Last night I watched a good movie. Jesus Revolution. I find it interesting that while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 60% score, the viewer rating (the popcorn score) is 99%!!! Hahahahah! This alone is a great reason to watch it.
I didn't enjoy it because of the memories it called up. There is a scene where the hippies showed in church and some of the church members left. I think that had I been there, my church people in the churches I grew up in would have been the ones walking out. And I would have joined them. I still have an aversion to those who are... different. If I am being totally honest, I barely understand myself. And those recognizably different? Deep inside, they frighten me.
I also saw examples of really bad parenting, and I recalled some bad parents I have known, and my heart aches for their damaged kids- damage that followed them into adulthood. And I think about the job I am doing as a parent of teenagers, and I wonder-- am I doing it right? Am I hurting, or am I helping?
I assume the movie is historically accurate, since one of the main characters is still alive and involved, but what I think they really get right is PEOPLE. Real people. One of the main characters, the Jesus figure, rubbed me wrong, not because of their acting, but because they reminded me so very much of someone I was once close to. Someone who came out of terrible background, became a Christian, was used mightily in ministry... and then went back to their old lifestyle. Who is long gone from my life, and from this earth. They are past my ability to find out what went wrong. They had so much INFLUENCE on my life, and now they are gone, and I question what of them was real, what was God, and what was flesh. And I start to ask myself, "Am I Real?"
Public baptisms feature prominently in the movie, and I think of the children and teenagers baptized in our churches, who are adults now. Except they are not in church and they no longer think of themselves as Christians. What went wrong? How did they lose their faith? Was it never real to start with? These hippies were looking for REALITY, and they found it in Jesus.
I was raised in church. We were there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night-- every time the doors were open. I went to a Christian school, K-12. I memorized scripture, and prayed a prayer at vacation bible school when I was 7, and "asked Jesus into my heart." I remember the grass was green and the sky was blue and the birds were singing and it felt AMAZING. But then I became religious. By the time I got to high school, I measured my Christianity by what I DIDN'T do. And it was a pretty long list. I knew a lot ABOUT God, but I didn't know him personally. There was not real relationship. It's kinda like my relationship with George Washington. I BELIEVE in George Washington. He existed. He did great things and is much revered. There is zero doubt in my mind that he led us to victory in the Great Patriotic War (sorry, Russian joke) and was our first president. But I don't know him. We never talk...
But then I went off to college, far from home, and there were no more rules. Nobody cared. Life was hard as a first semester military cadet, and I had no real relationship with God to fall back on. I was utterly miserable. But the pastor of my parent's church challenged us to read through the Bible in a year, and so I started reading. Simply as an intellectual exercise. "You say you believe the Bible, but have you actually read it?" he challenged us. And so I started reading. And God started to change my life. And then God started bringing people to me who were Real. Who trusted God, not just for eternal security, but in their every day life. The scene in the movie where the group prayed that God would fix the car reminds me of my friend who prayed for good parking spaces-- and got them. Or the friend who prayed over another friend who had been told she had miscarried-- and then the baby was born healthy.
I learned that God TALKS, and that he heals. God became Real to me for the first time at college, after I had spent my whole life in church. So is that our problem, that we learn ABOUT God in church, but He isn't real to us there? How do we change that?
I was thinking this morning about the movie and about the free love atmosphere in the movie, and about everyone sitting around stoned and loving everyone, and I was disgusted. And then God brought Jeremiah 31: 2-3 to mind, quoted from The Message:
This is the way GOD put it:
"They found grace out in the desert,
these people who survived the killing.
Israel, out looking for a place to rest,
met God out looking for them!"
God told them,
"I've never quit loving you, and I never will.
Expect Love, Love, and more Love!"
Yeah, this movie made me uncomfortable.
You should definitely watch it.
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