Bottom Line

Genesis 3:1-11 -- Psalm 1 -- Mark 1:32-45

Bottom line is, I've been staring at the screen for more than an hour. Bottom line is it's much easier to write in my private journal than on this blogspot. Bottom line is that today's scriptures bring both trouble and peace. I suppose that's the way it is with Jesus. If we take seriously the words of God, they begin to eat at us.

I hate to quote Shane Claiborne again, but I think he tells a great story in his book, The Irresistible Revolution. He says, "You may recall the old comic in which two pastors are talking, and one of them asks the other, 'How's your church?' The other pastor boasts, 'Quite well, I should say. When I got there, we had only thirty members, and I have been there only a year. Now we are seeing over four hundred people on Sunday morning. And how's your church?' The first pastor says, 'Well, I don't know. When I got there, we were seeing about a hundred. I've been preaching the gospel, and I've preached that ole church down to ten.'"

On the other hand, we hear throughout scripture about the crowds that followed Jesus. One of my favorite scriptures is in today's gospel reading. It's Mark 1:37. Jesus had gone off to a deserted place to pray, and when his disciples found him they exclaimed, "Everyone is searching for you." I think that's still true today, and I also believe we live among one of the toughest mission fields. We live in a wealthy society preaching a gospel that says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven. Claiborne goes on to say, "Certainly, thousands were added to their number in the early church--the poor, outcasts, people fed up with the world. They were the scum of the earth." (See 1 Corinthians 4:11-13 for specifics.) Jesus met up with one such person in Mark 1:40-45. It's so beautiful. Jesus didn't dismiss the leper. Jesus didn't heal him from a distance. "Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him..."

Bottom line? The Christian gospel doesn't always draw a crowd. But it calls us to touch others. Bottom line. When we begin the really hear God, and stick around, we're not satisfied with the status quo. We have to do something. We have to live better. Express love more freely. Extend grace more soundly. Touch others. Serve and forgive. Serve and forgive. Serve and forgive. Bottom line.