Filter Change

Breathe. Count to ten. Take a walk. These are all common tips on how to handle a stressful or overwhelming situation. I have recently added a new one: for the sake of witty banter, let's call it "Instagram with the I Am." Sepia tone, black and white, put whatever filter on it that you want, but picture our actions in 2012 as spelled out in a New York Times font within a Bible.

And suddenly the disciples don't look so clueless. At the time, they probably thought they were doing the right thing too and asking the right questions.

When you look through a new lens, it's amazing how you are humbled, how you are changed, and how big deals suddenly shrink to microscopic status.

Jesus and his disciples were sitting beneath a tree. Suddenly, one of them brought a merchant before Jesus and said, "Lord, Lord, no one will buy silver or gold from this man because he is talking about his beliefs. What shall we do?" Then Jesus replied, "Take up your cloaks, your social media, your children, your chickens [hint] and everything you own and overwhelm this merchant's table. Only then will people truly know you are my followers." 

Don't look for that in the good book anywhere. Because it's not there. And it's not there because it's insignificant. That verse doesn't say people will know us by our picket signs, it doesn't say they will know us by our Facebook statuses, it doesn't even say they will know us by what organizations we support or oppose. They will know us by our love. Our love. That goes for both sides of any debate.

And Jesus rebuked the disciples saying, "You tear through the stores, you trample your neighbors, you steal from the carts of babes, and you do this in my name?" "Master," they replied, "But we do it to glorify you. And the flat screen television was marked down twenty whole dollars." 

When Jesus returned from the city, he saw people passing a piece of paper. "What does this paper say?" Jesus asked. Peter replied, "It said if we did not pass this to the person next to us, we didn't truly love you, Lord." And then He replied, "You are correct. For man-made words displayed in really bad font with a strange picture of me is what best shows that you are following me." 

Once again, I use poetic license. But seriously, if the disciples did that, we'd be like, "Those stupid guys. I would be on top of my game if Jesus was in my midst." But he is in your midst. He very much is.

I often read the Bible with this elitist attitude, like I am somehow sharper than those few-fries-short-of-a-Happy-Meal disciples of his. But guess what-- I have been able to read their stories, their silly questions, their short-sighted remarks since I was a kid in a felt-board Bible story classroom. They didn't get the 20/20 hindsight vision and neither do we.

But we, unlike them, have Jesus's personality, his character, his spirit wrapped up and leather-bound for us.

But we go around acting like these silly things are what Jesus would be doing. But he wouldn't. He would be at the reject lunch table. He would be with the guy who is fighting a drug addiction. He wouldn't be gossiping about the divorced lady at church, he would be healing her.

So I think it's time to change our filter. And a very beautiful picture will soon develop.