stain = anger?

On Monday night, we had a great cookout at Emerge before we went back to the church for a great time of worship together and said good-bye to a couple who are moving to Tallahassee to begin grad school at FSU. I had been in town all day and was randomly wearing a white Polo style shirt. At the cookout, one guy made a comment about how impressed he was that I had worn a white shirt all day long, eaten three meals, and had no stains on it. He declared there was no way he'd have been able to do that.

A few moments later, another guy came up to me with a smirk on his face and asked, "Jeffrey, how good of friends are we?" I replied, "well, I guess as good of friends as two people can be after having only known each other for 2 months."

He laughed, patted me on the chest and walked off. Immediately I noticed several people looking at me in disbelief, more specifically looking at my shirt. As a prank in good-hearted fun, after the comment had been made about me having not gotten any stains throughout the day, he had put BBQ sauce on his hand and had gotten it on my shirt. I just started laughing. Quickly a few people started reaching for towels and one girl even pulled out a Tide pen. I was just still laughing.

Throughout this whole incident, I noticed two things. Everyone seemed more upset than I did and they almost seemed surprised that I was not pissed off. Secondly, my shirt is ruined.

First of all, I wasn't mad because in reality, it's just a shirt people. I mean really. The whole incident created a lot of discussion and interaction. It will be a funny and interesting story for quite a while, and it's just a shirt. So no, I wasn't angry at all. In reality, it takes a lot to really make me angry. But why did everyone have this expectation that I would be so furious over a shirt?

It has really made me think the past few days about what really matters to us. I won't pretend to know the statistics, but how many people have died today full of hate, pain, guilt, shame, and sin without knowing how much they are loved and cared for? Why does something of this level of eternal significance not create stronger emotions in me than a little stain on a piece of cloth? I mean, seriously. How do I have my life oriented if I'm more upset about a stain than the welfare of the souls and the relationships that people have in God's Kingdom?

Secondly, I've really thought a lot about the stain. How easy it was to put on my shirt and how difficult is (or maybe how impossible it will be) to get it out. I often find myself treating life as if my problems, worries, and hurts are deep stains which can never be removed and dealt with. As if I will have to walk around for the rest of my life with a dirty shirt on. The reality is, if I will simply take the shirt off, the Lord is waiting to give me a new one. It is so easy for him to remove my sins and (more importantly) the effects of those sins in my life. Yet I choose to walk around with the dirty shirt on. Why?

I'm not trying to be "super-spiritual" here or make every little thing in life an analogy to ministry. But seriously, what is life really about for me? And according to what my answer to that question is, how should that affect how I live and react to all that I experience on a daily basis?

It's all about the Kingdom. It's all about me knowing God, others knowing God, and each of us knowing one another. And this "knowing," as is used in Paul's letter to the Philippians, is an intimate knowledge. As we all laughed, or at least as I laughed about my newly decorated shirt, we prepared for a great time of worship. Below is a picture of some of the peeps who were there for worship. It's so great to "know" God with them.
The Kingdom: Emerge style

May you all continue to know Christ and to have your lives oriented in a way that will create appropriate responses to everyday experiences. May you allow God to remove your stains and clothe you anew. Grace and Peace to you all.