Comments on Radical Chapter 1 and a little fishing report

For those of you new to my blog there is always fishing, hunting, and paddling updates first. DRY! Fishing slow on the Big Walnut ½ of rain in 8 weeks with 90+ temperatures means no flow. We added a new canoe to the list of gear and early goose season came and went with no outings.
Thoughts on Radical by David Platt Chapter 1
The way to render a man happy, is to engage him with an object that will make him forget his private troubles. - Pascal
Hence what the American Dream does…distract, distract, distract. In this first chapter of Radical my thoughts were driven to our culture and how we have made Christianity American. Look at the pictures of Jesus we grew up with, we refer to Him as “Surfer Jesus” and the flannel grams were Abraham and Isaac really white wearing blue clothing. We were deceived from an early age. Not out of malice, I think it was more out of a feeling of fear and to make it (the gospel) comfortable. If we presented the Bible and even more over the Gospel in its true grittiness, we then have to realize that it will be offensive, dangerous and tough. As a parent I think our parents also realized if they presented the Gospel the way that Christ presented it then their children (us) would leave and go to dangerous places and not live out their dreams or maybe their dreams for us.
The American Dream. I used to understand this concept. I thought; work hard, buy a house, get married, have 2 kids, get a dog and a minivan and I would have arrived. I got there but decided not to stay. Sold the van, got another dog, chickens and rabbits, a big garden, live in a rural town not the suburbs and had three kids.
We choose to rest on Sunday and not go out to eat or play organized sports. My wife and I reach out to those around us, not as much as we should but as we change our focus from ourselves to others we do more and more reaching out. We try to see others through the eyes of Christ, not with the filter of “America”. It might mean we have a couple over that is struggling with something we find distasteful or give an item that we cherish to a couple to help them make it through.
The Gospel and the American Dream don’t match. I am not saying that is wrong to have “stuff”, I am saying that “stuff” complicates things. I look at my great grandparents same couch for forty years and never thought twice about it. Now new furnishings every few years and a big vacation to boot is what we consider normal and modest as long as it is not so extravagant that people will talk. My grandfather told me the story of sharing a quart of ice cream after the war with the family across the road, five kids and everyone got some and they were all happy, now we each want our own quart.
In our Church we are all basically the same 98% white, 70% upper middle class (although I suspect some of those still don’t think they have enough “stuff”), that makes it tough to understand the world Christ lived in, a world of diversity and strife. When was the last time any of us shared a meager meal with a family from a different socio-economic group? I had the opportunity to share a meal with some great folks a while back; it was a good lesson in humility. I was invited by them not the other way around. It was simple fair at a simple place but it was good, the gospel was shared and discussed and seeds were planted. I wish I would have been the instigator and not the guest. Christ was always the instigator, He always put himself in position to be the one who brought up the topic or served the meal.
Did you ever notice the environments Christ put Himself in, it was definitely NOT a church program. In Death by Suburb David Goetz states “Suburban religion, its programming, and the need for warm bodies to “advance the kingdom of God” seem only to contribute to my problem. It seems like more stuff to feel guilty about.” Christ was our example of advancing the Kingdom of God and He had no program. He didn’t even have a big church with a gym and bookstore. Christ wasn’t interested in numbers of bodies but in but in the temperature of the bodies serving.