Last week, an excellent op-ed piece appeared on USAToday.com by 26-year-old Jonathan Merritt titled “An evangelical’s plea: ‘Love the sinner.’” It’s worth clicking through to read the whole thing. But here are some highlights:

Most people know Jesus was amazingly compassionate toward marginalized sinners. Prostitutes, drunks and, worst of all, tax collectors they were some of Jesus’ closest friends. And while the religious aristocracy of Jesus’ day was finding new ways to express sin-hate, Jesus was busy loving every sinner he could find.

The contrast between 21st century Christianity and the Jesus of the Bible is stark. This Jesus the compassionate, loving, “friend of sinners” is difficult to reconcile with an often disconnected, insular, us-vs.-them Christianity.

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The most robust description of love in all of Scripture comes from 1 Corinthians 13, which says, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.” If Christians’ language were marked by these characteristics humility, kindness and grace it would ease tensions and open up avenues for dialogue. It is time for evangelical Christians to reform our rhetoric.

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And it doesn’t end with dialogue. Let us not forget that love is not only a noun, but also a verb. Love is an action. Our assertions that we love our neighbors must be accompanied by visible expressions of that love. Therefore, we need to begin looking for ways to affirm, rather than undermine, our claims to love our gay neighbors.

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Now is the time for those who bear the name of Jesus Christ to stop merely talking about love and start showing love to our gay and lesbian neighbors. It must be concrete and tangible. It must move beyond cheap rhetoric. We cannot pick and choose which neighbors we will love. We must love them all.

I found the article to be refreshing and right on the nose.  And it has me thinking…

What are some things that I can be doing, as a follower of Jesus, to love my neighbors who are gay?  Anyone want to help me answer that? (Scroll on down to leave a comment…)

This is just one example of someone who is investing their time, resources, and creativity to improve the lives of the people around them. It’s always good to see someone pursue a dream that benefits others. Their example can inspire us to live a more generous, others-centered life.  (By the way, that’s a big part of what it means to live a life patterned after Jesus, who lived “to serve, not to be served.”)

Do you know someone who is pursuing a dream that benefits others?  Share their story in the comments.  I’d love to feature them here and celebrate what they’re doing!

I saw this article over at twitterstop.com about the Peapod, a new electric car that’s supposed to be coming soon.  They describe it as a “neighborhood electric vehicle” or NEV.  And it has iPhone connectivity built right in!  It even has a cute little smile on its face (hence the “happy” in the description above).

Anyway, since I work from home and Stacey works in town, neither of us need to leave Valparaiso most days.  So I was interested enough to click through to the Peapod website… where I learned that this happy little electric car has a top speed of 25 mph.

Nope.  Uh-uh.  I wouldn’t want to do that to the drivers around me.  It doesn’t matter how cute and energy-efficient and “green” they are — I can’t imagine being stuck behind one of these, even for 5 minutes in town.

Would you?

TED.com has lots of interesting videos on all sorts of topics, from skydiving to comedy to tech gear to business.  Check ‘em out, and if you find a favorite, share it in the comments!

If you’re not familiar with The Colbert Report, the whole thing is a spoof on ego-centric, conservative cable TV news shows. Pretty funny.

You can find out more by visiting www.playingforchange.com.

(And you can share it with a friend using the links below…)

So… what does it all mean?  I’d love to hear your answer in the comments…

One model he uses, which I find interesting, is that of a play whose fifth act has been lost.  I’ll go ahead and quote a couple of paragraphs here (which will give you a taste of what you’ll be in for if you decide to read the whole thing):

Suppose there exists a Shakespeare play whose fifth act had been lost. The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a wealth of characterization, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play ought to be staged. Nevertheless, it is felt inappropriate actually to write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play into one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give the key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors, who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves.

Consider the result. The first four acts, existing as they did, would be the undoubted ‘authority’ for the task in hand. That is, anyone could properly object to the new improvisation on the grounds that this or that character was now behaving inconsistently, or that this or that sub-plot or theme, adumbrated earlier, had not reached its proper resolution. This ‘authority’ of the first four acts would not consist in an implicit command that the actors should repeat the earlier parts of the play over and over again. It would consist in the fact of an as yet unfinished drama, which contained its own impetus, its own forward movement, which demanded to be concluded in the proper manner but which required of the actors a responsible entering in to the story as it stood, in order first to understand how the threads could appropriately be drawn together, and then to put that understanding into effect by speaking and acting with both innovation and consistency.

In this model, Scripture is the first four acts, and we are now given the responsibility of living out the fifth one.

Of course, like all models, it has its shortcomings, but I find it to be a helpful way to think about the role that Scripture plays in our lives.  If we are to be these actors, living out the fifth act, then we must immerse ourselves in the first four acts and get to know the story intimately.  Otherwise, we won’t be faithful to the play, nor to the author who has entrusted it to us.

This is a big responsibility.  Fortunately for us, God is not just sitting on the sidelines waiting to judge us.  This isn’t American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.  Instead, he has entered into the story himself.  He is one of the actors alongside us, and as we follow his lead (now I have the dancing imagery in my head), we find that he is helping us each step of the way.

So… what do you think?  I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether you wade into the full article or not.

Unfortunately, it appears that enough people assumed that his article was an attack on Christianity that he had to write a follow up: Faith Isn’t Under Fire: The Difference Between Christianity and ‘Christian America.’ The fact that some people don’t seem to understand that these are two separate things is a bit frustrating to me.  I’ve bumped into plenty of Christians who don’t seem to get the idea that the church does best when it is not wed to political power.  We get hooked into thinking that all hell will break loose if we don’t rally behind this political party or vote for that ballot initiative.  But in fact, Jesus himself resisted political power and rejected the attempts of the people to make him king, opting instead to face death at the hands of the empire.  Yet the temptation is always there for Christians — especially here in America, with our strong religious heritage and representative democracy — to try to wield the sword of political power, to build our own empire in God’s name.

My hope, as we approach Easter Sunday in the midst of a changing religious, political, and economic landscape, is that we who call ourselves Christians will continue to trust and follow Jesus Christ.  I hope that we will remember that the way of Jesus is not that of wielding the sword of political influence against those who disagree with us but is that of loving service, even to those who consider themselves our enemies.  Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus Christ show us that the power of God’s love will always be greater than the power of the empire.  So let’s hold tight to the unstoppable love of God and trust that the way of loving service is the way of transformation. Love wins.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this.  Please feel free to share them in the comments below!

Also, of course, if you don’t have a church home and live in or near Valparaiso, Indiana, we’d love to have you join us at Living Hope this Sunday morning at 9:30 at the Aberdeen Manor banquet hall. Details are on the Living Hope website.