Most of us are aware of the tensions and hostilities that permeate the Holy Land of Israel. One extreme voice believes that Bible prophecy grants title for the land to the Jews. Therefore, they say, the Jews are entitled to claim the land and subdue the Palestinians. The other extreme view believes that Arab hostility is justified because the Palestinians were displaced by outside forces and continue to be oppressed by Israel's policies.

Elias Chacour grew up in a primarily Christian village in Galilee, near Capernaum and the site of the Sermon on the Mount. His family can trace their roots (literally their orchards) back to the days before Christ. In 1947, after Jews began to resettle Israel, Chacour's father, a village elder, welcomed the Jews. But within one year, the village was destroyed by Israel and the family lost off of their property. The family ended up working their own orchards, not as owners but as laborers.

Chacour has endured unjust beatings and harassment. He and his family have every human reason for bitterness. Instead, Chacour became enamored with the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the Beatitudes. In a world polarized by two extreme views, Chacour began to seek a third way that captures the spirit of Christ's Beatitudes. He refused to be trampled by Israel and refused to take up arms with Palestine. He embraced the embarrassing contradictions of the Beatitudes - "the meek shall inherit the earth?" A determination took form - to be part of God's plan to restore human dignity. Shape society, however possible, into a place that promotes human dignity. His strategy? Take no sides and love everyone. "Hatred," he says "is corruption."

Chacour is not a fan of passive love forms. He is a person of action. After receiving his first pastoral assignment, Chacour became aware of disunity in the church. After Palm Sunday services, he locked the doors, of the church, held the key and said he would not unlock the doors until wrongs were forgiven. The only other way he would relinquish the key was if they were to kill him. After a long period of quiet, one hard heart softened and forgiveness began to sweep the room.

Chacour and others went on to develop libraries, schools, camps, and recently a university. He is honored on both sides of a fight that goes on today and he's making a difference

This notion of the third way intrigues me; first, because it reminds me of Jesus. Too conservative for liberals, and too liberal for conservatives, Jesus doesn't fit either world or camp. He'd be ticked of by the inconsistencies of both platforms and he'd probably tick them off, too. Virtually apolitical, Jesus carried out a revolution of the human heart that continues to sweep through new hearts in new lands and new nations to this day. Not merely right but righteous; not merely king, but Lord of Lords, Jesus is the most influential person to ever wear human flesh. And his life is dripping with ironies.

This Jesus spoke the blessed ironies that we call the Beatitudes. They are not lofty ideals for some future age. Jesus would scoff at that kind of silly notion. This is how he calls us to live - in the courageous, creative tension of blessed ironies. Poor in spirit, even though we're children of the King. Mourning and meek; hungry for righteousness; merciful and pure of heart; peacemakers, rejoicing even when we're persecuted. Salt. Light. Spice. Radiance. Life. Warmth.

"If salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?" When we lose your zest, we lose our real power. When we lose that spirit, that flavor that is distinctly Christ like, we've lost our place in the world. We lose our voice in the world. Some say we've lost our voice in the world. I don't think so. Not from what I watched on TV this week.

"A city on a hill cannot be hid." And you don't put a light under a bushel. You put it on a stand. Jesus said it first, not Ronald Regan… Why? So people will see and consider the source (this light is coming from someplace!) and glorify God. Are we plugged into the source. Are we shinning then like lights? Or are we just flickering fireflies - curiosities at best, but no real source of light.

This is not a passive picture of love that Jesus paints. It calls for extremes of loving kindness to the extreme of actively loving enemies even. "If you love only those who love you," says Jesus, "big whoop." (Paraphrase). Who doesn't? I'm calling you to something bigger, better, bolder. Blow people away with your love.

Peter puts it this way: "Dear friends, as aliens and strangers in this land…live such good lives among the pagans that they're blown away!" (Again, paraphrase). "By doing good," he says we "silence the talk of ignorant [people]."

Paul says the same thing in Philippians: To do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may shine like stars in the universe in the midst of a depraved generation.

In 2Corinthians, Paul writes about our roles as spiritual matchmaker, reconciling people with the God who made us and loves us.

In Colossians, Paul writes about living lives that please God; bearing fruit; doing good works; growing in knowledge; being strengthened with power from God; living with patience and endurance; giving thanks to God who rescued us from this dominion of darkness and into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have received redemption. Oh, what a great word - redemption. Our dignity has been redeemed. Our future has been secured. Our valued has been pronounced. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

What do souls feel when we appear? What do people sense when you or I walk in the room? Do they feel their worth? Or have we lost our shine? Do they feel their worth or have we lost our saltiness? Do people around us see the blessed irony of our lives, or are we just like the rest; whining, polarized, opinionated bores. God help me to be anything but a bore. God, forgive your church for being boring; lifeless and lightless and salt less - YUCK!

Chuck Colson says that Christians are agents of God's saving grace and God's common graces. As agents of saving grace, we bring people to Christ and Christ to people. As agents of common grace, we sustain and renew creation. We create healthy culture. We "bear children, plant crops, build cities, form governments, create works of art." Oh, Christians, I ask why have we so often let others do this work while we hide in the cozy comfort of "praise the Lord" subculture, afraid of the darkness instead of piercing the darkness and even teaching our children to be afraid.

Hear the call of the prophets - do justice; love mercy; walk humbly. Let justice roll down. These are not words for passive subcultures-in-hiding - neither are they calling us to settle for a gross and whinny world of polarized, politicized partial truths and sloppy slogans. We are not called into easy, sleazy, worldly ways. There must be a third way. There must be a better way.

So where do we go? What do we do? How do we find this third way?

First, any real discovery will demand that we learn to love the color gray. Frankly, some of us live in California because gray gets us down. Many Christians choose the world of black and white simplicity because gray is confusing. David Hazard writes, "Whether it is [gray] hair, a foreboding sky or this morning's newspaper, this blending of black and white [into gray] can trigger frustration, tension, and uncertainty. Grey illustrates life's smudginess; where knowledge is incomplete and reasoning is shallow. Grey whispers the need to believe, to trust and let go, and that my rationalizations can hinder learning and growing. The shades of grey are a reminder that God's ways are not man's ways, that I am part of a mystery: not understanding all my past or realizing fully my present moment, and not knowing the plans of my future…grey leads to introspection…gray…necessitates humility…gray is where wheat and weeds grown side by side - until the harvest day. Gray is the rain and the sun sent to the just and unjust…Gray is the lion resting with the lamb…Grey required faith…"Grey," he says "is being a resident alien.

We're calling this series, "Hot Topics and Tough Issues: Representing Christ in a Foreign Land." Representing Christ first means knowing Christ. Who is he? What did he say and do? Then, what would he say or do. Among other things, he brought light, representing Christ. Representing Christ well means, of course, loving the light, but it also means loving this gray world with a Christ like love.

So I said it starts with learning to love the color grey. What else?

We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, pray in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit. The same Spirit who gives all of us distinct gift sets also gives each of us passions to ignite those gifts. If we will pay attention and let the Holy Spirit course through our spiritual veins, we will get our cues, and the courage to answer His cues.

Only realize this: I expect the same Holy Spirit will cue some of us to infiltrate the ranks of republicans and other the democrats. The same Holy Spirit will cue some of us to guard institutions like Christian marriage and other of us to guard against discrimination in a civil society. The same Holy Spirit will cue one Christian person to prosecute crime and another Christian to defend the accused and still another to redeem the dignity of the convicted criminal. The same Holy Spirit want Christians here and there and everywhere, restoring human dignity, living out the blessed ironies of the Christ life - strategically placed to be salt and light; to bring justice and mercy; to speak truth and grace; to walk sad people through this gray life and into the next by the light of our influence.

Yesterday, at a graduation ceremony, a teenager told us not to find out what's wrong with the world and fix it. He told us to find out what makes us alive and live. God needs people who are fully alive!

I agree, though we often discover that play and indulgence and privilege also make us feel alive. As good as those things are, and as alive as they make me feel, they have a way of turning in on us eventually. They become toxic - deadening. Sometimes, discovering what makes us alive is discovering the divine pleasure of doing what no one else wants to do, and yet someone must do - and discovering that God has equipped you alone, or me alone, or us in community, to do that very thing. That's living, folks. That's living.

So what is the third way? Compromise? Maybe sometimes. Sympathy? Perhaps. More than that it is divinely inspired courage and creativity. Being and doing the thing that no human apart from the influence of God would even imagine.