$3 Worth of God, Please

Wilbur Rees mused:

“I would like to buy three dollars worth of God, please,

Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep

But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the

sunshine.

I don’t want enough of him to make me love a [a person who is different than I] or

Pick beets with a migrant.

I want ecstasy, not transformation;

I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.

I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.

I would like to buy three dollars worth of God, please.”

This is the attitude that many Christians have.  It's an attitude that has resulted in the commonly held belief that Christians are hypocrites.

What if Christians were to quit embracing this kind of faith?  What if they were willing to allow their faith to the core?  What if, rather than being intellectually naive, Christians thought through and wrestled with their faith?  What if, rather than blindly following the crowd, Christians took the radical nature of faith, hope, and love seriously?  What if, rather than overlooking their own faults and sins, Christians set aside their castigating of homosexuals and pro-lifers- instead looking at their own tendencies to overeat, be judgmental, and apathetic?  What if, rather than just talking about what God can do and how he can change peoples' lives, Christians actually joined God in his redemptive work- restoring our communities, helping people to kick the addictions that are ruining lives and marriages, etc.?