Spiritual Hiccups - Doing God's Work

To my mind, one of the real problems of Christianity is the tendency of its adherents to see the world in terms of us and them.  There are those who believe in Jesus, who have affirmed him with the correct formula, and then there is everyone else.  This strikes me as not so very different from some Pharisees and other Jewish leaders who insisted on people vigorously keeping the Law.  This included the purity codes that made it impossible for Jews to share a meal with non-Jews, and it also included concerns about not using God's name in incorrect ways or ways that dishonored it.  This concern gets Jesus in trouble in today's reading from the Gospel of John.

When Jesus answers the charges of blasphemy leveled against him, his primary defense is rooted in the works that he does.  Even if you don't believe in me, Jesus asks, can't you see the works of God being done by me?

Over the centuries, it seems to me that the Church has gotten less concerned with the works of God, and more focused on believing the right things about Jesus.  Evangelism is generally considered convincing people to believe those right things about Jesus.  And not believing the right things about Jesus puts you in the "them" camp, period.  It matters not one whit whether such folks are doing the works of the Father.

I wonder what would happen if we understood Christianity to be primarily about helping people to live in ways that revealed God's hopes and dreams for humanity and creation.  What if we worried less about whether or not people espoused the right creeds, and worried more about loving God and neighbor.  After all, Jesus, in Matthew 25:31-46, speaks of Gentiles, of others, of them being welcomed into the Kingdom because the lived Kingdom shaped lives, even though they didn't realize they were serving Jesus in the process.

Is your faith mostly about what you believe, or how you live?

Click here to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.