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I can find faith hard to talk about sometimes…

One of the reasons is that there’s so many negative stereotypes

associated with people of faith.

It’s painful that some of the stereotypes are right on the money

thanks to a few extremists and fanatics who have done

and still do atrocious things in what they claim

to be the name of God.

Christianity specifically has its own stereotypes,

some that I personally try not to be defined by,

like Mr. Nice Guy.

Now there’s nothing wrong with being nice,

in fact, please be nice!

but if I’m just a nice religious person who shows no real

emotion or passion for what's right then that’s not great.

Or if I’m Mr. Nice and get walked all over and show no back bone

then that's not great either.

This common misconception of the Christian faith

can be best summed up by Ned Flanders, from the long running

cartoon, The Simpsons. He is the ultimate super

Mr. Religious Nice Guy (at least on the outside)

on inside he is constantly bottling up his anger and rage,

against Homer, and is always on the verge of exploding.

That’s not a healthy way to live.

Faith - in the way Jesus lived it - is something that’s authentic,

something that’s challenging, something that’s adventurous!

A life in where your desires and emotions are not a secret

to be hidden but an energy that can be used to bring about

change. For example, my faith helps me to express

the emotion of Anger. Now we usually think of anger as a selfish,

and destructive emotion - and it often can be -

but anger in and of itself is neither a good nor a bad thing.

What matters is what makes you angry and what you do

with that anger.

Do you lose the head and fly into a furious rage

when somebody puts too much cheese into your chicken roll?

That’s unhealthy anger. You should look into that.

But there are things that we should be angry about,

like inequality, injustice, poverty, oppression!

When I read about the life of Jesus, he challenged these things

head on! And he wasn’t just gentle, injustice made him angry,

but his expression of anger always brought about change.

Early in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus got angry at the religious leaders

because they had their belief system backwards.

They were convinced that no work could be done on the Sabbath,

the day of rest, even to the point of healing someone.

They seemed happy enough to let the needy suffer on,

when they knew full well that Jesus had the power to heal.

So, one Sabbath day, when Jesus saw a man with a crippled hand

and went to heal him, it made the religious leaders whisper

judgmentally to each other and look for an opportunity

to condemn him. This made Jesus angry, and rightly so,

because their understanding of obeying the law was more important

than loving and helping those in need.

But their resistance didn’t stop Jesus,

He went on to heal the man.

This is the interesting thing about anger and love.

Jesus’ anger is expressed in love towards the man who needs healing.

And Jesus’ love is expressed in anger towards the Pharisees.

By getting angry at them and defying them,

he is holding up a mirror to them and basically saying,

‘Look what you have become! You were made for more than this!’

And this is not the only time that Jesus got angry.

When he came across people using the Temple,

God’s house of prayer, as a market place, and as a shopping centre,

instead of a place of worship, he got angry.

He flipped over the tables they were using

and cleared everyone out.

This isn’t saying that Jesus lost control

or that he was anti-Business.

These profiteers had lost the run of themselves and it was the

poor who were paying the price.

They were getting in the way of people trying to connect with God

in a very special place. Jesus was passionate

about not letting anything get in the way of people

trying to connect with God or let anything get in the way of Him

expressing his love for those who needed it the most.

Mr. Nice Guy might look lovely and religious,

but he’s not what Christianity is about.

If faith was a swimming pool, he’d be the guy in the Speedo’s

the pink arm bands standing on the edge and dipping his toe in.

Following Jesus involves all of me

and is more like diving in at the deep end.

Don’t swear. Don’t Joke. Don’t listen to certain types of music.

Don’t be seen in pubs, nightclubs, dark alleys!

Don’t dress inappropriately. Don’t shop on Sundays.

Don’t have too much fun...ok?

With a misleading list like this, you could think that Christianity

is more about what we don’t do rather than what we can become.

And you could be forgiven for thinking that Christians are

just boring or spend most of their time

just trying to follow a bunch of rules.

But if you were to read a full gospel I don’t think you would say

that Jesus was boring or that he acted as some

sort of a rule enforcer.

He was more concerned about people understanding

the fullness of life and so any Christian who gets this

should reflect it.

However, truth be told, our society actually really values rules.

Like take away the rules of the road

and the motorways would be mayhem,

take away the rules from the local zoo

and you’d be afraid of leaving your house,

heck take the rules away from school and it would be

‘FOOD FIGHT’!

Now, some rules in this world are truly bonkers...

In Florida USA, it’s illegal to pass wind

in a public place after 6pm on Thursdays;

In Japan, it’s illegal to be overweight

the same country that brought us sumo wrestling!

Only a registered electrician can change a light bulb

in Victoria, Australia;

And in Ireland, apparently a freeman of Dublin’s city

is allowed to graze livestock on public greenery,

which our own U2’s Bono took full advantage of

in the year 2000.

When it comes to faith however,

rules and principles come into effect as a way of bringing value

to our lives. Earlier, we were chatting about the Sabbath,

that one day a week in which we’re asked not to work.

I really love this principle because it helps me to build a rhythm

around my life of rest and work.

And it also reminds me on an emotional level,

that I’m not defined by what I achieve.

It’s also part of the reason why we have a ‘weekend’ today,

so we should be grateful for this part of religion at least!

The problem when Rules become the sole focus of Christianity

is the type of person it produces, like hypocrites,

judgmental types or people who struggle

with a superiority complex.

They, by keeping rules think they’re better than other people.

And so, they elevate themselves and downgrade others.

What’s interesting, is that this was one of the things that

Jesus was quick to speak against. And as he often

loved to do he told a parable about it

to hammer home his point.

In this story, there was a tax collector and a religious leader

that found themselves side by side, praying in a temple

not unlike this one.

The Religious leader prayed... ‘Oh, God,

I thank you that I am not like other people —

robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man.

I fast twice a week and tithe on all of my income.’

The tax collector prayed... ‘God, give mercy.

Forgive me, a sinner.’

Jesus' response puts the whole thing in perspective.

He elevates the heartfelt response of the tax collector

who recognised his mistakes and looked to God for forgiveness.

But Jesus strongly warned the Religious leader by saying

‘If you walk around with your nose in the air,

you’re going to end up flat on your face’.

It's not that he is wrong for keeping the rules

but that’s all he’s doing and he thinks he’s great for doing it.

He became proud and hateful towards others.

He thinks God owes him or that he's entitled above everyone else.

But what he is forgetting is the most important

commandment of all, to Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and to love your neighbour as yourself.

Christianity has always been a relational thing

between God and those he has created.

What I find interesting is that the efforts

that this Religious leader goes to to keep the rules

at the same time he’s destroying what should matter most to him,

his relationship with God.

If anything we as Christians should be the best example

of humility. We are a family of misfits and screw-ups

who recognise our shortcomings but know the freedom

that God’s forgiveness brings.

So following rules or principles for me

is only in the context of trying to live like Jesus.

How we spend our time, our money, what we’re like as friends,

family members, boyfriends, girlfriends

are all shaped by the life of Jesus.

He gave his life for me and that’s why I’m so passionate

about trying to live like Him.

Fear has a nasty habit of getting in the way.

It can hold you back from pursuing your dreams,

it can convince you that you’re not good enough.

It can also stop you from doing the right thing which is why fear

doesn't mix particularly well with living a life of faith.

C.S. Lewis cleverly suggested that when Christians become too

focused on the afterlife they become of no earthly use.

It’s as if some people misinterpret the commands of Jesus

about living in the world but not of the world.

They convince themselves that Christian living is living safe

like in a protective bubble and live life

like the world around them is something to be feared

and something that they have to protect themselves from.

The problem with this kind of understanding is that it

keeps life out, people out

and robs us from our ability to make a difference.

It creates the stereotype of Christians living out of fear.

If Jesus gave in to fear at any point

he never would have encountered the people

who needed him the most,

or he never would have stood up for the voiceless

against the religious leaders or he never would have travelled

to Jerusalem knowing that he was walking to his death.

one of Jesus’s disciples, John, wrote a powerful statement

in one of his letters to the early church, he said

There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18)

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that being a Christian

makes you immune to fear, but the more we begin to understand

and trust in God’s love for us, the less power

fear has over us. The more we know we’re loved,

the less we’re afraid to do the right thing

or the less we’re afraid to fail, or even be rejected.

I know from my own experience looking back, when I struggled

to be loved, that’s when I was the most insecure,

when I worked to try and earn love, when I people pleased.

But as I grew in the security of God’s love for me is

when I became more confident, less afraid, more myself.

It’s like there are two ways I could live my life for God.

The first is wearing this clean white suit,

fearing that my life will be judged at the end

by how clean I kept it. So there is absolutely no way

I can help a guy who clearly just needs a hand to change a tyre

or help a young lady who’s clearly had too much to drink

to just get home because of the fear of the stains

it might leave on my clean white suit!

Or, I can see my life as a light,

a light that is supposed to go to places where there is no light.

It means bringing love to places where love is hard to find.

It means bringing hope to those who have lost hope.

Caring for those that others treat as invisible.

Jesus, as he did best, told a parable that cut to the chase.

It’s often called ‘The Good Samaritan.’

It’s about a man who is walking on a road, like this,

from Jerusalem to Jericho. As he is walking,

he gets ambushed by bandits who take everything that he has

and pretty much leave him for dead

on the side of the road.

The first two people to encounter him

are a priest and a Levite, they both have important roles

in the Jewish Temple.

Rather than helping the man, they cross on the other

side of the road (which is actually a joke on Jesus’ part…

because this road was well known as windy and narrow,

there was no ‘other side’.

The picture Jesus is painting is of these religious leaders

either stepping over him or climbing around him!)

The reason they leave him there is because,

as we discussed elsewhere, touching certain people,

like the sick, dead or dying, would make one unclean

and unable to enter the Temple. In this story,

living out their faith, for them, meant walking

past the dying in order to stay clean and perform

their religious duty.

The next man to come along is the hero of the story

He is a Samaritan. Many Jews despised Samaritans

because they did not live by the same religious rules.

But instead of walking past the man, he helps him,

tends to his wounds, delivers him to a local inn

and even pays for his medical care.

For the priest and the Levite, their fear of

getting their religious observance wrong actually stops them

from loving. And it’s when Christians misunderstand the Bible

or Jesus’ teaching, that’s when things get messy

and people become selfish.

For the Samaritan, love is just how he lives.

It’s parables like these that dismantle

the negative Christian stereotypes and they remind me

what following Jesus is supposed to be about;

to live, like really fully live;

not defined by fear but out of love for others.