(Ir)religiosity

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I heard Shane Claiborne speak at an event put on by the Boston Faith & Justice Network last Saturday.  It was a good event.  Shane gave a variation of his standard stump talk with some updated anedcotes that I don’t remember hearing the last time I saw him.

There was one quote, however, that is worth retelling.

At one point, Shane was talking about how Christians, and the church in general, tend to approach word and deed from a position of inflated self-righteousness.  To drive his point home he jokingly compared the church to the donkey that carried Jesus into Jerusalem during his last week.  He made a few funny points about how the donkey was probably feeling pretty good about himself — watching the crowds and listening to them cheering — and pointed out that such an attitude is not unlike that of many Christians and many churches.  We like to take the credit for something we have no business boasting about.

All this culminated when Shane drove his point home by saying:

“We’re just the asses that get to bring Jesus!”

I love it!  And it’s so true.  We’re all just asses trying to do the best we can to be a humble conduit for the gospel.  Let us never forget that.