What if...

Rally Day. Welcome back to Church Sunday. Signs. Banners. Marketing. Advertising. Welcome to fall in the life of a church. When school starts again & the summer is over. When most churches spend incredible amounts of time working on what the next year will look like, visioning, restarting Sunday School and Adult Education, with one big Sunday. Not quite as crazy as Christmas & Easter but so many hours, hard work, thoughts & prayers. Reminding people that we are still here. Desperately desiring for them not to see us as much as the One we are pointing to. As I point to myself as the biggest hypocrite of them all--the contrarian and trouble maker rise up within me, wondering what it would be like, if worship, education, and the fervent hours we spent planning for this one kick-off Sunday happened every week. Or if we stopped trying to compete with other churches for the best program, newest idea, or patting ourselves on the back for our 'right theology.' What would it look like if we recognized that we were called to take care of different people and instead of putting each other down, lifted each other up in prayer?

The same is true in the world of campus ministry and mission. The much welcomed & silently dreaded Involvement Fair at the Ohio State University. Something I've heard about for years, and am about to experience for the first time myself. So many different organizations on campus giving out information--trying to sell themselves, including the 50 plus different Christian organizations on campus. You could easily walk away from this event feeling like you were at a meat market and come out feeling like you got slimed. It's not hard to imagine starting a conversation with some of the others in our 'church' section and finding ourselves in the midst of an illustration much like that told by Pete Gilquist:

"It's late in the second year of Jesus' public ministry, and He is teaching a group of His followers on a Judean hillside. Among those in the crowd are two men who have not met before and who happen to be seated next to each other.

While the Lord is revealing the things of God to the throng, the one man nudges the other and remarks, 'Isn't He wonderful?'

'He is certainly is,' whispers the second. 'He healed me of blindness, you know.'

'He did!' says the first with surprise. 'He healed me of blindness, too!'

'That's amazing,' the second man remarks, motioning to his new friend to pull away from the crowd a bit so their talking will not cause disturbance. 'How did it happen?'

'Well, this friend of mine--who was also blind--he and I were sitting by the edge of the road just outside of Jericho. We could tell from the voices of an approaching crowd that the Lord was coming our way and would soon pass us on the road. When he was within earshot, we yelled up to Him something like, 'Oh, Lord , Son of David, give us your mercy.' Jesus called over to us and said, 'What do you want Me to do for you?' We said, 'Lord we just want to be able to see.' And in a flash, we both had our eyesight restored.'

'Wait a minute!' says the second man, with a note of contempt in his voice. 'There's no way it could have happened like that.'

'What are you talking about?' replies the first.

'You've got to have mud,' says the other. 'See, first you spit into your hands, then you stoop down and get some dirt, and go to a pool and wash the mud from your . . .'"

But what if this year was different? I mean, not toting a "I'm okay, you're ok, we're all okay" theology. But what if this time we discussed our differences with dignity, respected, and learned from each other? What if this time, we saw this as an opportunity to be the whole Body of Christ? Recognizing that we are gifted in some areas and in other areas we have brothers and sisters who have things in common, gifts, and abilities to uniquely speak into people's lives-- where we do not? What if we took this opportunity instead of tearing down our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and prayed that God would use us in incredible ways to speak light into darkness, joy into sorrow, life into places that smell of death, comfort to people who are searching for identity, peace into confusion, and about the unfathomable love of our God who clothed Himself in humanity and showed the full measure of His love on a cross, defeating death, and ponder what this all means together while sitting at the edge of the empty tomb? What if this time, we just decided to love? Not with our own love, but with the love of Jesus Christ that spills out of us and gets all over people--whether they want it or not.

Oh Jesus, may it be so. Come Lord, quickly, come.