Lent Day 21: The Meaning of a Name

I belong to a Facebook group called 'Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented.' It is a group of just under 75,000 people who love Jesus. Many of us joined the group because we were tired of being lumped in with the 'popular' Christian voices in our time, by this I mean the talking heads that are usually found near a microphone on a television screen. You see, we tend to see the world through Jesus' lens of love, as opposed to the too often used lens of judgement and hatred. At base we joined the group in order to share the love and acceptance that we have been shown with others.

Recently though the creator of the group has been having a bit of an identity issue. No, she still feels that she is being misrepresented, and she is still tired of it and she still loves Jesus. The problem comes from having to let people know, that 'no, I am not that type of Christian.' Because of this she posted about a possible name change, specifically a new name that would not include the term Christian.

It's a sad day when the voices are so loud that the term that refers to so many has been tarnished so badly.

To some degree I completely understand how she feels, you see I once tried to call myself something else as well. I looked around the classroom, around the sanctuary, around the country, around the world and thought that maybe it was time to let loose of Christianity and just become a Jesus Follower or a Follower of the Way. In the end I just started speaking about myself as a pilgrim, not one associated with a turkey dinner in November, but rather as a man on a journey.

The problem was that whoever I talked to continually came back to the concept that I was a Christian. Which was true, but I wasn't, but I was. You see the problem? The world has this concept of what a person who believes in Jesus is, namely a Christian. You can change what you call yourself, but the world at large is still going to understand you in the conventional way. So, I came back to where I began.

Actually, I want to make a caveat to that last sentence. I came back to where I began with a mission to begin to show what people what I believe Jesus was actually like, what he actually said, and most importantly that there was more to Jesus than a birth and a death/resurrection.

My biggest problem with a lot of Christians is that they only focus on the miraculous birth and the miraculous death/resurrection. To be honest I don't even care if Mary was a virgin, it makes no difference to me. What does matter to me is Jesus' teachings. That when Jesus spoke about how we treat our fellow human being, it matters. That when he said that people would know that we are his followers by our love, that we have done a ^&$* poor job of living up to it.

The voices care little for their fellow human beings and they show love very sparingly. The voices speak about hell with a smile. The voices pull out three sentences and condemn millions.

And so, I joined a Facebook group called 'Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented.'

I hope that, like I and a multitude said, that the group keeps its name and works to reclaim the term Christian and to reclaim the Christ whose words and life it is built upon. But, if, in a matter of time, the name changes I will still belong, because a name isn't everything, but it is, even if it isn't.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K