The Christian Conundrum

This is my very first blog. This is actually something I wrote a while back, just to get started.

"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." Matthew 11:18-20.
There's an old saying for the sentiment expressed in these verses, I'll digress from that, but it seems that no matter what we do as Christians we're going to be judged ether way. I just read an article on cnn.com (won't bother posting it) about a pastor in Chicago who is giving away money at his church. Every Sunday he gives $500 to two people in his congregation by drawing numbers from a bucket. Whoever's sitting in the lucky seat gets it. Granted, the guy's a little showy, however, consider this:
1) The church has long been criticized for being stuffy, boring, and out-of-touch with the here and now.
2) Since the actions of a few TV evangelists many people have become suspicious and hesitant to give to churches, not wanting to fatten the pockets of greedy, crooked pastors.

So what does this guy do? He makes his church un-stuffy by using a fun approach to do something that can sometimes be difficult for people to do: accept charity, and gets downright generous by giving away $1,000 per week to help the needy.
Now, what bothered me was not the video itself, but the (unfortunately predictable) comments of two individuals who had also viewed the article. For the sake of time and space I won't quote them completely but let me summarize.

The first comment basically pointed to the fact that churches have a tax-exempt status and stated they they are therefore a drain on the community, and should be stripped of their tax-exempt status. It is true that churches, as non-profit organizations, receive a tax-exempt status. However, they are still not completely tax-free. For example, they still have to pay property taxes. But what I'd like to point out is that they also do not receive any support from the government, either. I know of a certain church that is a government food shelter, and yet is still required to purchase the food FROM THE GOVERNMENT! They receive no funding from the Fed, State or local government and rely solely on the faithful giving of their members and fund-raising and believe me the recession has affected us all, even the church.

The second comment criticized the theology of the pastor, stating that he was preaching a prosperity gospel. Personally I didn't hear the preacher say hardly anything at all, really. It wasn't his fault; his preaching just didn't make the final edit---what a surprise. All that made the edit was him drawing a raffle ticket and giving away this cash to the tune from The Price is Right. I don't think from that video we have enough evidence to label anyone a prosperity preacher. So where did that idea come from? I can't but feeling, and I could be wrong, that it's because if someone sees money in a pastor's hand, or hears him talking about money he's automatically labeled a prosperity preacher. Like pastors are forbidded to touch or have money. Was Jesus anti-money? Not at all. We know the apostles carried a money purse, because Judas used to help himself to it. As a matter of fact the Bible speaks more about money-related topics than any other topic. Why? I think it's because God knew where our hearts would be. As Christ said, "Where your heart is, your treasure shall be also." In fact the Bible contains over 2,000 verses about money. But the first message Christ ever preached, after being baptized and tempted, was a passage from Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor..." Isaiah 61:1,2; Luke 4:18

Here we find the mission statement of Christ, and the first issue Christ addressed was poverty. How do you help the poor? By giving them what they need. And what many people need right now is money. Giving people food and clothing are important, sure, but mortgage companies don't except canned corn or blue jeans, neither does the landlord. Money is essential for life. So here's my question: if it was so important to Jesus, why are we so afraid of it? If Jesus gave to the poor, if the apostles gave to the poor (they even had to recruit more leaders to run the giving ministry) why is it such a taboo to see a pastor giving away money? Was Jesus a prosperity teacher? I won't open that can of worms, but in a word, my answer is no. For he also said,

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal."

Nobody had anything positive to say.

So, getting back to my point about greedy pastors, here's a guy who's giving away money and still he's criticized for it. If a pastor asks for money, he's suspected. If he gives money, he's criticized. I already granted that, at least from what we see in the video, he's a little showy about it, and there might be something to be said about not doing your acts of righteousness before men, but at least he's doing acts of righteousness! God uses weird people, and how lucky for you and me that he does. He uses the foolish to shame the wise. God spoke to Balaam through his jackass, and has been speaking through jackasses ever since, so I don't feel too proud if he should want to speak through me. There's no cool-factor with God, he is no respecter of persons. John the Baptist was a weirdo who lived in the desert and wore camel's hair and ate locusts and honey, Paul was a short little guy with a big nose and bad eyes, Moses had a speech impediment, and so on and so on. God uses faultering, damaged, used-up, beat-up ragamuffins and sometimes we have some quirks, but hey, who doesn't? Some segments of society have become quite proud of their quirks; should we be any different? By the way, we get criticized for being too perfect sometimes, too. Like we're all a bunch choir boys held over from the 50's. John came neither eating nor drinking and they thought he was a demoniac, Christ came eating and drinking and they called him a lush. There's an expression for this that some might use, that we're damed if we do, damned if we don't. Praise God, we are not damned at all if we believe in the good news of Jesus Christ. And in the end it won't matter what others said. All that matters is our faith and faithfulness.

In Peter's words:
"But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God." 1 Peter 2:20.

We're going to be judged, criticized, ostracized and so on no matter what. As the world hated Christ it will hate us. But at least we can make sure we are suffering for righteousness' sake. Better to be criticized for being a do-gooder than a hypocrite. Wisdom is proved right not by how cool you look or how much the world accepts you, but by our actions.