Your corner

Jeremiah 5:27-29

There is a small—maybe large, actually— chance that what I am about to write will come off as judgmental, pretentious, irrational and maybe even completely dismissible.  I hope not, as the truth is that everything welling up in my heart and mind is coming genuinely from conviction and an unbearable sense of hypocrisy in my own life… by that I mean I have been doing everything I will talk about not doing anymore.  I am pretty ashamed of my “Christian” lifestyle—bordering on disgusted.  But I wasn’t always.  Up until maybe a year or two ago I was on the other side of this: I read Irresistible Revolution and thought Shaine Claiborne was a total hippie, biting the hand that feeds him and complaining about Americans—specifically the American church— when we are clearly the best country in the world.  (P.S. I still believe this is an amazing country, and I am thankful every day for what I have been given being born and raised right here in this land of the free).  I also picked up Francis Chan and David Platt, and spent a good few days convicted before I forgot completely the quotes I had just written in my journal.  So I get it, the tension that exists when you hear or read something that challenges our way of life, the American Dream we have been born and raised to pursue in any untethered way we choose.  

And then came Jen Hatmaker.  And she is really messing me up—in all the best ways.  (I should clarify that it is God who is messing me up—but he is speaking directly through an incredible writer, and for her words I am immeasurably grateful).  I read Interrupted shortly before Thanksgiving, and last week finished 7 in about twenty-four hours (not bragging- you will, too, it is that good).  It is not that her voice is brand new, or that she is saying something we have never heard before.  In fact, all she is really doing is reading God’s word and doing what it actually says to do.  Why this feels so novel to me I cannot tell you.  Believers in Christ living like he did.  Has that not always been the point? 

Of course it has.  Then why am I so far from it?  

I could attempt to walk you through my thought processes over the last few days and weeks, but you’d give up reading after a few sentences.  Everything is incoherent in my own mind; getting it all on paper would be a futile endeavor.  I will, however, share a few of the baby steps I am going to take toward acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly.

Step 1: Distinguish want versus need, then eliminate want. 
Conviction:     Annual U.S. spending on cosmetics: $8 billion 

Basic education for all global citizens: $6 billion

Yes, this all belongs to one person.  No, it's not all of it.

I am part of this in a terrible way.  I love makeup, all makeup.  But I am (detrimentally) partial to MAC and Laura Mercier (the evidence is in the picture).  At $14 per eye color and probably $25 each for the face stuff, I have roughly $1100.00 in makeup collected over the last few years.  And I didn’t even count the lip gloss or the brushes.  O.M.G. I could have eliminated 90% of this and still had enough to put on my face every day AND have the options to change eye colors every now and then.  For the sake of everyone who sees me on a daily basis, I want to clearly say that I am NOT going to stop wearing make-up.  But I can, and must, tone it down.  I really can only close my eyes and sigh with disbelief at the thought of what 90% of $1100.00 could do for someone hurting, hungry, cold, or alone.

And for the love of Pete, I have two degrees in education!  I believe to the core of my being that the best way to stop the poverty cycle is to get a good teacher in every town and city in the world.  I quoted Wendy Kopp (Teach for America founder), Jonathan Kozol (big education inequality researcher), John Dewey (amazing educational philosopher) and Paulo Friere (who is just pretty cool) in my thesis on the importance of education.  I consider my viewpoints to be right in line with all of these amazing thinkers and doers of high quality education around the world.  “Teach kids to read, teach kids to think, teach kids to create!” has been my mantra throughout my education and now in my profession.  This is one of those places where I probably sound totally pretentious, and I am so sorry.  I say all of this only so that you have a really clear picture of the hypocrisy $1100.00 of makeup really is.        

Step 2: Pay attention to my world.
Conviction:          “If God loves the world, then how might any person of faith be excused for not loving it or justified in destroying it?  Our calling is not contingent on results or the state of the planet.  Our calling simply depends on our identity as God’s response-able human image-bearers.”

Response-able.  Ouch, that is a punch in the gut.  This world has been placed in our care, we are responsible for it.  Also response-able, but I have been failing miserably in this area.  You all probably know that plastic, once it is created, never goes away.  Let me write that one more time for emphasis: plastic never, ever, in a hundred thousand years, goes away.  Our groceries bags?  Here with us forever.  Water bottles?  Lifetime guarantee.  Most baby toys, most parts of a cell phone, most parts of a computer, the $1 Old Navy flip flop sandals—oh and my 4 pairs of Haivianas count too; unless Jesus comes back, all of these will far outlive us… and our kids, and our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren… you get the point.  I think many of us (myself included) just refuse to let our minds think about what happens to all of these things once we are done with them.  We put them in the garbage can, set it on the curb on Tuesday mornings and they are out of our way and out of our lives.  Sort of.  Then we read that plastic molecules are now being found in our fish, in our ground water, in our blood.  Researchers are finding cancers in Pacific Islanders that they have never seen there before.  Why?  Well, although there may be no direct medical, provable link, the fish that make up the majority of these Islanders diets are eating 6 times as much plastic as they are plankton (Does this give you any hint of where a lot of our garbage goes?)

Totally staged picture.  But at least I really have the cups.

Now I know we need plastic, and taken as a whole plastic does a lot of great things for us.  IV tubes, incubators, sanitary packaging, and yes, even the things I scorned earlier like bottled water and cell phones—absolutely life-changing and life-saving innovations!  But those things aside, I think we can all do better.  Let me take my Starbucks habit.  I buy a grande iced coffee at Starbucks… well, often (I already divulged my makeup budget, I am not even going there with Starbucks because I am afraid you will hate me).  If I use and then discard a plastic cup every time I am there, my contribution to the fish problem above is going to be measurable.  Enter the re-usable cups, one courtesy of my friend Emily, and the other courtesy of mom.  I have 2 now.  Absolutely zero excuses to not use these for years.  If I throw away/recycle one more Starbucks cup that did not even need to come off the stack in the first place, you have permission to take away my gold card. 

Step 3: Remember WHO all this matters to.
Conviction:          I’ll answer for my choices… It won’t work to say, “But the church…” or “But they…” or “What about them…” for how we managed our money, our share of the earth.  The “my vote doesn’t really count so why bother?” attitude our generation loves won’t fly when it’s all said and done…  This life is a breath.  Heaven is coming fast, and we live in that thin space where faith and obedience have relevance.  We have this one life to offer; there is no second chance, no Plan B for the good news.  We got one shot at living to expand the kingdom, fighting for justice.  We’ll stand before Jesus once, and none of our luxuries will accompany us.  We’ll have one moment to say, “This is how I lived.”
-Jen Hatmaker

I am about the furthest thing from perfect.  Buying less than I want, using the earth’s resources more responsibly, and any other “step” I can come up with to make me feel like I am doing a better job of being a Christian will be worthless in God’s eyes if he doesn’t have my heart.  But I think I can humbly say for the first time in long time, He has it.  The things I talk about above are an outcome of conviction, not an attempt to get there.  I can see now how the life that I am living, as noise and clutter and stress and everything I dull it with in this world are cleared away, is not how I want to keep living.  No, the cross demands more.  I can (easily) do more.

God is so, so good.  He is forgiving and patient and abundantly kind to his children.  But He is no push-over, either.  He wants hearts and souls back, and get this: we are actually part of his plan for doing that.  Our lifestyles matter to Him and they matter to a watching world. 

From the most humble and repentant hearts, maybe we can say, “Let’s all do more.”  In whatever corner of the world God has put you in, be Jesus in your corner.  

   

I leave with you now with a little more Hatmaker greatness…

I’m just beginning to embrace the liberation that only exists at the bottom, where I have nothing to defend, nothing to protect.  Where it doesn’t matter if I’m right or esteemed or positioned well.  I wonder if that’s the freedom Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).  In order for Jesus’ kingdom to come, my kingdom will have to go, and for the first time I think I’m ok with that.