I Love This Bar

I've been thinking a lot lately about a radical life. One that Jesus could look at and it look familiar to Him, like He was reliving His life on earth. I've been thinking about how to make that my life. 

I realize the irony of me typing this out on my Macbook Pro, in the kitchen of my fully-furnished 3 story house, complete with electricity, heat, air, running water, indoor plumbing, etc. But I'm not perfect. 

Anyway. There's this country song that comes on the radio, and I don't know if the title is actually "I Love This Bar" but that's the gist of the song. 

Anyway, the premise of it is that anyone can come as they are, there's no fee required to get in, and all types of people from all different walks of life come together here. Granted, they are getting drunk and dancing around acting all silly, but that's beside the point. 

THE POINT IS that this concept of Mr. Keith's bar is the ideal church. It's his sanctuary. The church should be our sanctuary. 

It reminds me of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, because the gypsy (Esmerelda) is trying to run away from those silly racist, judgmental white people who are trying to kill her basically, and when she gets to the cathedral she's legally permitted to claim "sanctuary" so no one can touch her because she's in God's house and He shows no partiality (as it says over and over again in the Bible). 

She was discriminated against because of something incredibly trivial, as most of tend to fall victim to at some point or another, and on either end of the persecution. It makes me sad for humanity, but even more sad for Christianity. I mean, aren't we supposed to get like Jesus and show NO partiality? 

That's why I like the concept of this song, and the bar. Because our mentality should be toward everyone that we will accept them and love them dearly and meet them wherever they are, so they can "come as they are" just like they can in the presence of Jesus. It's called grace. And we need to practice it. (2 Peter 3:18)

Sorry for all the side-tracking, but it also reminds me about a book I read called Blue Like Jazz and the author submits a combination of an auto-biography and a "Christian nonfiction book" and in part of it he talks about how he spent a month (the month before he was supposed to be speaking at a Christian summer camp) in the woods with a bunch of hippies. That's not an exaggeration either. He didn't shower the whole time, he lived "off the land", he smoked weird things, and he said he was super skeptical of these people at first, but that they were the most accepting and the most loving people he'd ever met. And so when he got to this camp, a girl (who was from Bob Jones University, which if any of you know me you know why that's hilarious) who took one look at him and kind of awkwardly told him he needed to shower and shave. And he was very hippy-fied so he was pretty chill about it. And it was interesting because it's quite true that "Christians" are some of the most hypocritical, judgmental, unloving people there are, and we could learn a pretty big lesson from these "heathens" we so often cringe at the sight of. 

Anyway. I'm learning to practice love. And grace. And grow in the knowledge of Jesus. By reading the Bible. 

I hope this encourages you, my friends! 

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