http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_classic_m.cfm
These shoes are weird. There’s no getting around it. They’re called FiveFingers and they’re made by a company called by Vibram. The purpose: to recreate the sensation of being barefoot while protecting the feet. It’s hard not to stare when you catch someone wearing a pair of these. The FiveFingers are sure to get everyone around talking, gawking, and giggling simply because they’re just so darn different from everything we’re accustomed to from a shoe.
Shoes are supposed to look a certain way. Sure, there’s many a style, from tennis shoes to high heels to combat boots to bedroom slippers, but there’s a basic outline that we all accept for a shoe to look like. FiveFingers shoes do not fit in the outline and that confuses and disturbs us.
Much like these unique shoes, Christians should stand out in a crowd as well, confusing and disturbing the normalcy that surrounds them. Too often Christianity gets characterized as either a peaceful, calm, all-inclusive religion. Certainly much time is spent in the Bible talking of peace, of love, of forgiveness, of a grace that extends to all who want to partake in it. Some of the verses and ideas proclaimed are, well, downright disturbing.
The book of Joel is weird. It’s filled with weird prophecies and messages that, to the untrained mind, appear to be for a time long ago forgotten. Joel’s message is often brushed aside as irrelevant for today’s times. But the book, which tells the story of a land ravished by a locust plague and the famine that comes with it, is filled with messages of repentance and hope that have modern ministerial meaning.
The first chapter and a half tells of a disturbing plague where locusts quickly encompass a city tearing it apart and turning it from a “Garden of Eden” into “Death Valley” where “nothing escapes unscathed” (2:1-3). God lets all of this happen to his people. Their only hope is to “come back to [Him] and really mean it! Come back fasting and weeping…change [their] life, not just [their] clothes” (2:12-13).
A strange thing happens when they do. God, the same God who let a locust plague tear down their city, replenishes the city, blessing it more than ever before. In verses 2:18-20, His wrath is turned against the enemies of the city as He defends the faithful. God’s enemies will “rot, a stench to high heaven. The bigger the enemy, the stronger the stench!”
Where’s the peace in a smell that reeks to the heavens? Where’s the love in a locust plague? It’s in God’s mercy, His redemptive nature, His forgiveness for those who humbly seek Him. “God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, this most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe” (2:13-14). God takes care of His people, and wages war on His enemies. The book of Joel has a weird way of showing God’s love, and the consequences of His wrath are disturbing, but His passionate concern and love for His people is beautiful.
Just as God is not simply complacent with rampant sin and disbelief, we should not be either. We should live in a way that disturbs the common order. We should not be content with complacency and the common life. We should live in a way that is peaceful in times of distress, that loves people who persecute us, that is joyful in all circumstances, that is patient with God’s confusing timing, that is faithful to His calling no matter the dangerous places it takes us, that resists the temptation to live a normal life, that challenges others to see that there is something better than the broken world we live in.
We shouldn’t be afraid to wear weird shoes that are different from the norm if they speak to what our feet desire. We shouldn’t be afraid to wear our faith out into the world if it truly speaks to what our hearts and souls desire. Be the person God created you to be. Be spiritually naked, shunning the masks and costumes you wear to fit into the world. You will be ridiculed, you will be mocked, you will confuse people, you will get some weird looks, you will have people talking about you behind your back. But don’t be afraid to be disturbing. Jesus wasn’t. He disturbed the peace so much he was killed for the crime. May the way we live our lives and the way His love is displayed in us disturb the world in the same way.
