Do You Blend In?

I don't know about you, but in the Bible and theological books, I am a highlighter, an underliner, a writer-inner, and a circler. I like to mark up pages. And the other day I was doing just that while checking out Colossians, but things were a little different. Jason was already asleep and I didn't want to wake him up, but I also really wanted to lie down as I read, so I broke out the flashlight. Now Jason has this super-military flashlight that I was using and it has a red lens. The lens was perfect for the least amount of disturbance to Jason, but terrible for me when I realized that my pen of choice that night had been red. Before I noticed the issue, I didn't know why I couldn't see my writing. I found myself going over everything I had written to embolden it, if you will, and then when I removed the red lens realized just how bold I had made my letters.

This is something that I think is paralleled in life. We have this tendency to shine our red light on red ink. We have these comfort zones in which it becomes much easier to be a Christian around other Christians. Therefore, many Christians steer clear of anyone who doesn't share their beliefs. We fear having friends that believe other religions as though they are contagious. We shun the people who love the nightlife and bar scene as though we would become guilty by association. Rather, we stick to our little circles where we meet little conflict and can always feel safe. I recognized this issue in myself the more people I met in the Army. The Army tends to draw a rough lifestyle and, in the beginning, I found myself really uncomfortable with the talk and the actions of the people. But then I began to develop relationships. Then I began to see the hurt that so desperately needed to see Jesus in someone. And it was then that I started to step out of my comfort zone and get a little "unsafe." All because I don't think Jesus was safe.

Jesus certainly didn't make it a point to hang out with the "church crowd." Certainly he went to their houses (Luke 7), and he spoke with them a lot, but take a look at his almost-constant crowd. He hung out with the roughest of rough. He touched a leper in Matthew 8 (which was about the worst thing he could do in that culture), chatted up a Samaritan woman alone at a well in John 4 (taboo for a Jew and inappropriate for a man), called a tax collector to follow him as a disciple in Matthew 9 (only the embodiment of the greatest evil in Jewish eyes: Rome), and acknowledged that because of the crowd he hung out with he was called "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Luke 7:34). Jesus certainly knew how to get people talking about the crowd he ran with. Please know that this would have been so radical in that culture. He was called Rabbi. He was a teacher of the law and he walked around with what the culture saw as riff-raff. To our eyes he would have walked with hookers, anarchists, drunks and sick people. So why are we so slow to do the same?

I think most of the time we assume that if people see us with that crowd, they will believe we do what that crowd does and our reputation will be shot. Hey, that's what happened to Jesus, right? For outsiders, this will most likely be true. To outsiders and people who do not know us, they will probably assume that we do what our friends do. But I promise you, to those that are a part of that crowd, you will be a white light to a red pen. When we only hang out with people like us, everything starts to blend. But when we let our light shine on a crowd colored differently from Christianity, we illuminate so much more. Jesus himself said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Mark 2:17). So let's take our light to the sick.

All of that being said, I do think I need to point out two things. One, people that know you should know where you stand. Outsiders may make assumptions of your reputation, but your friends should know the truth. As a Christian, you should certainly not act the same as your non-Christian friends. Be in the world, not of it. Two, this does not mean that men should go to strip clubs in order to reach strippers for Christ. Let a woman do that. By all means, use your common sense. If you're a recovering alcoholic, don't hang out at bars to tell people about Christ. Don't throw yourself into a situation where you'll be tempted to forsake what you know. But don't just sit in your comfort zone of Christian friends and miss out on all the great relationships you could have with people who do not yet know him. It is in these relationships your light will shine the brightest, and maybe, just maybe, your friends will come to know him through your words and example.