What Does it Mean to Follow Christ in America?

The American Church really struggles with our role in this world.  Just what does it mean to follow Christ in a land which has generated by far the most wealth and influence in human history?  During Jesus' lifetime, three groups of religous people completely missed the point of why Jesus came and just how it is that we are supposed to be living this one life that we are given.  Today, those same three types of religous people almost completely miss the point of what it means to be a Christian.  Two thousand years ago during Jesus' lifetime, there were generally three groups of Jews.  The escapists tried to distance themselves from the world, and all of the problems in it.  They withdrew to their own private Jewish silos in the desert and in their own neighborhoods.  The conformists were a second group of religous people who basically assimilated to the pagan Roman society that was all around them.  They adopted the worldly culture instead of conforming to the ways of God.  The third group, the zealots, were fundamentalists who wanted to overthrow the Romans and establish a Jewish state and ruling religous system once again.  The escapists, conformists, and zealots all missed the point of why Jesus came.  In their search to find life, they instead found frustration and dead ends.  Instead of orienting themselves in the Kingdom of God that Jesus ushered in, they chose to settle for their own smaller stories to live in.

In modern America, those same three groups of religous people still define and shape what the religion of Christianity looks like.  The escapist Christians are still trying to escape the world by building Christian bubbles for themselves.  They live in places that buffer themselves from the poor and from people who they perceive to be too broken to interact with.  Their friends are all Christians, they send their kids to Christian school or home school them, their music is Christian, and their breath mints are Christian.  Yet, they are missing the point of what it means to be a follower of Christ.  The conformist Christians in America are alive and well.  Their divorce rate looks exactly the same as the populare culture.  Becoming a Christian did not alter their lifestyles, and they continue to live as though they have the assurance of eternal salvation but that does not really apply to their lives.  Things just seem to go better if you're into that whole Christian thing.  Being a Christian shouldn't really cost you anything.  It should improve your life.  There are plenty of churches in American lined up to offer the self help gospel or the prosperity gospel message to people who are looking to be upwardly mobile during this lifetime.  Hey, maybe God will give us that house, or that car, or that luck in the stock market for our retirement accounts if we just be nice little Christian people.  And there are plenty of American zealots in modern times, from both the far left and the far right.  The culture war in politics in America is a hot topic, and they are fully committed to their causes.  The love of Christ becomes lost in the culture war, though, and we end up falling back on our own flawed worldviews to try to prove to people how right we really are instead of being Christlike.  The problem is, the Kingdom of God has nothing to do with escapists, or conformists, or zealots.  Those worldviews completely miss the point of why we choose to follow Christ.

So, why should we follow Christ?  What does that really mean for our lives?  Maybe we heard a good sermon at church this weekend, but how do we translate that over to our day to day functions as followers of Jesus?  Our lives do matter.  God is on mission to redeem the world.  If we choose not to engage in that mission, then we lead lives of disobedience.  We become lost.  We find LIFE in Christ!  God has a unique role for each of us to play in this life.  Our life comes with a cost.  Christ calls each of us to give our lives away for him.  Once we choose to follow Christ, we die to our selves and we embrace our costly role in the mission of God to redeem the world.  We cannot fulfill that role as an escapist.  We cannot fulfill that role as a conformist.  And we cannot fulfill that role as a zealot.  That is why God says the path to life in Christ is a narrow path.  Few will find it.  Still, we cannot give up the search.  God will meet us and guide us on that path if we intentionally give up control of our lives.  We must choose to step out of the story of the American Dream.  We must choose to stop elevating ourselves, and die for the sake of Christ.  Our lives here on earth are a mist, and then they are gone.  In the long run, it will not matter how nice our houses were, or what kind of cars we chose to drive, or how much money we chose to retire on and leave for our children.  We must live every day with the purpose that is found in God, and we cannot afford to waste time.  We cannot afford to get caught up in all of the sins that this world has to offer, or all of the distractions, or the busyness, or the smaller stories of escaping, conforming, or selling out to fundamentalism.  God is on a mission, and we can only find our life purpose in him.  Let's live like that this week!