Friday, February 27, 2009

teeny tiny itty bitty baby mustard seed

I have this class at DePaul that I have written about before, my documentary class....My teacher adamantly denies the existence of Christ and any God. He seems amused mostly that I am a Christian. He makes comments to me and I take the bait every time and respond with a bible quote or a correction on his false assumptions of Christianity and the bible. Its all in fun, but with an undertone of seriousness.
Please pray for him. His name is Greg Scott.
He mentioned in jest once that perhaps he is just waiting for that one person to convince him of the existence of Christ...I told him that its not up to people to CONVINCE him of Christ's existence, its up to him to see it for himself and for God to be revealed.

Last week another student in the class came at me hard because apparently the teacher and my banter back and forth during the class affected her negatively. THere are only like 6 people in this class and its a lab type class we sit around on computers and work on our documentaries independently mostly. So the teacher challenges me often to leave my emotions and beliefs behind and to try to see the world neutrally and allow myself to be surprised and affected without those two things. Sometimes I dont respond to him, because he has so completely judged me to be what he thinks that anything I say is futile. My emotions and God are so inherently a part of me that how do I separate that out? Even when I ignore God or get mad at Him and dont pray or sin repeatedly I know God is there the whole time. The next person that tells me I am too emotional is going to get dropped though, for real. Do people think I don't know that or that this is a new phenomenon no one has ever thought to comment on? Either way, the teacher made me leave class with a video camera and told me to go find a homeless person and have a ten minute conversation with them without using the words happiness, love, Jesus, God, sad, etc.... before I came back.

Have you ever been to Lincoln Park on a Tuesday night at like 7:30pm? Its not a huge stomping ground for the homeless community. After searching for like twenty minutes, I found no one but endless pretentious DePaul students on their way to the gym or the student center. I decided to talk to them. I interviewed about 15 random students about their views on homelessness, what should be done, what they do about it, and if homelessness was a choice or not.

I found out DePaul students are not exactly in touch with reality concerning the homeless population in Chicago. Compassion was not in abundance, not was a tendency for action to help others. People mentioned things like homelessness was a choice that the individual made, most homeless have "mental diseases", there is nothing really that people can do to help because if the government put houses for the homeless in the neighborhood then that would raise the taxes and no one wants that, homeless in Santa Monica are happy because people there buy them dinner and they get lots of money outside of Starbucks, and that people are more concerned about the poor in villages in Africa than the homeless in Chicago. One girl has started learning to knit to send socks to homeless in Kenya but does nothing for the homeless that walk through campus everyday after they are fed at the Vincent DePaul Church.

I went back to class with the video. As I walked in, the class looked up at me and the teacher handed me a large white piece of paper with the words "Question yourself. Question your beliefs. Evil is Holy" scribbled across it. I think I smiled. I sat down at the table in the middle of the room and picked up a pen from the table and began to write my thoughts. My teacher stared at the pen in my hand and told me not to steal his favorite pen and I assured him I was just borrowing it. He laughed and went on to say that if I did steal it he could cut my hand off per the instructions in the Old Testament right? Without blinking, I reminded him that I was CHRISTIAN which meant that CHrist came and died for my sins ammending the old law to be replaced with abundant grace and forgiveness now. He laughed and this girl in the corner groaned audibly. When it came turn for her to present her progress in the class, she was distracted and irritable. Halfway through her informal presentation she declared she was frustrated and thrown off due to the constant talk of religion. Then she whirled around in her seat and stared and me and said with dismay, "Don't you know that Greg (the teacher) is doing this to get to open your mind and question your beliefs and your life?" She said something about closed mindedness or something. I said "I know. I'm fine with that. I respond so he will question his." She went on to say she is just trying to get her graduate degree and doesnt have time for this. Another girl in the class nodded and glared at me. I know I blushed.

I wasnt in class this week due to an emergency at work but I went to the office of my teacher to talk to him. He said I should have been in class because I missed an important discussion. He said he thanked me in front of the class for exhibiting faith. He went on to say that everyone has faith whether it be in science or religion or whatever and that I was a great example of it. And in typical Sarah fashion, my eyes welled up with tears at the compliment. I definitely excused myself before they spilled onto my face but as I walked-ran to the bathroom, I was astounded that I am an example of faith in any capacity. Seriously, I probably only have the faith of the mustard seed which is the smallest seed I KNOW OF!!! (like the bible says). I have weak faith, so weak so pathetic so not consistent ESPECIALLY lately. I am not good at trusting in God or Jesus or myself or my friends or anything and here I was being held up as a testament to faith. God really did use the least of us here.......................

1 comment:

Steve said...

What a GREAT post, Sarah!

Great testimony!

We'll never win anyone by reasoning them into the faith, as important and biblical as it is to have a reasonable defense.

Ultimately, it's the power of the gospel itself that works faith in the dead heart. And people listen to the gospel when they see a life that is for real - even if it's quite imperfect.

You made my day!