Some quotes that speak to us and our society in America: How might we respond?

Excerpts from The Irresisitble Revolution by Shane Claiborne

“Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy and fulfillment he gives you right now?’ I am more and more convinced each day that I would. Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about the afterlife. We are going to party like there’s no tomorrow. And yet I am convinced that Jesus came not just to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live (Claiborne, p.117).”

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: ‘When I fed the hungry they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.’….People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them (Claiborne, p. 129).”

These are a couple of quotes that I read tonight from Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. In this book he deals with many things in his story but one of the big issues he discusses is what it means to be Christian and have that played out in our lives. I thought these quotes were particularly interesting because we are challenged to thing about our existence as more than a time seeking a place in an afterlife but being part of the reconciliation of this Earth into the New Earth spoken of in the scriptures the very Earth that we pray as we were taught to pray “on earth as it is in heaven..” Also in looking at what it means for us to not just help the poor by feeding and clothing them but by asking why they are poor. Forcing us also to ask a similar question; in fact if we are bold enough to ask the question why are there poor we must in the same breath ask why are their rich and what does that mean for our society.

Just some food for thought and a teaser to get someone else to read this great book.