it's all about perception.

I think it is fitting that this text be assigned at this particular juncture of my life. We've been in a sermon series at Midtown about perception, specifically the perceptions of Jesus, Christians, and "the mission". And what I find especially relevant in Berger's work is his argument that every image "embodies a way of seeing."  He notes, "The photographer's way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject.  The painter's way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on canvas or paper." (136) 

This is played out in our lives in a number of different ways, but I want to look particularly at the "choice of subject" by the American Christian.  In a survey of self-proclaimed "Non-Christians"-be they atheist, agnostic, or subscribers to an entirely different religion- a mere 3% of perceive Christians as "different from themselves" or "good".  That minuscule  percentage has devastating implications for the Christian, namely that  we are claiming to follow a God who sets us apart and makes us new, while, simultaneously living lives that look exactly like the rest of the world.  The  every day Christian is  not choosing a different subject than the average Atheist; our conversations are largely insignificant, our actions look similarly selfish, and our attitudes reflect the same impatience.  And all this sameness distorts the picture that the outsider is getting; she lacks the ability to perceive and appreciate the image because of the limitations on her own empirically based thought processes.  That is to say--the non-Christian is unable to conceptualize the Biblical Christian because so few of us are actually projecting that image.

Berger goes on to note that, prior to the invention of the camera, "what you saw depended upon where you were when." (142).  Dustin Willis' sermon on the perception of Christians [the outside resource], suggested that, perhaps, it is our inability to consciously choose a subject that is so daring, so bold, and so counter-cultural that we are presenting a picture of Christ that is similar to those brief glimpses of landscapes the world caught prior to the existence of a camera. An outsider could observe that we're "nice" people who try not to cuss and seem to worship something bigger than ourselves if she were to step inside the doors of our churches. But when she steps outside and sees those same people living lives that are contrary to the desires of that same King, she cannot take that original picture with her. Because what she sees in Christians depends on where she sees them.

And then there is this perception of the "mission" of Jesus and it is confused, a lot of the time, with the "American dream".  It seems that the world has impressed upon us that our "mission" in life should be to get more money, be in charge of more people, and, ultimately, own a really big yacht.  But that does not seem at all compatible with the way Jesus has called his followers to live.  And so there begins to emerge this sort of Christian "sub-culture", as Jon Ludavina puts it, where the goal is to go to church every Sunday, to go on mission trips every once in a while, and to smile at people a lot. And neither lifestyle is going to satisfy, and both are antithetical to the life Jesus lived on earth.  We see Him entering a hurting world and taking that hurt and brokenness onto Himself, asking His followers to follow Him with their whole lives and to help others follow Him.  If Christians started living that way, living like our hearts and our souls are being put back together, maybe "Christian" could mean something different in 2020 than it does today. Because the world will have seen the way people who claim to be redeemed actually live in response to that redemption. And because they've experienced the love radiating from them.