Jimmy Eat World

When I was in college, Nate lived across the hall.  I was an upperclassmen and he was a freshman.  We were so different.  I was "Abercrombie & Fitch" and he was "Hot Topic".  He represented a rebranding of "cool" that was happening within our generation.  My friends were listening to their Dave Mathews Band  cd while Nate was downloading Jimmy Eat World from napster.  Our backstories were completely different, our music style was different, but at the core, we shared a commonality.  We weren't satisfied with the name of Jesus in our generation.  We were questioning the traditions of Christianity, albeit from two different perspectives.  The great thing about a conversation with Nate was how open minded he was.  It helped me immensely.  I have a tendency to think black and white.  My mentality was either "for us" or "against us".  Our conversations centered more on questions than answers.  We talked about potential threats to Christianity.  I'm glad I didn't misinterpret Nate because he didn't look like me, talk like me, or dress like me.  I realized early that different doesn't equal enemy.  He wasn't like me, but he wasn't against me. 

 "Religion" and "Follower of Jesus" live across the hall from each other.  We often pin religion against Jesus, making all who practice religion equal to the "religious leaders" Jesus contended with.  However, simply saying that we aren't "religious" but we are "followers of Jesus" doesn't remove religion, it rebrands it.  When religion is pure, James (1:27) says it cares for widows, orphans, and leans into the grace of Jesus so much that the world cannot stain it.  What follower of Jesus wouldn't long to practice this religion?   Our fight isn't against religion.  Jesus didn't have an issue with religion.  He took issue with religious leaders who didn't lead a pure religion.  They were judging the very people their "religion" called them to love and to lead. They were redefining the law to make glorify their comfort and distance themselves from the desperate.  It was a manipulation of pure religion that Jesus took issue with.  Isn't that a greater cause?  When we follow Jesus, we adhere to his teachings.  These teachings, by definition, are a religion.  This religion is built on freedom from condemnation through the work of Christ and not the work of the religious practices.  When we lean into the grace of Jesus, we find ourselves at the beginning of pure religion.