Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Irresistible Revolution .3

Chapter 3 of Irresistible Revolution is titled "In Search of a Christian". This is really a chapter on Shane's experience in India. He was able to get the phone number for Mother Theresa. When he reached her, he asked if he could come and work with her for a summer. When asking her what to should bring she replied, "God takes care of the lilies and the sparrows, and God will take care of you. Just come."

Shane tells the story of a man he met in India named Andy. Andy was a wealthy German businessman. His life changed when he read the gospel. "It messed everything up." Andy sold everything he had and moved to Calcutta and by the time Shane was there, Andy had not been back to Germany since he had arrived ten years before. Shane was on a journey to find purpose, to find what Christianity could look like when lived out. He had found that in the person of Andy.

During his time in India, Shane worked mostly with a society of outcast lepers. He was told by one of the lepers that most of them don't know the words "thank you" because they have never needed to say them. We see in Jesus that it wasn't what he did, but how he did it. "Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and they next day they were hungry again. But they remember his love. It wasn't that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper."

I see two main points to this:
1. As he left India and his time with the community of lepers he felt like he was going back to his homeland (the US) full of lepers. We are country full of people who are numb.
2. It was never what Jesus did but how he did it. Just as God looks at our heart, it matters less to Him what we do, but rather how we do it.

2 comments:

Ross Gale said...

Well said man.

Rhett Smith said...

Tyler,

Thanks for coming by and commenting on my blog....glad to connect with you and find your blog...I will be checking in, especially as you are writing about The Irresistible Revolution....as far as my post, I agree....not once has Rob Bell or Donald Miller ever talked about the "emerging church", but since they do ask questions they are lumped in there. I tried to ask Donald Miller a question about it one time and he basically told me he would have nothing to say on it.....

Rhett