My Heart Broke a Little Tonight

So some background on my life. I have one roommate and she has a fiancé and we spend most evenings together because I know very few people and they don't do anything. Today he was talking about an email he got from a church he used to go to and how they got a new youth director and that they were starting a new thing where every last Sunday of the month they were going to go out into the community and serve the homeless and just the community in general on those last Sundays each month. Now me I was thinking about how awesome that was. They were exposing the high school students to a part of life they would probably rarely interact with. On top of all of that they were living out the gospel in loving these people and the greatest commandment. If we are loving others who are the imago dei (image of God) then we are loving God; at least these are the ways I think.

(Side note as to what's going on in my life right now: I am reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne right now and working on my Masters in Intercultural Studies because I want to live out the gospel here and abroad because I realized I wanted to do more then teach about Jesus I wanted to live like Jesus and show people Jesus, which I know you can do in a classroom but that isn't what God has put on my heart. CONCLUSION: I'm really into being in the community and living out what Jesus preached right now and always and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.)

My roommate and her fiancé did not like this idea of taking the high schoolers out into the community on Sundays. They (really only he did the talking) feel that children should be with their parents on Sunday’s and that they should be in church on Sunday because it is the Sabbath. I brought up the fact that the Sabbath isn't Sunday but just a day one sets aside to rest in God and worship God. He just kind of scoffed at this (not angry like but a scoff) and said yes but it is also a day set aside for worshiping God (somehow he couldn't see how spending time with the homeless was worshiping and loving God). Then I brought up the fact that they are living out the gospel and following Jesus by doing this. (Once again another scoff) He said that was the reason that the youth director used but he maintained that children should be in church on Sundays with their families and he said that by doing this they are breaking the first commandment which says love God first and then others second. And that is where our discussion ended.

My heart broke. I couldn't believe that he would look down upon people living out the gospel. I know he would have hated the church I went to in Humboldt because we didn't have church some Sundays so that people would be encouraged to go out and do service projects. I hated (yes a strong word) the way he looked at the greatest commandment. He saw them as two separate commandments when that isn’t at all what Jesus was saying. (Now you can argue with me on this that’s fine I’m just going off of what a pastor of mine once preached on and also what I personally see in the scriptures and in Jesus’ life) These two commandments go hand in hand; if we are honestly loving God then we will not be able to stop loving God’s people and since we are each image bearers by loving one another we are loving God. My roommates fiancé said that they should just do it on a different day but I think it is great they are doing it on a Sunday; a day that is notoriously known for bad drivers and bad tippers. Why don’t we try giving a different perception of Sunday’s since Sunday is just another day. We made Sunday the day to go to church not God, Shabbat (the Sabbath in Hebrew) is really from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. In my opinion the best way to worship God and learn about God is to live out the gospel.

So my heart hurt tonight.