Flowers vs. Cacti

The old saying, ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ is similar to what I’m thinking. 

Nobody wants to be around a cactus person, someone who is all prickly and hard to get close to; we like flower people, all pretty and they smell nice. I was saying this the other day and someone said to me that the prophets were all prickly so that set the example for Christians today…implying we have to be course and tough and hard and, well, prickly in order to separate ourselves from people who do not believe in Christ and to get our point across. It’s scary to me what that whole mindset points to. I chose to be a flower person and just walk away.

Jesus said that all the prophets were until John (Luke 16:16) and all they did and all they wrote pointed to him (John 5:39). He said he came to proclaim God’s favor for all of us who were poor, blind, captive, and oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). It’s a new day and a new way from him forward. No demands, no judgment, no condemnation, no finger pointing – no more prickly. 

His message of God’s favor was not a behavioral alignment with the laws of Moses that the Jews had assumed were the very “truths” of God (Mark 7:6-8); but a fulfillment of what behavioral adherence could NOT do – heal the hurts, repair the brokenness, remove the darkness, and forgive the sin of the human heart (Matthew 5:17). He came preaching and teaching that the sorrow we experience when we realize that dysfunction in our hearts is the Holy Spirit at work drawing us to the Father (John 6:44). He taught us that repentance isn't a bad thing but the very thing God is looking for (Luke 18:10-14)! That message, that we are ALL sinners in need of repentance, made him prickly cacti only to the religious leaders who thought they had all the answers. They continually prodded Jesus for an alignment from him to the way they stood up for the “truth” of their religion. They were so blind to what the “truth” really was that they couldn't even define who their neighbor was so they could fulfill their own idea of what the “law” or, “truth” as they saw it demanded of them (Luke 10:29-37).

Jesus turned the demand for behavioral alignment upside down and pointed to the human heart and our actions in a different way. When asked out of all the commandments and demands of the religious law which one is the greatest (which one should we really concentrate on to align with), his reply was to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40) No prickly, no demands, just options and opportunity.

Instead of demanding alignment he paved the way for people to begin living with the Spirit of God in them. To see themselves and their neighbors as God sees them. That Spirit would reveal and direct them through and out of their sin and into a fullness of life never available through self justification from having believed certain things or even doing certain things. And some of that revealing takes time – it doesn't always happen overnight.

I believe we as a church (Branches in particular) need to assume this very same attitude that Christ had. LET THE HOLY SPIRIT DO HIS WORK! We want the people who do not have Jesus’ forgiveness and healing and life to find it but what are we doing about it? I believe the root of our anemic and powerless effectiveness in our culture is because we haven't experienced that godly sorrow, repentance, forgiveness and healing of our hearts fully ourselves. Oh, we do church, we sing songs, we pray, we give to the cause, we believe, we feel secure in our faith; but what are we actually doing about it? The role of the church in the dark world is not to turn on the light to condemn sin and godlessness, but to share how he has brought us out of that darkness into his light and life.

At Branches Church we want to be able to come as we are and continue our faith journey from there. That is available for everyone – gay or straight, rich or poor, greedy or generous, lustful or faithful, believing or unbelieving, addicted or clean, single or married, pro-life or pro-choice, citizen or alien, employed or unemployed, receiving welfare or self-sustaining, able to forgive or not able to forgive, loving or hateful, trusting or skeptical, all need to be able to start or continue their faith journey from where they are at without judgment or condemnation or prickly demands from God’s people so that the Holy Spirit can do his work in all of us. That means we have to accept people as they are and let them journey forward in their faith just like Christ allowed us to do when we first came to know him (or like the apostle said, rather, now that he knows us).

Is there definable sin? Yes. But that revelation and awareness comes from the Holy Spirit – not the church. You may say that people will not know if we don’t tell them. The only way I am going to listen to you tell me how you see, say, greed in my life and I need to repent of it is if you have earned my trust or friendship. This is what I mean when I say ‘what are we doing about it?’ We can say this is a sin or that is a sin all day long and we all can find a million ways to justify it or reason it out or redefine it so that it isn't.  But when the Holy Spirit reveals it to us, and a friend is there to help us through it using God’s word to confirm what the Holy Spirit is doing and saying in our hearts (John 16:13-15) we can identify what it is and repent, forgiveness removes it from our lives, we are justified before God, and we become a new creature. (2 Corinthians 5:17) Another step in the journey has taken place without the church demanding a behavioral alignment on the outside that does nothing to change the life on the inside.

I believe we will see more people come into the Kingdom of God because of being flower people rather than being cactus people. James said it best: “If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealously and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving. Gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.” – James 3:13-18