Tag Archives: Resilience and humanitarian response

Perhaps A Little Hardship Wouldn’t Be A Bad Thing.

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This one may get a little long, and I’m going to try not to let it get complicated, but here it goes.

Growing up in the American church, being saved was always about what happens to you when you die. When we read about the kingdom of Heaven in the Bible it was always about pearly gates and meeting God. Furthermore, when we’re doing a class on poverty alleviation and we ask, why did Jesus come to Earth, the answer we inevitably get is the one I would have given growing up. “Jesus came to save me from my sins so that I can go to Heaven.” It’s an incredibly self-centered, egotistical view. This view made it very hard to understand a lot of what the scriptures were trying to tell me. As I’ve been learning, you have to know what you don’t understand before you can begin to understand.

The story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus with questions is one of those stories. It goes as follows.

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ ”

And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”

So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.
And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

And those who heard it said, “Who then can be saved?”

But He said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”

We learn a number of things from the rich young ruler in this passage. First of all, he’s rich, but he’s also young, which likely means he didn’t earn his wealth, and he grew up rich. We also know that he doesn’t know enough to ask the right question, also because of his wealth and upbringing.

So why did Jesus come? We find that elsewhere in the scriptures. In Luke 4, Jesus begins his ministry.

So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

This is vastly different from what I was taught. Yes, the Kingdom of Heaven is a place we will see in the future, but it is also now. You see, a kingdom is a place where the authority of the king rules, and as long as we walk in the authority of the king, the Kingdom of Heaven is now and it resides wherever we are. So when the rich young ruler asks “how can I obtain eternal life?” he is doing what we so often do and asking “how can I obtain the benefits of salvation later without doing what’s required of me to bring about God’s Kingdom now?

But what does being rich have to do with any of this? The obvious answer I was always given was that his riches were more important to him than following God. And yes, that’s true, but it’s a simplistic and simple answer, and it misses so much. And once again, it comes from the perspective that Heaven is a place we go to and not a Kingdom that is here and now.

For the rest of the answer, let’s go back to why Jesus said he came. “Preach to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, free the captives, sight to the blind, set at liberty those who are oppressed.” The rich, (and let’s face it, if we’re Americans there’s a very good chance we’re rich by historical or global standards). As I was saying, the rich know nothing or very little of being poor, or brokenhearted or captive or blind or oppressed. Here’s the problem, the rich THINK they understand these things, but all of these concepts are only known second or third hand. I see this in Facebook posts and hear it in conversations all the time. Listening to white Americans discuss poverty and oppression is like listening to a couple of lifelong vegans discuss what would make beef wellington taste better. They might think they know, but they just don’t.

Covid has been hard on many people in many ways. But as Christians, especially Christians in the richest nation on earth, we have been given an opportunity to partake in some of the poverty and suffering that our brothers and sisters overseas see on a daily basis, and in so doing begin to understand what we do not. Yes, you read that right. I said opportunity. If we are truly to be effective in the gospel, we must be imitators of Christ. As it says in Philippians 2

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

If Jesus had to make himself of no reputation and make himself a servant, how much more us? How much better can we be a servant if we truly understand the struggles and the needs of those we are to serve?

As I’ve written in a previous blog, the only thing worse than going through a trial is going through a trial from which I learn nothing. Covid has been a wake up call for the church. I just pray we don’t hit the snooze, roll over, and go back to sleep. Let’s use this opportunity to be more like we were created to be.

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When The Lion Met The Scarecrow.

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Last week I flew over Paris on the way back from Kenya, totally unaware that only a day later over 130 people would be killed in a terrorist attack. There’s been a lot of talk since then about the Syrian refugee crisis, and I have to say, I don’t like what I hear from either side. It’s like listening to a conversation between the Lion and the Scarecrow. One side has no brains and the other has no heart. I try to avoid overt political discussion in this blog, but this is one of those times it can’t be avoided. I will be talking a little bit about the Lion’s point of view, but mostly the Scarecrow’s, since that is supposedly the Christian perspective.

The United States government made a commitment to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. Since the terrorist attacks in Paris and Lebanon, there’s been a lot of talk about additional scrutiny and background checks for those refugees we let into this country. This is not an unreasonable request, if nothing else just to put at easy the nerves of the people of this country. President Obama has ignored that request. This follows his pattern of ignoring reasonable requests, which then turn into unreasonable requests out of nothing more than push-back. I believe his presidency would have gone a lot more smoothly if he’d at least made an appearance of listening to people. So the fight has begun. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Now onto the Lion. I have been dismayed by the attitude of people who proclaim, in word anyway, to be Christians. This is especially apparent on Facebook. I see things like, “Would a Muslim country take in Christian refugees? Don’t let Syrian refugees into the US.”  Let’s start with the question, would a Muslim country take in Christian refugees?  The answer is, probably not. This is precisely why we should. We are Christians and this is what we are supposed to do, so let’s start acting like Christians. When Obama said, “whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation”, are we going to prove him wrong or right?

So for those Christians who aren’t tracking with me yet, let me throw some scriptures out there.

Deuteronomy 27:19 “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”

Leviticus 19:33 When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34‘The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

Matthew 25: 34-46    Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Psalm 146:9 The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

Malachi 3:5  “At that time I will put you on trial. I am eager to witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice, for these people do not fear me,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

I could go on, but for the sake of brevity, I won’t. Most of the people I’ve seen with the attitude of leaving the Syrians to the wolves say they believe in missions. I’m going to have to take issue with that. I didn’t see any of them rushing over to Syria to preach the word of God. Now God has handed them into their laps. These Syrians have seen the absolute worst that Islam has to offer, and many of them are disillusioned and questioning their faith. God has handed them over to us with an opportunity to show the love of Christ, and we’re telling them to go home. I understand that security is an issue, and people are afraid. The problem is, when we became Christians, security was not something we were promised, at least not the physical kind. We really need to get over feeling as if security is a birthright. We are here to show love to our neighbor, and for those who don’t know who your neighbor is, the parable of the good Samaritan is excellent and has new meaning for today.  It does no good to stand up for the rights of the unborn when we won’t stand up for the refugee, and it’s sad when the lost world has a better perspective on the subject than the church does.

As a last point, I just want to remind people that Jesus was a refugee when he was two years old, and had to flee to Egypt until his oppressor died. Would we tell him to go home as well?

For those who are interested in missions, we need a real heart change. These are the people we deal with. Everyone I have me in South Sudan is or was a refugee at one point, and many of those in Ethiopia were as well. If we have no compassion for them here, why is it different when they’re over there? If you believe it’s a national security issue, fine. Just don’t call it a Christian perspective.

This is the result of civil war, in this case in Ethiopia.
This is the result of civil war, in this case in Ethiopia.