I think my favorite part of going on missions trips is the simplicity of life that you are allowed to live while on the trip. When I am at home, there are hundreds... maybe thousands of details in my life that must be managed daily. When I am in mexico building houses my whole day is measured and managed. Its limits are reasonable and the work is done at the end of the week. I think at home, I often am overwhelmed by how unmanageable and consuming "real" life is. Much of this is choice, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I have to live this way when I am hear. I have not doubt that if I moved to Mexico I would fill my life with just as much busyness... Along the same line of thinking, I think that ministry in the states is much more complicated than in other places. Mission Discovery has a slogan that "To love is to serve." I think it is true. Often here we over-spiritualize what it means to be a "good christian." We make it into something that is mostly about certain rituals that I am to fulfill while not sinning. This dual concept of ritual and sin-free behavior seems somehow foreign to Jesus own passionate involvement in the life of the poor and needy. It is almost like we have substituted moral living as the highest expression of faith, when really, as destructive as immoral living can be, morality alone never helped the poor, or the widows, or the orphans, or loved a neighbor.
While Jesus certainly came to free us from sin, James is not missing the point when he writes that true religion is to care for orphans and widows. He is also right that faith without works is dead... as is the great concern for morality without and equal concern for the justice and well-being of others.
I grew up in a church that was really legalistic in many ways. I think this caused me to focus more on where I was failing, instead of choosing to serve others even though I am, and always will be flawed. When I serve I feel really good about my relationship with God. Better than a thousand quiet times... better than after ten thousand bible studies... better than after a week without a single swearword... I am not sure what this means... except maybe that true religion is about what we do... not about what we don't do.
This is a video I made to remind the Mexico team of what we saw this week.
