Author Archives: iamchrisgilmore

You could be a prophet.

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Do you ever wonder where God is? Why God is silent? Do you carry anger at the injustice you see? Or question the goodness of a God who allows these things?

You could be a prophet.

Habakkuk is an oft overlooked portion of Scripture, but this leader & spokesperson for the Divine let’s God have it.

“Lord, how long will I call for help & you not listen?
I cry out to you, but you don’t deliver us.
Why do you show me injustice?
The instructions of God are useless.
Justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4)

Raw. Honest. Harsh. Prophetic.

Habakkuk is not unfaithful here. He isn’t told to stop or repent. He also doesn’t get easy answers. Or a tangible solution to his problems.

Feeling these things or asking these questions doesn’t make him a heretic or mean he walked away from his beliefs. In fact, I’d argue that by asking them he leaned into faith.

He believed there is a good God & now wants that God to show up. The God he was told about. The God he was promised. The silence & absence of God trouble him. As, perhaps, they should.

What if anger & doubt are not threats to faith, but expressions of it? What if we spent time & created space to hold these feelings, rather than skip to the platitudes & life lessons? What if we made room for “letting God have it” rather than pretend everything is shiny & bright? What if people didn’t feel the need to walk away from faith or community for asking the same questions as a person who has a book of the Bible named after them?

When everything is terrible & falling apart, “How long, oh Lord?” may be the most faithful prayer we can offer.

May we find the courage to name what is wrong. May we have faith enough to be bothered by what seems like silence & absence from God. May we expect a better God. And may we create space for the prophets among us who don’t have all the answers, but are asking all the right questions.

Whose Disciples?

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Christ and the Apostles by Georges Rouault 

For a while now I’ve been bothered by much of what I’m witnessing in the Christian world.

From where I sit, a large chunk of the Church presents as meaner, colder, less compassionate, and less principled today than it was a handful of years ago.

I watch as people I’ve known to be kind, caring folk resort to name calling, hateful language, and even calls to violence. I watch as people dismiss gentleness or concern for neighbor as weakness. As people who claim to follow Truth spread falsehoods and deny reality even as it gasps for breath right in front of them.

The only explanation I can think of is not a comfortable one – we become like what we worship. I fear too many of us have fixed our eyes on political power and those who wield it rather than Jesus.

“We vote for a president not a pastor” has demonstrated itself a bankrupt idea. For many our conversations, online presence, and the way we treat each other has proven not just our votes are at stake, but also our very hearts and minds and souls.

It turns out that who we vote for and champion and the media we consume and the memes we share all shape us. They form us in their image. The word for this is discipleship.

I wonder whose disciples we have become? Whose message do we spread? Whose language do we adopt? Whose values do we carry? In my view we continue to look and sound less like Jesus (no matter how much lip service we give him) and more like our preferred politicians.

This is problematic. Scripture calls it idolatry.

It happens without us realizing it and I am beyond convinced it is happening throughout our country.

I say this from a place of contrition. I am a guilty party. I must be better. We must be better.

For the sake of Christ. For the sake of our witness to the world. For the sake of the healing we could be offering in these troubled times.

We have much work to do. We must relearn what it means to be Christlike. We must unlearn the stories of any competing narratives. We have much to ask forgiveness for and much realignment of priorities to get after.

It will start with humility and repentance. With taking seriously the call to knock it off and turn from the direction we are going (a direction that is leading to our destruction) and head back the way God intends, whatever the cost.

It will not be easy. It will not be fun. It won’t seat us in power or make us rich, but it is the only way we will find what we are most in need of and the only way the Church can continue to call herself Christian.

It is our most serious task.

God help us be faithful.

Hungry for a Better World

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Whatever happens Tuesday, you are invited to a meal at my house.

No matter who you vote for or where you come from. No matter the language you speak or your stance on the designated hitter. No matter who you love or who you worship. No matter if you cheer for the Dallas Cowboys or dip chicken nuggets in ketchup or are one of the many who have unfriended me because my political views annoy you.

You are invited.

Because I am hungry for a better world. At times I am starving for it.

I feel an ache in my gut, a gnawing sensation that I cannot shake.

My stomach knots as I watch the way we interact with people that we disagree with. My heart breaks as I watch how we form our opinions and tackle or dodge the unique challenges of our day. As I watch us avoid critical thinking to parrot tired, worn talking points that neglect both reason and truth. As we refuse to listen to information that challenges our preconceived ideas. As we draw lines around “those people” and do violence with our words, attitudes, and actions.

Our nation is suffering under the weight of hate, disease, death, apathy, prejudice, inequity, violence, fear, hypocrisy, deceit, and polarization.

There must be a world better than this.

We can to better. Love better. Think better. Form better conclusions. We can listen better. Vote better. Treat each other better.

We must.

So, you are invited over.

Not because our differences don’t matter. Not in some sort of hollow call to unity that avoids addressing hard topics. Not in an effort to ignore the deep pain much of our nation is experiencing or to put a Band-Aid over the yawning chasm that exists these days.

But in order to move towards a better world. In order to use my position (A position I understand not everyone has) to help bring healing amidst so much brokenness.

Maybe I’m naïve, but I imagine if we sit at the table together our walls will come down. If we turn off cable news and spend time listening to each other’s stories we will be much closer to the truth. If we stop forming opinions based on memes and instead based them on real life, flesh and blood people serving us green bean casserole we’d be much less hostile.

It is a lot harder to call a person names when they are sitting at our elbow. It is a lot harder to dismiss a person’s story or hardship as they play with our children on the floor. It is harder to retreat into the echo chamber when we fully see and know who is standing right in front of us.

When you are truly, genuinely, urgently important to me I cannot stick my fingers in my ears and ignore what you have to say. When you are important to me I will realize that my freedom and your freedom and my future and your future are wrapped up together.

I cannot disentangle myself from you when you are sitting at my table. Shedding your tears, sharing your laughs, hoping your hopes. At the table we level the playing field. We are invited into one another’s world and if we are willing to listen, if we are willing to learn, if we are willing to love each other more than we love our long held ideas or our power or our privilege – if we ever get to the place where we tangibly love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves – we might just find ourselves changed.

When I truly know and love my neighbor, I am forced to engage them, to hear them, to give them space.

When I truly know and love my neighbor, I can no longer hide behind, “I don’t have a racist/sexist/hateful bone in my body” and must be forced to reconcile any ideas, laws, or practices that harm people even when I’m unaffected or unaware.

When I truly know and love my neighbor, I cannot escape to my favorite talking head who is paid to enflame the base and must instead build relationship with the people right in front of me.

When I truly know and love my neighbor, I cannot support what is good for me if it ends up being harmful to you.

I am convinced that knowing each other well will fight against the destructive ideas that exist in our landscape. I am convinced that proximity will eventually, slowly perhaps, lead the way to truth and truth will move us toward love. And love will give birth to flourishing.

When we know each other, fully, we will be better. We will be more just, more peaceful, more joyous, more full of grace. More like the world God intends.

So, I offer you Meatless Monday and Taco Tuesday. I offer you breakfast for dinner and leftover night. We do driveway s’mores on Fridays and you are invited.

You can come. And sit and listen. I’ll listen too. And I’ll invite my neighbors and ask you to listen to them. The ones from different churches and religions, different skin colors and backgrounds, different relationships and yard signs.

And maybe, just maybe, the better world we are hungry for will slowly take root. Perhaps with each bite of cobbler and each relationship made we will move toward a world where we truly mean “liberty and justice for all.”

I believe one day all that is wrong in the world will be made right. I also believe that we can participate in that reality even now as we build the world of tomorrow.

I believe this world can be built on truth and love. That in the end, truth and love will conquer lies and hate, death and destruction, fear and division.

We need not continue like this *gestures broadly at all the things*.

A better world is possible. I’m hungry for it.

And, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” – Arundhati Roy

On my best days, I believe this. On my worst days, I need this.

So may we have the courage to sit at the table. May we have the awareness to make room at the table for others. May we have the boldness to invite those we don’t yet know and those we assume we do. May our proximity change our hearts, our ideas, our actions, and our world. And may we hunger no more.