Soul Food Revolution

Are you ready for a real revolution? I know many of you are passionate about your politics. I’m happy you are. But there is a movement beginning in our country that, I believe, is going to do more damage than good. It is a revolt that is going to distance even further the gap that has been created over the years. It will distance government and people. It will distance religious and non-religious. It will distance poor and rich. It will bring our country to a place we do not want it to go. It will bring our culture to a place of negativity. In fact, I believe this revolt will damage our country to almost beyond repair.

They are calling it a ‘tea party.’ Search the web right now for this revolt and you will find it everywhere. YouTube. Facebook. MySpace. Church web pages. Politician’s web pages. Go to your local coffee shop and you will hear ‘tea party’ mentioned more than you will coffee. People are serious. Maybe one of them is you. Maybe you’re so passionate about ‘taking our country back’ and ‘we the people’ you are in the middle of this revolt. Buying tea bags, envelopes and stamps by the cases you have your mind dead set on saving the red, white and blue. Well, if this is your cause, then friend, give it all your might. But before you do, allow me to introduce you to another revolution.

I invite you to stop for a minute, take a breath and allow your impassioned blood pressure to drop a little before you start licking envelopes again. Let me show you THE revolution. Allow THIS story to unfold before you make your final decision on which movement you will choose. This revolution began thousands of years ago. In fact, this revolution began long before anything you see was created. This revolution began in the heart of God. It had nothing to do with tea bags or government. It had no mind for taxes or war. This revolution paid no attention to your opinion or mine. No, this revolution stood alone. In fact, this revolution glanced into the distant future and knew that tea party’s and revolts and war and crime and misuse and abuse and divorce and abortion and alcoholism and suicide and failure and bankruptcy and religion and hurt and pain and anguish and wealth and poverty would happen. Thus, the need for a revolution. Decades and decades and centuries passed before this revolution took on skin. And the skin this revolution took was not of great renown. It wasn’t famous or rich. He wasn’t a king or president or ruler……no, this revolution was so simple that people missed it. In fact, we still miss it.

Thus we have turned to ‘tea parties’ and ‘we the people.’ As this revolution became more real it started attracting attention. The rebels at this moment in time started to see that there was something greater happening! The diseased were healed and the poor had a voice! The rich started seeing what life was truly about! A TRUE REVOLUTION HAD BEGUN! And then, at the greatest crux of time in history, for the first time in history, government revolted against the people. Government began to rebell against the revolution. Government rebelled against kindness and grace. They rebelled against love and forgiveness. They rebelled against the revolution that began before time……the people, the government killed this revolution, or so they thought. They tried to destroy a power greater than all powers of earth combined. You see, these people wanted to take back what they thought was their’s. They revolted against the greatest change earth has ever seen. They refused to answer the greatest call any human has ever heard. They accepted hate. They accepted division. They accepted death. They accepted the human revolt. His name is Jesus. He is the revolution. The revolution that began before you or I were even imagined. He cares not about tea bags or constitutions. No, instead he cares about hearts and souls and the untouchables. He cares about the diseased and lonely and hurt. He seeks out the stricken and fallen. He invites the wealthy to sell ALL they have and follow him. Not because he wants them to be poor, instead he wants them to be committed. Yes, he is the revolution. He doesn’t bleed red, white and blue. No, He simply bled. Once. But no more. He is not calling you to a tea party. He is challenging you to something greater. He is calling you to feed the homeless. To give money to the poor. To touch the leper and heal the diseased. He is not calling you to change government! NO instead he is calling you to something greater! He is calling you to pray for government and to bless them and to inspire them to a life lived for THE REVOLUTION!

But friends, this cannot be done by mailing envelopes filled with tea bags. That will only incite wrath and anger and more pride and well, another revolt. There is a better way to bring about change. There is a greater, more effective way to cause a rise of hope. Take the tea bag out of the envelope, get a blank sheet of paper and simply write on it ‘I prayed for you today.’ Sign it, bless it, then mail it. After you stop at the post office to mail this envelope, go to your closet, clean it out and drop those clothes off at your local Goodwill or homeless shelter. Then find your nearest YMCA and sign up to give swimming lessons……for free. After this find a church, if you don’t attend one, and ask the pastor how you can get involved. Then go to your child’s or grandchild’s elementary school and ask the teacher when you could come read to the class. Then find a homeless shelter and sign up to help in the food line. As you do all of this journal what you have done! Write down how you felt! Note the reaction of people when you reached out! Do this for a month, sign the journal, put it in an envelope and mail it to the same government official you were going to mail the tea bag to. Invite all of your friends to do the same. If 100,000 people did this instead of mailing in tea bags, don’t you think someone would take notice? And even more, don’t you think you made a difference in your community? Sure, buying tea bags helps keep Walmart employees working. But it does nothing for the man on the street. It does nothing for the teenager who is pregnant. It does nothing to lower taxes or pay our teachers more. In fact, buying tea bags makes some poor hard working farmer in India struggle even more. You see, he probably helped process that bag, or the tea. But he gets nothing from it. Nothing more than he did last week.

You want to take America back? Sorry, you can’t. It’s impossible. Why? It wasn’t yours to begin with. Never has been. Never will be. You can’t take back what you’ve never had. Want to make a difference in your culture? Then don’t waste your time mailing tea bags. No, use that energy to better someone else’s life. That’s a revolution. It may not lower taxes, but it will bring a smile. It may not get new congress, but it will save a life. And if you want your government to know what’s happening, simply write it down and tell them. They can read. They will get the message. That is unless your just dead set on helping them save money by not having to buy any more tea bags.