It's Too Cold to Eat in Here

I meet a staff member from the campus ministry at GT (CCF) at the Shamrock Kitchen in Tyrone most Tuesday mornings. The Shamrock – meat and two vegetables kind of place – opens at 7 a.m. and he and I were the first two people there this morning. It was pretty cold here this morning – my outdoor thermometer had 26 degrees on it when I left home – and we both commented on how cold it was in the Shamrock. I assumed that whoever turns on the heat earlier in the mornings had forgotten to do that and the heat was trying to “catch up.”

Wrong. The furnace was out – since yesterday – and it was really cold in there. Some part to the furnace was apparently hard to fine and they company fixing it (the owner eats in there often as well) still didn’t have the part. Did I say it was cold inside the Shamrock???

A couple of ladies who come in together most mornings came in, all wrapped up in their coats and scarves, etc.  They sat down and the server brought them coffee (one has her own Christmas coffee cup she leaves in there during the season!).  After a few minutes they got up and told the server “it’s too cold to eat” we can’t stay. They got their coffee in to-go cups and left.

It was cold in there. But that whole experience has had me thinking all morning.

• Have I been thankful in recent days that I live in a warm, dry house and I don’t have to eat in the cold?

• Have I been thankful that, even when it is cold and I have to be outside, I have lots of clothes – sweaters, jackets, gloves, hats, etc. – to keep me warm?

• When is the last time I actually had to eat where it was “too cold to eat” – not because the furnace was out, but because I couldn’t afford a place where there was heat?

• If I think it was too cold to eat in the Shamrock, I wonder about the people who struggle daily with a place to live - decent shelter, decent food, decent clothes – and can’t help but think, “what would Jesus do about this?”

This past Sunday’s gospel text in the Lectionary was Luke 3:1-6 – the John the Baptist text for Advent. This is where John quotes Isaiah saying “every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crocked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” I do understand that the coming of Jesus into the world was about “salvation” – but wonder if sometimes, to borrow N.T.  Wright language, we don’t get so wrapped up in “dying and going to heaven” that we fail to “make the rough places level” in the lives of people who struggle – who have to eat where it is too cold to eat.

Then, in my own personal Bible reading, I am getting near the end of Isaiah – chapter 61 was a part of today’s three chapters. That’s were Isaiah writes the words that Jesus quotes in the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke 4 – “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Sometimes God can get a bit intrusive!

At the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama (run by the Equal Justice Initiative) a week ago, I bought a magnet with a quote from Bryan Stevenson to hang on my office door. It says, “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated and the condemned.” Apparently Bryan Stevenson has read Matthew 25!

I’m grateful that we have moved beyond the age where massive grave markers/tombstones were erected in cemeteries. But, if we lived in that age and my family put one of those up, I’d only want one word to be on it. That word would be “generous.” Generosity isn’t a word to be reserved for the rich and well-to-do among us. As Paul suggests in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, even those in “deep poverty” can be generous. Generosity has far more to do with how we use what we have than it does how much we give because we have so much!

None of us has enough in the way of resources to fix all the problems we see. But we can help fix some! The season of Advent leading up to Christmas is a great time of the year to begin a journey of generosity that recognizes such a character trait needs to survive the holidays and be found in our lives on regular days.

As followers of Jesus, to what extent do we care about and help provide for the poor? Do we abuse Paul's "if a man doesn't work he doesn't eat" statement in 2 Thessalonians as an excuse for not hleping?

What about the "disfavored"? If you read Scot McKnight's A Fellowship of Differents, you will quickly discovered that many of the kinds of people we deem "disfavored" are the very people who made up the members of all those first-century kingdom outposts founded by people like Paul!

Do we have the courage to insist that our justice system treat the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned with some reasonably semblance of grace and mercy? Or, are we more like people who call themselves Christians but think God is far more interested in punishment than redemption? 

Poverty, mental illness, lack of education, failure of people like me to make Jesus more inviting, district attorneys on steroids to get another conviction on the record, prison systems filled to overflowing and inadequately funded . . . and lots of other troubling realities - means that it is past time for followers of Jesus to show character.

After all, what value is there to a religious freedom bill if it protects a religion without the courage to help change what we see all around us? 

Waiting for the Light of Truth

In the Christian Calendar, this past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent – that time of waiting and preparation for celebrating the birth of Christ and anticipating His reappearing in glory. Most of us probably feel the tension of “waiting for the celebration of His birth” more than we do “His reappearing in glory.”

 

But it seems to me that many thoughtful followers of Jesus are especially longing for His reappearing these days. The tension in our culture is so apparent it is as though we are walking through some sort of dense and devilish fog. Civility – or the lack thereof – makes us wonder what is going on. 

A week or so ago I ran across the name Carl Ketcherside. Many who are reading this will remember the great work he did back in the 1960s/70s is trying to get believers to take Jesus’ prayer that we all be one more seriously. At one time I had some of his books, but some how they aren’t around anymore. I did a search on Amazon’s used book link and discovered several of Ketcherside’s book and ordered Adventure of Faith.  There is no publishing date in the book, but my guess is that it was in the mid-1960s.

Though a bit dated in places, it has been well worth reading! Here’s my favorite quote: 

It is a sad error to mistake being loyal to a party or to partisan position with being loyal to Jesus and the ideals which He espoused and for which He died. It is possible that nothing else in our day so stands in the way of genuine Christian living as sectarian prejudice. It places a blindfold over the mind shutting out the light of truth. It acts as a shackle for the heart making further progress impossible. We need men who will rise above narrow concepts of brotherhood and restore to our aching hearts the real Jesus, in all the glory and majesty of that divine love which sent him to an unworthy world filled with sinners. (Pages 51, 52)

Did you notice the phrase “it is possible that nothing else in our day so stands in the way of genuine Christian living as sectarian prejudice”?  I think that is the tension so many of us feel right now. Neither the left nor the right is innocent on this issue and it is as though we are being crushed by a massive vice that seeks to squash out any sense of being Jesus to the world around us. 

My favorite Advent Hymn is O Come, O Come Emanuel. Among the prayers of that great hymn is “and ransom captive Israel.” It is hard to forget the glorious words of its refrain, “Rejoice, Rejoice, Emanuel, Shall come to you O Israel.” There it is – a longing for ransom and hope that He comes. That seems to be a very good idea of what Advent ought to be about.

Ketcherside’s words are convicting. My focus for Advent this year, and I invite you to join with me, is that I will find a way to “rise above narrow concepts of brotherhood and restore to our aching hearts the real Jesus, in all the glory and majesty of that divine love which sent him to an unworthy world filled with sinners.” 

A longing for ransom and hope that He comes.  Let’s celebrate together.

Courage, Not Safety

“Amid global attention on ISIS in Iraq and Syria for its persecution of Christians, in Nigeria two other groups of Muslim extremists – Boko Haram and the Fulani – have killed and displaced even more believers in recent years.” (“How Long Will It Be?”  Christianity Today. November 2018. Page 32)

That quote is from the lead article in the November 2018 issue of Christianity Today. In that same issue you can find an article titled, “Burma’s Beleaguered Baptists.” There’s also a news article about Christians in China titled “Government targets house churches, online ministries.” An additional article on China is titled “China Cracks Down – Again.” 

In the “China Cracks Down – Again” article, Mark Galli, editor in chief of Christianity Today, notes “So the government is removing crosses from their steeples and replacing them with the national flag; inside, the crosses are being replaced with pictures of President Xi. Congregations must sing patriot songs in worship. Parents can’t bring their children in church.” (page 22)

By the way, this particular issue of the magazine is not focused on global persecution of Christians.

A professor of New Testament at Kachin Theological College and Seminary in Burma named Layang Seng Ja is quoted as saying “I understand if the secular world has no interest in us, but where is the body of Christ? We are the fruit and labor of American missionaries, so where are the Christians?” (“Burma’s Beleaguered Baptists.” Christianity Today. November 2018. Page 14)

For some believers, the answer to her question will be something like “we are working to make sure the new governor of Georgia will, unlike the current governor, sign a religious freedom act.” I’m certainly not opposed to freedom – including religious freedom – it’s just that I can’t think of a single moment in my life where my religious freedom was in jeopardy. As far as I can tell, the first amendment to the United States Constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” - is still in place. 

Of more concern to me is once you start allowing the state legislature to define religious freedom, who gets to be in charge of what that means? I heard someone describe a particularly difficult boss he once worked for by saying “give him an inch and he will take your ruler.” It makes me nervous when the state gets into the business of regulating my faith – especially when the reality is that politics are so subject to being “tossed to and fro  by the waves and carried about  by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” to borrow language from Ephesians 4. 

To believers living under the oppressive thumb of Nero, Paul said – paraphrasing a bit: “respect government’s place in the world; pay your taxes; stay under the radar.” Again – that’s paraphrase, but I think it reflects the essence of Paul’s word to the Romans. (13:1-7) Would he say the same to us? Obviously our freedom to influence government is much different than was that of first-century believers, but does the kind of faith that would overthrow slavery in the Roman Empire eventually, or assist in overthrowing oppression behind the Iron Curtain centuries later, or the kind of faith Paul would describe as “the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16) need a state legislature and its governor to protect or empower it? 

Some might say that if places like Iraq, Syria, Burma, China, Nigeria – just to mention a few troubled spots in the world – had a religious freedom protection law, the awful things noted above wouldn’t happen. The problem with that idea is that in many places in the world where awful persecution happens daily, it is often done in the name of religion drunk with power and emboldened by the government. Power and government can be a dangerous combination for people of faith – just ask some Chinese believers.

I pray regularly for my two daughters. I don’t want them to live in a place where government gets so out of hand that being a follower of Jesus could require the kinds of sacrifices it does in so many places in the world. But I pray even more that the kind of faith they have learned from their parents and others in their lives is strong enough to stick with God no matter what the state does or doesn’t do. 

A friend of mine who, along with his family, has served as a missionary in one of the most difficult places in the world for over forty years once said to a group of students at Point, “don’t pray for our safety, pray that we will be courageous.”

It just seems a bit odd to me that believers who live in the freest place in the world, with the greatest portion of the world’s resources and income, and are protected by the mightiest army the world has ever seen would think investing time in “safety” is more important than being “courageous.”

Not too far from where I live there a house with a huge flag pole near the front door. A United States flag and a Georgia state flag proudly fly on that flag pole. Hanging at an angle on one of the porch posts is a Christian flag. It looks like it is bowing down to the American and Georgia flag. That’s the image I see in my head every time I read of another politician who is determined that Georgia have a religious freedom bill. 

At Thanksgiving this year I am especially thankful for the freedom I have to live out my faith in Christ. I’m thankful for the chorus of witnesses – living and dead – who faced far worse moments than I ever have or likely will – and remained faithful. 

My prayer is that believers will talk more about courage to be Jesus to the world around us than we do some sense of need for safety provided by the state legislature.