The man to the right is Cornel West, he is a professor of African American studies and Religion at Princeton. He is my favorite author and generally one of the people I admire most in the world. I have had the chance to meet him a few years back which was an amazing experience. His writing can be challenging both in complexity and content. It is written as commentary on society as a black man, as a Christian and as he calls it a small "d" democrat (one who believes in the full potential of democracy). The following passage from his most recent book Hope On A Tightrope struck me very deeply and I wanted to share it with you.
Behold, that first century Palestinian Jew was born in a funky manger. He had some funky working-class parents sometimes dealing with unemployment and underemployment. He walked on some funky and dusty roads, didn't he? He brought together 12 funky folk. He didn't go 100 miles to the vanilla surburbs, did he? He picked them right from around where he came from. It's so easy to forget the funk in Jesus's life because our churches can become so deodorized.
The funky Gospel of funky Jesus can become so Americanized that it is reduced to marketplace spirituality, prosperity gospel, and Chamber of Commerce religion. No! We want to keep focused on the funk of Jesus, especially that funky blood at that funky cross.
If you don't find joy in serving others, if you you don't understand the joy in loving people, then come back to the cross. Get down in that funky blood and understand what it means to be at that funky tomb that was when empty when that prostitute Mary Magdalene showed up and had a message for the world.
You can't be be committed to that kind of funky gospel if you're not willing to pay a price. You need to be willing to bear a burden. You need to cut against the grain.
