I love a good cause. I love getting all worked up and fighting for something. Unfortunately for the world, which has so many things to be fought against, the causes that tend to really get me worked up tend to be somewhat mediocre in the grand scheme of things. For instance, at the camp I used to work at, I made it my personal responsibility to fight against the practice of putting the staff donuts right behind the coffee machine where the guests could see them but not actually reach them. I believed with all my heart that this was inhumane and cruel and I would denounce it to the office staff whenever I found the big pink box taunting our visitors. Then I'd go back to my office and fire off a few really nasty emails to important people asking them to pass policies and post signs to prevent people from committing this heinous act. I like to think that the management's recent decision to remodel the entire office and actually remove the offending counter in the process was because of my campaign.
Sunday I was walking into a church I was visiting for the weekend, ever-present coffee mug in hand, when I spied a sign placed conspicuously near the door to the sanctuary. The sign said, in polite but very firm letters: "Please, No Food or Drink in the Sanctuary." I wasn't sure what to do. This very church had just sold me the coffee that was now banned from complementing my worship of our common God. I felt cheated and embarrassed, like when you are at someone's house and they hand you a cold drink without a coaster and then have to ask you to use a one even though there are none in sight and you have to find them behind the picture of grandma on the end-table under the lamp.
My cause instincts were raised and I wanted to pull the greeter aside and tell him just what I thought, not only of his church's ridiculous policy but what it said about their theology. Didn't Jesus eat and drink with his disciples? Didn't the early church eat and drink together? Even science shows that having a coffee in your hands during church will only make the service better and is well worth the risk of carpet stains. I speak from personal experience when I say that those trays of grape juice they pass around once a month cause a bigger spill and stain risk than a cup of Joe. (I still feel a twinge of fear even twenty years later whenever one comes my way).
See how I get all worked up? Why are such petty issues so important to me? Why are things like sex trafficking and child slavery and homelessness and breast cancer something I can look past but my banned coffee gets my hackles raised in a hurry? I think I know why. Because all those other things happen to someone else, somewhere else. We Christians have a tendency (like all people do) to wrap ourselves up inside our cozy bubble and forget that there are real things wrong with real people in the real world just outside. We don't care that people don't know God and will suffer needlessly for it because we don't know any of those people. We don't really care that kids are being sold for sex because we've never been to a place where kids can be born and sold without anyone even knowing--or caring--that it happened.
Jesus was known for hanging out with sinners. And this kind of intimate fellowship fueled his cause instinct to give everything he could to save them from themselves. I'm sure that in Jesus' church we'd be allowed to drink coffee in the pews. But I'm also sure that the coffee drinker next to me would be someone who desperately needs to be there, to hear the words coming out of Jesus' mouth, someone I'd probably be surprised to be sitting next to because they'd be so different from me.
I think this is what we need to do. We all need to go get something warm to drink--coffee, hot chocolate, tea, even plain hot water if that's your fancy--hold it in your hands and ask God to expand your horizons. Then get up and find a cause.
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