Saturday, June 18, 2005

Strange Dreams

When you eat strange food do you have strange dreams? I do. I have wild dreams that make me wonder if I have been inadvertently dropping acid or something. Strange food will give you strange dreams. And I’ll be honest, when I look at the church today, I wonder what they have been eating, because it seems to me we have some really strange dreams in the church. Jesus told us to eat His flesh and drink His blood and take up our cross. Wait a minute, I must have read it wrong…it must have said build mega churches, form kick ass mass choirs, and increase our annual budgets… it has got to be in the Bible somewhere…I mean I know that all of the original 12 apostles except forJohn were matyred and they all lived lives of great hardship to build the church. But that was then and this is now…Now we have to meet the people where they are at…we have to convey the right image to people. I know this is true because my last pastor told me he drove his Cadillac for me. No one would want to be a Christian if they thought it was a life of suffering and self sacrifice. Our cross is metaphorical…isn’t it?
When did it change? When did the external trappings of success become a direct indication of a persons spirituality rather than the invisible inward transition of a soul from lost to saved, darkness to light, death to life? When did we become more obsessed with appearing blessed and successful than we have with becoming truly holy people? Who took our dreams and made them soulish & worldly? We used to aspire to truly great things: humility, selflessness, loyalty, devotion, steadfastness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, and all the fruits of the Spirit. We used to dream of the sacred. Now it seems that we are caught in a tailspin of one up man ship, constantly trying to out razzle dazzle one another with the greatness of our spiritual gifts. …Strange dreams. What are we eating. Are we like the ones Paul wrote about…Where our God has become our belly? I mean it would seem that the cry that we are hearkening to the most is the call of the flesh to be comfortable.
It kind of reminds me of the commercials where they show people in advanced stages of drug addiction and you hear the voice, “ Nobody ever said, ‘ I want to be a crack head when I grow up.’” I guess the Gospel as is isn’t very marketable. I mean…my God, look what happened to people who really followed Jesus…eaten by lions, thrown in jail, torn to pieces, turned out of their homes, beaten, stoned…I wonder what kind of dreams those people had. God knows, they must have been feeding on some really solid food. I don't hear a lot of Christians today saying, "I want to give my all for Jesus and cause such a stir that they take everything I own and put me under the jail!" We don't have many preachers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who gave all he had then gave his life and died with nothing... I guess nobody says, " I want to be destitute when I grow up!" What are our dreams? What are we eating? Are we eating the bread came down from heaven, or feasting on the ideology of the world...Strange food will give you strange dreams.

6 comments:

Dr. Mike Kear said...

angevoix, I love your prose. It cuts me to the quick. It grabs my face with both hands and points my eyes toward God.

Peace,

Mike

voixd'ange said...

Thank you so much.

voixd'ange said...

Thank you Sheila jo.

Dan Trabue said...

Are you familiar with Robert Linthicum who I believe is also in or near Chicago? There's a story from him (retold by my pastor) on our church blog. Given the context of this post, I think you might like the story (posted June 22).

www.jeffstreet.blogspot.com

voixd'ange said...

I will check it out. Thanks.

revhipchick said...

you have an powerful prophetic voice, thank you.