Sheep and Goats

I have been fairly busy lately.  I've been doing lots of thinking, very little writing.  I've been working on lots of projects and not doing as much reading as I would like.  I've been living in the midst of a good bit of chaos with not nearly enough down time for reflection. And what I am finding is that in the midst of all these things, a few scriptures keep circling around and around in my head. I can't seem to get away from them and they are all related.  In no particular order they are Isaiah 58: 1-12.  Matthew 25: 31-46.   James 1:27.  Luke 16: 19-31.  Ok- so if you are like me you don't know what those are off the top of your head (don't you just hate those people who do?).  So to save you from having to look them up:  Isaiah 58 deals with true fasting which is acceptable to the Lord
(hint, hint- it isn't about your caloric intake!).  Matthew 25 is the parable of the sheep and the goats.  James 1 is the definition of religion that is pure and undefiled. Luke 16 deals with the story of Lazarus the beggar who dies at the gate of the rich man and goes to heaven.  What do all these scriptures have in common?  They all deal with how we treat the poor. The oppressed.  The less fortunate.  The disenfranchised. 

I guess the reason this is on my mind is because of a growing sense of outrage over the way the church deals with these issues.  I have always been uncomfortable with the contradictions I find in the church.  I have a really close friend who is an nonbeliever.  She is appalled by the vast majority of all Christians.  Her point is that we in no way live by what we say we believe and she can run down a list of all our failures.  I can't say I blame her.  Nor do I have much of a defense to offer for all of us. She is mostly right about the things she says.

The process going on in me right now is a rebellion against the cultural Christianity that I have mostly been exposed to the majority of my church going years and the replacement of that false doctrine with something much harder, deeper, and more difficult, but nevertheless true.  And that is this.  What Christ says about the poor of the world He means. How we respond to them will be the basis of our own judgement someday.  All four of the above passages declare this loud and clear. There is no ambiguity. Don't believe me?  Read the above four passages for yourself. There ain't no wiggle room!

I think that for me, numerous mission trips have been the impetus behind the slowly increasing discomfort I have felt over the years about the poverty most of the world endures.  But visiting Africa last summer brought me to my knees.  Since then it has been inescapable.  It has been all consuming.  It has become something that I absolutely can no longer turn away from or turn a blind eye to. Participating in things like The Justice Conference, The Willow Creek Summit, Live 58.org, being a Compassion sponsor have all fanned the flames as well.

Yesterday I went and spoke for the first time publicly on behalf of the widows and orphans at Zion ~ the church in Kenya I am working with through our missions outreach program.  This has been my personal project designed to "do something" in response to the things I saw while I was in Africa.  On this side of the Atlantic at least, I am currently a mission team of two.  Me and The Holy Spirit.  I am, at the moment, doing all of the leg work for this project, but I know that when the time is right, God will bring others alongside to help me.  In the meantime, I know He is with me because I feel such a drive to do this.  I never get tired of working on this project, talking about it, sharing it with other people.  It feels like what I have always been meant to do. I feel God's hand upon me when I am tending to this project, or speaking about it. The passion I feel for this cause, for these women and children, for doing something, anything to help alleviate just a fraction of the suffering in the world is such that I know that this is not from me but through me.  This is how God works in the world.  Through us.  Through the willing and the available.  He has no other hands and feet on earth but ours.  We don't have to be smart. We don't have to be skilled. We don't even have to know what we are doing (I don't most of the time!).  We just have to be willing and available.  The rest is in His hands.

As I have been reflecting on the scriptures I started out with at the beginning of this post, I realize that I have come to embrace them not as suggestions, but rather as the commandments they truly are.  I absolutely believe that this is exactly what God calls us to do, how He calls us to live. I believe He means what He says.  And though by Grace and Grace alone are we thus saved, it is impossible to accept that Grace and not live our lives radically differently in response to it.  We can think we're ok. We can think it's all good.  We can think we are doing enough. Most people, in fact, feel this way. And yet we may sadly find ourselves someday in the goat line.  Because the opposite of love isn't hatred- it's apathy  ~ that's the real enemy.  That's how you find out you're really a goat and not a sheep.  Check your apathy barometer.  "Baaaaaaa" is the sound you're looking for!   Shalom!