No contradiction

I'm trying to work out a riddle in my Christian life! How much, and in what ways, should I be involved with the world around me? I read two concepts in the Scripture that seem, at first glance anyway, to be contradictory. In the separatist ideal of the Jewish people, the covenant people who had many laws designed to make them a distinct and holy people of God in their world, Paul urges Christ-followers to holiness, reminding us that "God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you." (2 Corinthians 6:16-17, NLT) That passage was a kind of mantra in the church of my childhood. It was used to justify not having anything to do with politics, or culture, or even pop culture.

I grew up without a TV in our house because it was considered a source of 'worldly' contagion. With the benefit of reflection, that was a good idea as I learned to love books inside of rotting my brain on sit-coms! But was living without a TV really an expression of true holiness? I sneaked into my room to listen to the Beatles on my transistor radio, because listening to non-Christian music was a 'sin.' Wanting to grow my hair a inch over my ears and down on my collar was just opening the door of my life to the devil, or so I concluded. In my early adulthood, American Believers decided to abandon their separation from the politics of the nation and almost overnight, evangelical Christians turned into the Falwellian "Moral Majority." I think most of us would agree that flexing our muscle in Washington has not been the best thing for the Church of Jesus Christ, now that we are better know for our opposition to homosexual rights and abortion than we are for being a source of compassion and care given in the name of the Savior.

In the Gospels, I see Jesus mocked for His involvement with 'undesirables.' He gathered the 'sinners' of his world around Him and ate with them, talked with them, and brought God's loving grace to them. His parting words to those of us who follow Him are - “Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the Message of God’s good news to one and all." (Mark 16:15, The Message) He calls us 'salt and light' and in that passage tells us that we must not hide ourselves from the WORLD, but that we should shine brightly in it. In the spirit of those commands, Christians have rolled up their sleeves and gone into the saddest, sorriest hell-holes in the world over the centuries and brought transformation. Human rights, and the ideals of individual dignity and worth, have been championed by Christians precisely because they believe that Jesus has commissioned them to care for the weakest, to take up the case of those who are being exploited by both the world systems and the Devil!

So the riddle, for me anyway, is - how do I function as the salt of the earth, flavoring and preserving my world, without losing the distinctive of being a holy person belonging exclusively to God?
The answer isn't an easy one. I am fairly certain the answer can't be a law for all people either, for we all have different callings, spiritual giftings, and weaknesses that will effect how and where we serve God.

I have worked out the extremes and rejected those as options! I not going to lock myself in a monastery, isolated from my world completely. That might be safe for me, but by doing it I am abandoning much of the world and letting it go to Hell while I rejoice in my own security. At the other extreme, I will not throw away God's call to a distinctively different life, one that seeks His purity, His love, in every expression of life. That leaves me with a wide middle - where I'm still working out the demands that seem to contradict.

"God guide me.
God keep me, in your Spirit,
in the ways that honor you,
yet allow me to reach out
with your love
to those who are living in the darkness.
For Jesus' sake. Amen."