Dying, Survival mode and the Boondock Saints

So last night, some friends and I watched "Boondock Saints" for our post-Greenhouse enjoyable social activity. It was one of the better movies I had seen in recent memory. Mainly, because it was so intense on quite a few levels.

The basic premise is that these two Irish, blue-collar, guys end up killing all the evil men in their city. The mafiosos, child molesters and those who abuse the poor, helpless and oppressed are all fair game for these angels of wrath. Furthermore, these men believed God condoned and appreciated their 'help'. Obviously, their are some serious issues with the theology here. God certainly doesn't condone vengance of any sort. He's much more concerned with us doing right by the poor and the oppressed than he is with any sort of vengance on our part.

At the same time, I enjoyed how these two guys took responsibility. They were not directly responsible for these crimes. Yet they felt that their ability to remedy the situation equalled a responsibility from God.

Yet for us, we have totally ignored the injustice in the world. The Rabbi's accused Israel that, "it was in their power to protest and they protested not." How often is that true of the church?

I'm not talking about the Holocaust or ancient Genocides we have nothing to do with either. I'm talking about Sudan and Rwanda and Israel and China. I'm talking about most of the Middle East. I'm talking about the poor people all over the world and right here in East Lansing who desprately need God. I'm talking about the college students who I look at every day who are dying because they don't have anything to live for. I'm talking about the people I ignore every day and so I'm talking to myself.

The thing is, such a vital part of being the body of Christ to the world today is incarnating Him to those who need Him most. We represent in some mystical fashion and we carry His image to places that don't have Him. However, the Lord ultimately fights for us. We need to follow Him and die to ourselves first, before we go incarnating Him to places of deep desprateness that surround us. So much of Christ can be brought to the world if we really, stop, give up and let Christ come with us. We push Him out with our good ideas or wise words, like He has to be subordinate to our plans. Instead, we must die by giving up our pretensions, by trying not to defend ourselves to others, and by forgoing the world's relational economy.

I feel this is the essence of true humility, that we stop trying to play each others games. God tells us we are good, and his validation helps us not need it from others. I think, at least for me, death to ourselves is not seeking their approval. If God alone tells us we are good, then He can dwell with us and in us. That incarnates the Gospel to a world that deprately desprately needs Him

Daniel