Giles | Posted at 08/11/2008 8:50 AMI get what you are saying about the gas mask guy, but I also had a couple of other thoughts. First of all, Jesus himself used some simple metaphors to describe himself, and maybe would have declared "I am your gas mask in a poisonous world" but of course, the gas mask hadn't been invented yet, so he said "I am the [door, way, shepherd ...]". The other thought I had was this: if I am being bombarded by chemical or biological agents, a gas mask may be the one thing that I need the most. Maybe we shouldn't be too hard on the gas mask guy, but rather applaud and celebrate his visual 21st century parable. After all, it's not a bad starting place :-) Posted by Hugh | Posted at 08/13/2008 6:58 PM
Hugh- I respectfully disagree. Jesus never referred to the World as something toxic. He treated those "sinners" as his friends, not as people we needed protection from, as if they had some virus we're afraid to catch.
Jesus commanded us to be known for love, not for division. We're commanded to be salt and light in the world and that means we have to be involved, connected and engaged with "those sinners" - and to do that we'll have to leave our gas masks at home.
-kg
Posted by Keith Giles | Posted at 08/14/2008 10:25 AMJesus was a mentally ill Jewish person who may or may not have lived about 2000 years ago. The "teachings" of the bible are as verifiable as myths. Religion is a safe-haven so that people don't have to deal with "objective" realities. Wake up and smell the coffee. The rocks don't lie. Posted by Bertha mcGowen | Posted at 08/14/2008 11:11 PM
The fact that, in encountering the risen Christ, we begin a journey on a path of becoming one with Jesus.
That is not a fact. Read a dictionary and you will learn what a FACT is. Some hogwash a thick as pig-dung middle eastern nomad wrote 2000 years ago does not match the definition of a fact the majority of the rest of the world understands. Get with the program. Nothing in any religious document is a "fact".
Posted by Bertha mcGowen | Posted at 08/14/2008 11:16 PMKeith, since you commented on my comment, I'll reply to yours. I wasn't actually saying I believed that Jesus would tell that parable - I don't pretend to be in a position to say one way or the other. I was just lending an ear with empathy to what was being said: would it have helped if I would have put different words in Jesus' mouth, like "I am your gas mask, in a toxic RELIGIOUS environment"? I agree with you, but I was just trying to be gracious to the gas mask guy, whoever he may be. One of the qualities that seems to be sorely lacking in religious circles is the ability to see anything from anyone else's viewpoint other than our own. But I may be wrong about that. Posted by Hugh | Posted at 08/15/2008 10:41 AM
Hello, my response was a little long so I posted it on my blog at http://mark834.blogspot.com.
Rich
Posted by Rich | Posted at 08/17/2008 4:41 PM