Matt's Blog

So I was talking to a guy who asked me what it was about Christianity that appeals to me. I found it more difficult to answer this question than I thought I would. To answer it honestly anyway. This is what I came up with for him.

I see the world this way – the rich and powerful use their wealth and power to maintain their position at the expense of the poor and helpless. We don’t use our advantages to help others, but rather we live at the expense of others. And institutions that have been setup to do good, don’t.

Something inside me tells me this is wrong. It misses the mark. It’s the opposite of the way it should be. It’s a world that needs to be turned upside down and given a good shake. I think that’s the appeal of a T.V. show that MaryEllen and I enjoy. It’s called Leverage. It’s about a bunch of crooks that have turned their powers to helping people. There’s the ringleader, the computer genius, the con artist, the cat burglar, and the violent guy. The tag line is “The rich and powerful take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys.” And it’s fun to watch the weekly mark get what they have coming. Seeing their face fall when they realize they’ve been had – it’s great.

And so given that – the story of a god – the most powerful being in the universe - who comes to the world to set it right appeals to me. But our god doesn’t come as those of us frustrated with a corrupt and hurtful system would like him to come – like the violent guy from Leverage – making things right with his fists. Instead he shows up as a helpless infant of questionable parentage, poor, far from home, in a cave, in a backwater province of the Roman Empire. When this boy grows up, he wanders and preaches and spends time with the weak and helpless outcasts. And the triumphant climax of this god’s making the world right – turning it upside down – is to get himself tortured, killed, and propped up as a symbol for all to see what happens when someone tries to mess with the way the world is.

I like the story of a god who comes to shake things up and gets shaken and broken just like us. A god that turns the world upside down by turning upside down our very notion of what a powerful god is. A god who shares our frustration with the state of the world, who calls for us to set it right, and who suffers with us when we suffer in out efforts.