Nothing to Do with Haiti....and Everything to Do with Haiti

It's not about Haiti....but it's all about Haiti....

From What Is Jesus Saving Us? Reflections on Hell and Heaven on Earth.


I share these thoughts after reading a short article on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity” and reading Acts 16 in my daily devotions.
Bonhoeffer: religionless Christianity
Acts 16: Lydia believing “in the Master truly”
Acts 16: Jail guard and family “had put their trust in God”

If Jesus was simply calling the religious and non-religious to trust this truth: that God is here and wants to do stuff (“the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel”), what human dilemma does this address?
Could it be that our dilemma is that we are innately religious – trying to forge our own success with destiny by climbing over and through (physically, psychologically, emotionally, et.al) anybody that gets in our way and that Jesus simply tells us to silence this nonsense? He kills this Old Self which cannot not live only for itself in trying to create and secure its own destiny and security…..and raises the New Self. He doesn’t bring to us a new religion, a process by which the Old Self can do what it only knows how to do…take hold of anything that will keep it safe. Instead he brings to us a religion-less spirituality. One that “trusts the Master truly” and not its own enterprise of spiritual calisthenics. Can we trust God in this way? Well, the truth is we cannot because we will not. God must intervene and do it for us. Thus all the “new creation” language about us in the New Testament.

Can we trust that God is here and is doing stuff (like feeding the hungry and healing the hurting) and simply join in this marvelous presence instead of trying to define who is in and who is out (the practice of religion, creating boundaries that distinctively and instinctively put Self at the advantage). I believe we can, ahem, God can. And I believe that it is uniquely Jesus Christ that allows us to do this. Or you could say it is uniquely Jesus Christ that does this to us.
And here’s another twist…..
What we have a really hard time doing as Christians is understanding how we can be totally dedicated followers of Jesus Christ and believe he is unique in setting us free from religion for the sake of finding life simply trusting God and serving neighbor…..without at the same time saying that everybody else who doesn’t see it this way is going to hell. And a big part of this difficulty in “understanding” is that we are incurably religious….back to that religion thing again. It’s kind of crazy….Here we have been given this gift of being set free from trying to prove ourselves and carve out our permanent place in history and then we go and take the very One who frees us as a way to define ourselves in distinctiveness and separateness from others!


We can’t get out of the business of deciding or thinking we can decide or impact our eternal destiny and including in that defining who is in and who is out (this, by the way, is the essence of original sin). I believe Jesus is God’s way of showing up to finally and definitively close the door on that subject. God decides. We do not. All we can do is trust that the one we see….God in Jesus…..is the mercy he says he is. I believe he is.
One way of thinking of all of this is this: If we really must keep trying to figure out who is eternally in or who is eternally out then lets simply go to the heart of it. Everybody is out. Everybody is going to hell. There is no hope for anybody. I believe this is what Paul says in Romans chapter 1 all the way to chapter 3 verse 20. . But then something amazing happens. In hell, God shows up! God is there! Jesus Christ. There! Paul says this in Romans chapter 3 beginning with verse 21. God doesn’t remove some from hell to be with him. God moves into hell and sets up shop and builds a heaven. Right there! Everybody is in not because some are out but because God has arrived!. Some folks just can’t buy that kind of luck, so to speak. They think it’s too good to be true. I fall into the camp of thinking it’s too good not to be true.
So, what is there to pay attention to if we don’t have to pay attention to our massaging or improving our relationship with God? God in Christ has all that wrapped up. What is there to do if there is nothing to do? What do we have to do now that we don’t have to do anything?
Well, I believe Jesus would say this is a no-brainer. Check in with your neighbor and see what you can do to make his or her life better. Across the street and around the world.
In this sense, you see, what you do makes no difference to God, and all the difference in the world. Literally.