Tag: San Francisco

A Holy Troublemaker

“Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of this world.”

— Jacques Ellul

I was living in the gritty Mission district in San Francisco, I remember sitting in my favorite coffee shop at the corner of Clarion Alley and Mission reading Ellul’s “Meaning of the City.” I have to admit, I was profoundly undone.  Here I sat with my ‘latte,’ in the presence of a “genius,” reading a man who was describing the city that I was living in.  It was a bit much. It devastated me, but in a very good way.

Jacques Ellul describes the condition of city-darkness.  His contention was that there are people who are actively, (but often passively,) in a rebellious opposition to whatever God is doing.  There is an “organization of unbelief” that always resists the Holy Spirit, and it has become especially embedded into places we call the City.

Ellul recognized that there is an opposition force.  There are now those who have been drastically connected to the radical presence of God. There can’t ever be real normalcy here.  We are saints, (whether we like it or not.)  We are solidly “light.”  And then we start reflecting that into a profound darkness, which cares for nothing at all– even hating the grace of God– things can get vicious.

We stand in an awesome place (whether we understand or not.)  We are in the truest sense revolutionaries.  We stand by grace in this place.  The light is always breaking holy-troublemakersinto the lives of those who are living against Him.  This is most uncomfortable– like falling into a raspberry patch naked, with all its stickers and scratches. Hardly pleasant.

We are “the troublemakers.”  What we believe turns the world upside down (really, upside right.)  We have become obstacles to those in darkness. We are altered, and as believers the change is dramatically authentic.  There is simply nothing outside of His power that can do this.

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot be in God’s kingdom.”   John 3:3, NCV

This critical thought describes the essential work that must happen before we can enter into it.  God’s kingdom is now our dream and our destiny.  It fuels us, and energizes us far beyond any work we can do.  We are now living people, residing in the “land of the dead.”  We must expect problems, but exult in a real existence.

U

ybic, Bryan

 

cropped-christiangraffiti1-2

Related articles

14 Odd Scraps About Me for Facebook…

  1. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at a very young age, lol.
  2. My parents were very young, my mom 16 and my dad was almost 18.
  3. I grew up in Northern Wisconsin. In a brick farmhouse. I used a hand-pump and an outdoor toilet for awhile.
  4. I was very close to my great-grand parents, Ben and Eva Tarbox.
  5. I joined the Army when I was 17, and stationed in Hawaii, was a hospital corpsmen.
  6. When discharged I came to Homer, Alaska to attend the Alaska Bible Institute. I graduated in 1984.
  7. Lynn and I met in 1987 in San Francisco, we married in 1989 and lived in the city for several months.
  8. I was stranded for 36 hours in a small car north of Fairbanks in January 1986. It got down to 30 below zero. A week later I was almost burned to death in a cabin fire. I have lots of scar tissue on my back.
  9. I drove an old van from Mexico to Alaska in 1998, I patched a big hole in the gas tank using a bar of lye soap. I drove it all the way to Homer without it leaking. Go figure.
  10. I pastored Kachemak Bay Christian Church for three years. I loved it.
  11. I had several medical crisis’ beginning in 2002. Brain surgery was needed, I found I had contracted HCV in 2003.
  12. I aspire to be a writer. I’m now negotiating with a publisher. I also have three blogs.
  13. I have severe tinnitus. I hear noise all the time. It gets old.
  14. As a boy, my dream was to be a writer, or a forester.