I remember one of my very first church experiences. The preacher was bashing people he called “heathens” and “pagans.” I thought that was pretty yucky. So someone once asked me, “What do YOU call people who aren’t Christians?” Easy: I wouldn’t tar and feather them with pejorative labels. Honestly, I simply call them normal.
Seriously, we’re the ones who aren’t normal. We obey this 2000-year-old (infinitely-older, actually) Jesus-Person who tells us to do some pretty abnormal things-like, love our enemies? Please! Then, we believe this thing called “grace” which means God loves us no matter what? What?
Then God gives us all these stories in the Bible that illustrate His amazing abnormal love for us. And they’re crazy. Like, God uses a murderer on the run as a fugitive to deliver Ten Commandments, and one of those laws, of course, is “Do Not Murder.” Moses’ face is plastered in every Post Office in Egypt and he’s the guy God uses to deliver the “do not murder” message. Is this not nuts?
See, it’s TOTALLY NORMAL to hate our enemies, to put ourselves first, and get even. But turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give people your shirt if they steal your coat, “rejoice” when people talk bad about you; that’s crazy-talk, and that’s what we’re supposed to be all about.
So I don’t call people “pagans” or “heathens.” I call them perfectly normal. And I love them and I like to hang around them as much as I can, because I hope for opportunities to share my craziness with them, so that they can get crazy too.
