5.3 Are Christians Out of Touch?

Fear has a nasty habit of getting in the way. It can hold you back from pursuing your dreams, it can convince you that you’re not good enough. It can also stop you from doing the right thing which is why fear doesn't mix particularly well with living a life of faith. C.S. Lewis cleverly suggested that when Christians become too focused on the afterlife they become of no earthly use. It’s as if some people misinterpret the commands of Jesus about living in the world but not of the world. They convince themselves that Christian living is living safe like in a protective bubble and live life like the world around them is something to be feared and something that they have to protect themselves from. The problem with this kind of understanding is that it keeps life out, people out and robs us from our ability to make a difference. It creates the stereotype of Christians living out of fear. If Jesus gave in to fear at any point he never would have encountered the people who needed him the most, or he never would have stood up for the voiceless against the religious leaders or he never would have travelled to Jerusalem knowing that he was walking to his death. one of Jesus’s disciples, John, wrote a powerful statement in one of his letters to the early church, he said There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that being a Christian makes you immune to fear, but the more we begin to understand and trust in God’s love for us, the less power fear has over us. The more we know we’re loved, the less we’re afraid to do the right thing or the less we’re afraid to fail, or even be rejected. I know from my own experience looking back, when I struggled to be loved, that’s when I was the most insecure, when I worked to try and earn love, when I people pleased. But as I grew in the security of God’s love for me is when I became more confident, less afraid, more myself. It’s like there are two ways I could live my life for God. The first is wearing this clean white suit, fearing that my life will be judged at the end by how clean I kept it. So there is absolutely no way I can help a guy who clearly just needs a hand to change a tyre or help a young lady who’s clearly had too much to drink to just get home because of the fear of the stains it might leave on my clean white suit! Or, I can see my life as a light, a light that is supposed to go to places where there is no light. It means bringing love to places where love is hard to find. It means bringing hope to those who have lost hope. Caring for those that others treat as invisible. Jesus, as he did best, told a parable that cut to the chase. It’s often called ‘The Good Samaritan.’ It’s about a man who is walking on a road, like this, from Jerusalem to Jericho. As he is walking, he gets ambushed by bandits who take everything that he has and pretty much leave him for dead on the side of the road. The first two people to encounter him are a priest and a Levite, they both have important roles in the Jewish Temple. Rather than helping the man, they cross on the other side of the road (which is actually a joke on Jesus’ part… because this road was well known as windy and narrow, there was no ‘other side’. The picture Jesus is painting is of these religious leaders either stepping over him or climbing around him!) The reason they leave him there is because, as we discussed elsewhere, touching certain people, like the sick, dead or dying, would make one unclean and unable to enter the Temple. In this story, living out their faith, for them, meant walking past the dying in order to stay clean and perform their religious duty. The next man to come along is the hero of the story He is a Samaritan. Many Jews despised Samaritans because they did not live by the same religious rules. But instead of walking past the man, he helps him, tends to his wounds, delivers him to a local inn and even pays for his medical care. For the priest and the Levite, their fear of getting their religious observance wrong actually stops them from loving. And it’s when Christians misunderstand the Bible or Jesus’ teaching, that’s when things get messy and people become selfish. For the Samaritan, love is just how he lives. It’s parables like these that dismantle the negative Christian stereotypes and they remind me what following Jesus is supposed to be about; to live, like really fully live; not defined by fear but out of love for others.