recovering sanctimaniac

I find it hard not to be drawn into a rhetoric of persecution.  

Where my middle class faith does not hold the same place in society that it did seventy years ago. And with this shift of the church from the centre of society to the margins, I conclude that I'm being persecuted as a Christian.

Maybe.

Or perhaps this shift just unearths my insecurity.  A latent desire to protect the system I'm a part of.  To justify my existence by declaring to my social-media-echo-chamber just how much good my system has brought to the society.  And overlooking the underside of my fervent declarations.

The falling through the cracks.

The voice of the missing.

The value of dissent.

The learning from concealment.

And rather than quietening my assertions and truly listening, I claim the narrative of persecution against my faith.  

But the power of the faith-story might not be to blame for society's distancing of the church -- it might have much more to do with my self-righteousness.  Sanctimonious white-knuckles clutching the handle of my megaphone in fear of moral decline.

I wonder if my fear accelerates the decline.  Or causes it.  Or IS it.

I wonder what difference it might make if I attached a mirror to the handle of my megaphone.

What I might see.  What difference that might make.

I wonder what difference a radical love might have.  A love that respects the humanity of those around me.  

A love that is not afraid of that which has been concealed; 

that values the posture of dissent; 

that hears the voice of the missing; 

that somehow fills the cracks.

I wonder if this is not the kind of love that Jesus reveals.

That Jesus invites me into.

And it is in this love that I discover that this is not persecution, but an opportunity to be a conduit of this love.