A revolution that dances and laughs

Taken from the pages of Delirious’ new album: Kingdom of Comfort
Save me save me
From the kingdom of comfort where I am king
From the unhealthy lust of material things


A REVOLUTION THAT DANCES AND LAUGHS
- Shane Claiborne: activist, recovering sinner, and author of irresistible revolution
THESIMPLEWAY.ORG





The world is a mess. People are dying of OBESITY, and people are dying of STARVATION. Some of us are suffering from the LONELINESS OF POVERTY, and others are aching in the LONELINESS OF WEALTH. Too often, Christianity has only offered us life after death while the world is really asking: Is there life before death? We are convinced that Jesus did not just come to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live – here… now. He came to show us the narrow way to life. And that’s Good News to all of us who are ANOTHER WORLD. We are made to live for something bigger than ourselves – this thing we call the KINGDOM OF GOD… God’s dream for the world.



This is the realm where the last are first and the first are last, where the poor are blessed and the peacemakers are the children of God. This whole Christian thing is not just about going up to heaven after we die, but it is about bringing God’s Kingdom to earth.



THIS IS THE GOSPEL THAT SHOULD COMFORT THE DISTURBED AND DISTURB THE COMFORTABLE.



And that means REVOLUTION. It is a revolution that sets both the oppressed and the oppressors free, A REVOLUTION THAT DANCES AND LAUGHS… A REVOLUTION THAT ACHES WITH THE WORLD. It is a revolution not just for saints and prophets and celebrities, but A REVOLUTION OF ORDINARY RADICALS WHO LIVE IN WAYS THAT DO NOT CONFORM TO THE PATTERNS OF THIS WORLD BUT ARE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF OUR MINDS (Rom.12:2 NIV)



God gives us a fresh imagination. Perhaps the world will call us crazy. But if we are crazy it is because we refuse to be crazy in the same way that the world has gone crazy. And this GOSPEL OF THE POOR and BROKEN may fly in the face of much of the prosperity preaching that has come to mark Christianity in the west, but this is the Gospel of the baby REFUGEE who was born in the middle of a GENOCIDE, who wandered the world with no place to lay His head, and who was jailed, tortured, and crucified on the cross of the Empire in which He lived.



May these songs lead us closer to Jesus of Nazareth, where folks said “nothing good could come.” And may these songs lead us to the poor, in whom we will find Christ in his most distressing disguises… among the least of these. In these songs, may you encounter the Jesus who did not just come as a missionary to the poor or as a CHARITABLE PHILANTROPIST, but who came as one who suffered.



HE CAME AS A TROUBLEMAKER AND CREATOR OF HOLY MISCHIEF.



He came as a King who ruled with a towel and played in the dirt with kids. It is Jesus who bids us, dares us… come and follow.



SO SIT. DANCE. SHOUT. LISTEN…

Listen to the One who tells us if we really want to FIND OUR LIFE THEN WE SHOULD GIVE IT AWAY.



Listen to the small voice amid all the noise and clutter that whispers to us that the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away.



As we read the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other, we cannot help but ask: HAVE WE EVEN BEGUN TO BE CHRISTIANS?



LET US BEGIN.



Jesus, give us STRENGTH to live the things we preach and sing. And give us GRACE with ourselves and others when we fall short of who we want to be…