Embarrassment is a unexplored virtue. The truth about the church is that we never really know what we’re walking into and we never really know who God is going to drag through the door. And sometimes the slides don’t work, or the microphone feeds back, or the sermon falls flat, but at least it’s real. Sometimes we sit next to someone who gets on our nerves, or the prayers hint at a reality we’re not entirely sure about, or we shake a sweaty hand during the passing of the peace, but at least we’re actually spending time with actual people. Sometimes we cry and we don’t know why, or we ache for something we can’t quite describe, or we feel weary about everything we’re carrying, but at least we have a God who refuses to be anything other than God with us.Be strange, Peter says, because God is strange. Only God would come up with an idea for something like the church, only God would give without ever expecting much of anything in return, only God would be willing to die so that we can live.Our faith gives us the courage to do embarrassing things because our faith isn’t in us, its in Jesus. When you know someone loves you no matter how bad your dancing turns out to be, or how much you cry at the weirdest things, or how much you laugh at jokes that aren’t really that funny, well then you know what it means to be free.That’s the love that God has for you, it’s more precious than gold and it’s imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. You are loved so much that you can go out there and make a fool of yourself. Feel that feeling of faithful embarrassment because everything that matters is on the other side of that.