Squeezing a Christian

An old object lesson that floats around ministry circles observes that when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, and when you squeeze an apple, apple juice comes out, but what comes out when you squeeze a Christian? When the pressures and stresses of the world, pandemics and political crises, put pressures on followers of Jesus, what do they produce? If the analogy holds, something of Christ should come out. Jesus’ love should come out of a squeezed disciple of Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace – should ooze from the one who is Spirit-filled.

Surely, we’ve had three and a half years of evidence that this largely is not what happens to followers of Jesus in America. We every bit as much as our secular neighbors produced anger, anxiety, and fear. The consequent and ongoing shrinking of the Church only makes sense. When, in the midst of crisis, Christians flock to conspiracy theories and obvious lies and demonstrate no particular confidence in the power of divine providence, why would anyone believe us when we say that two thousand years ago a man walked on water? But in the coming season, the Church will again be asked the question, “What’s inside of you?” Maybe we can produce a different answer.

Perhaps, as 2024 looms, we ought to think about the likely cultural climate with our intended ends in mind. It will be another year of political turmoil and conflict being produced by world leaders who ought to act like models of civility but who instead act like spoiled children. That is of little concern. What matters is how Christians respond. A card player is not good because the deal is good; a card player is good because of what she does with the hand. We have some probable sense of what the next season will deal us, so the question then becomes, how shall we play it?

I’ve begun to pray that as the polarizing conflicts of American society begin to again force people to take sides, the Church will sound like the voice of Jesus. Imagine a Church where we care so much about profound ethical issues that we insist that they must be discussed, and yet, where we are so committed to the absolute dignity of the individual and the love that God bestows on every one, that we insist that our conversations leave people feeling cherished, regardless of political affiliation, religious doctrine, or agreement. Imagine an institution famed for Inquisitions, witch trials, and heretic executions reaching a midlife conversion itself, so that for the rest of its history, it is known for being the circle of grace that its founder originally meant for it to be.