love, hope, and rock n' roll.

I'm water, you're the dry wood
equal parts misguided and misunderstood
but all the neighborhood
watched a fire burn from where they stood
as the smoke said
'we're not half as bad as G-d is good'
still there's a whisper in my ear,
the voice of loneliness and fear, so I say:
'devil, disappear!
I'm still (ehh...technically...) a virgin
after 27 years -
which never bothered me before,
what's maybe 50 more?'

open wide my door, my Lord, my Lord
open wide my door, to whatever makes me love You more

--mewithoutYou

MewithoutYou played at the Bottleneck last Tuesday night. At one point in the show, the lead singer asked for forgiveness for his harsh words towards the church in the last years. He apologized for strongly insisting that the church was hypocritical, for lashing out at the flaws he saw, for joining in the chorus of negativity. He told the humbled crowd of cynics that he has begun to see his own hypocrisy, that the change really needed to be within him, with his eyes--the problem was that he could not see God's goodness all around him.

When we take in the long history of the church, its many ups and downs, its failure to represent Christ in the world as well as the powerful times when the body of believers were the very hands and feet of Jesus. When we look hard at each passing generation of both optimists and pessimists, of preachers and prophets, of martyrs and heretics, one thing is evident: God's Kingdom will advance... it is already among us... and it will finally come in its fullness. We can either be faithful to this coming Kingdom, always looking for the signs of our coming Savior with the hope of a resurrection and a new creation, or we can keep our eyes on the enemy, looking for all his temporary triumphs, his last desperate attacks upon the already victorious Kingdom of God.

Do not misunderstand me. We must know who our enemy is, we must beware of the prowling lion seeking to devour. We must not drop our guard... we should not mistake our confidence in victory as an excuse for passivity. Every generation needs its prophets, those who speak on God's behalf to stir up hope for the oppressed while demanding justice and truth from the oppressors. Prophets are the mouthpieces for God's will on earth as it is in heaven. But Christ, the cross, and the hope of resurrection, should be our song, our strength, our joy.

The defeatism that has been popularized... the weak, devastating eschatology that claims we must abandon ship and let the world sink into a lake of fire... the chorus of cynicism that deconstructs every attempt to manifest the good news... will only steal us away from what God is already doing.

The hungry world, the wealthy church, the man-made institutions, the republicans vs. democrats, the capitalist greed, the divisive denominations, the brain-washing sitcoms, the sex, the violence, the lies... we're not half as bad as God is good.

May God give us the eyes to see, the ears to hear, what is already at hand.