Kissing Strange Babies at Kroger (for Jesus)

My wife Kelly has always loved kids. She denies ever kissing strange babies in the grocery store, but I seem to recollect it happening at least once. And then, of course, we had kids, and she's a rock star.

I, on the other hand, always thought kids were annoying. You pour your life into them for their first thirteen years, they hate you for the next five to ten years, and they finally get interesting around college.

And then I had my own kids. And I would die for these three little ones...but I still don't love "kids" as a general entity.

Kelly loves kids as a whole. I don't like the whole, but I like the particulars: my own, and a few other select kids who are deeply flattered, I'm sure, by my selective affection directed their way.

When it comes to the life of Christian faith as we process it through the lens of American culture, my guess is that most of us would prefer the particulars to the whole. That is, we would rather pick and choose the parts of Jesus or the Old or New Testaments that we really like and ignore other parts that make us uncomfortable or that cost us.

But Jesus' first sermon goes something like this: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!" This isn't an invitation to sample something new on the religious buffet line of nice choices. This is a new king, a new kingdom, and an entirely new way of life. You can enter into it through the way of repentance (literally: "turning around" or in the Greek: "change your mind") but you cannot pick and choose for yourself what you will like or not like.

This does not sit well with our American, consumerist sentiments. But to pick and choose buffet-style across the veritable plethora of faith options in the world puts you at the center. It is to fall prey to the original temptation: "you will be like God." That didn't work out so well for us at the beginning. It doesn't work any better now.

What I'm not talking about here is a demand to fit into a Christian sub-culture. It's not about fitting into the Christian Right or Left, wearing the right clothes or having the right Christian trinkets sitting on you coffee table.

But I am talking about allowing Jesus to shape your politics, maybe re-invent your wardrobe, and maybe deal with your trinkets (my guess is he'd be much happier if you had fewer of those, but that's just me) as he shapes your character, your vocation decisions, and your moral decisions. He gets all of you and you get all of him--even the parts of him and his kingdom that you're not so sure that you want. That's the deal.

So when it comes to following Jesus, it's time to start kissing babies in the grocery store...you just might want to ask their parents first.