Friday, May 11, 2012

Should You Celebrate Mothers' Day?

This week global Heath advocate, Christy Turlington Burns, is asking us to forego our usual celebration of Mothers' Day and fix our attention, and spend your money, elsewhere. This seems pretty brazen. I have learned over time that you don't mess with Mother's Day. The goal here is not to disrespect mothers, but to assist all those would be mothers around the world that are still dying in childbirth. A noble cause, but do we have to choose? I believe we can both honor mothers and help save the lives of women during childbirth. In addition, I think we always lose when we neglect the person next to us and focus exclusively on the person far away.

Social justice has taken an unhealthy turn in America, and Christians have participated in it to a degree. We tend to emphasis the importance of those far away while living a protected, insulated life at home. Jesus called us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Who is our neighbor? Those we come into contact with. Those within eyesight or earshot. The people around us who need the kind of assistance that would inconvenience our lives.

Justice loses a great deal of its meaning if it's not personal. Acts of justice shape our own lives by forcing us to invest time, sacrifice by creating new priorities, and demonstrating that people are valuable enough for us to miss American Idol or reschedule activities. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus describes three religious and distinguished people who ignore someone in desperate need because they won't change their schedule, risk involvement, or sacrifice their time. They are important people with important things to do. Other people were not their priority.

We don't need to choose between the needs of those who are close and those who are far away. We should be involved in both. You can't do everything, but you can focus and do something. We may not feel like it at times, but we are rich. Most of us don't work the twelve hour days our ancestors did. We have time and energy that can be spent on a few around us. The personal touch, the attention and time we spend (and it does cost) humanize the world and help to expand the power and the influence of the kingdom of God.

What does it say about our values when we send relief aid to the other side of the world, but our elderly go unvisited and forgotten in nursing homes. We argue over health care reform, but it is a heartless debate if we don't respond to Jesus' call to lay down our lives for each other.

Please send money to help save new mothers from death during childbirth. It really doesn't take much to save a life. What a great way to celebrate Mothers' Day, but keep it human and touch the life of a mother close to you. We don't spread honor by ignoring those close at hand for the sake of those far away. We can honor both. Keep justice personal.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Occupy Wall Street, A Missed Opportunity?

There is a basic difference between an evangelist (a fisher of men) and a defender of the faithful. The first looks for every positive situation that could be used to help someone encounter God while the second is always looking for ways to distance themselves from others. The first is looking for entry points while the second guards the door to make sure the wrong people don't get in. The way you respond to the Occupy Wall Street Movement has a lot to say about the role you have chosen for yourself.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is diverse, and I would say confused. It lacks direction and a central theme, but it doesn't lack heart or vision. It represents a group of people who think there is something wrong with the world and believe they can make a difference, and that is where I connect with them. Whenever a lively discussion is taking place, our first question should be, "Does Jesus have something to say about this?"

Jesus has taught us that something is wrong with the world. In a nutshell, I am what is wrong with the world and so are you. Our sin and rebellion has led to all the problems in the world. As a Christian, I am not the solution. I am still part of the problem (God is changing me, but the work is not yet finished). On the other hand, Jesus is a very real solution. His life, sacrifice, and resurrection ushered in this new age of the Spirit. A solution has been offered.

Any time there is a group of people who realize there is something wrong with the world, especially youth, we should be there to bring Jesus into the conversation. But we won't do much good unless it's Jesus we bring to the table. If we are there to defend tradition or a narrow political or fiscal agenda, then our impact will not go far. The starting place for ills we suffer is not our human institutions. It's Jesus himself.

Too often we fill in the details that Jesus chose to leave vague. He begins with our heart and let's everything flow from there. In that way, Jesus inspires vision or creativity. There are many ideas out there that have merit, but, whether the ideas are conservative or liberal, they haven't worked. They are partial answers, but it is human arrogance to believe that our institutions and theories come close to representing the perfection of the kingdom of God. It would be a tragedy to make people dependent on our wisdom when they need to depend on Christ.

The Occupy Wall Street Movement is not a mainstream youth movement. It's plans, half-formed as they are, don't represent the views of the majority, but they do represent the desire of this generation to improve a broken world. Most of the church ignored or fought the youth movements of the sixties and the seventies, but Jesus didn't. He sent people like Francis A. Schaeffer to meet them in the streets and on college campuses to talk with them. Schaeffer seemed an unlikely candidate for the job. He looked like he had emerged from an exotic corner of Middle Earth and loved words with more than six syllables, and yet, he made an impact and sparked the imagination. People such as Josh McDowell and bands like Petra focused their time and energy on a generation that the church often kept at arms length. Many of these faithful were criticized for their efforts.

Out of that ministry came the Charismatic Revival of the late seventies and early eighties. Many of you reading this are the fruit of the movement. It would be a tragic denial of our spiritual heritage if we repeated the mistakes of a previous generation. If we do, Jesus will still be about his work. He will just rise up a new generation to do that work, and let the rest of us huddle in our poorly lit corner. I pray we do not make that our destiny.

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity."
Colossians 4:2-5

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Counting Days and Making Days Count

What difference can a day make? Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Jesus' ministry was that he changed the world in just over a thousand days. His influence over the last two thousand years has been enormous and, yet, his public ministry only lasted three years. Yes, he was the Son of God, and he initiated the coming of the Holy Spirit, but three years?

"Show me, O Lord, my life's end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life."
Psalm 39:4

We often forget how short our lives are and the limited time we have to achieve our goals and make a difference, but I think we also forget what a difference we can make in so short a time. Jesus' touch was an encouragement to the hopeless, an invitation to the aimless, healing to the broken. One moment could spark a change that shaped a lifetime.

There are so many ways we are made to feel helpless. The nightly news brings the whole world's tragedies to your living room every night. So many problems that you can't touch. So many problems that you weren't meant to solve. Too much makes you feel helpless and insignificant. It can make you believe that evil will always triumph. Most tragically, the landslide of problems that God did not intend you to solve can make you blind to the needs around you that you can minister to.

The world is not changed one nation at a time. It's changed one person at a time. Jesus wasted time with children, the poor, the outcast, with tax men, prostitutes, and political zealots because he knew how the world really worked. Love is the greatest power ever known, but only if it is shared with the loveless. An act of love can rock someone's world like the strongest earthquake, destroying the foundations of fear and hatred, but, unlike an earthquake, love leaves potential, promise, and new life.

Love needs to be personal. I fear too many Christians have exchanged the power of the Holy Spirit for the secular power of politics. We have accepted a pessimistic view of powerlessness and have put our faith in political parties and their leaders. We have lost our hope in changed lives and now settle for better management. But Jesus promises so much more. He takes hearts of stone and gives them new life. Change people and the nation will follow, but I see no examples of a nation's spiritual life improving because of it's ruler. God warned Israel that they would be sorely disappointed if they put their hope in a king. God was proven right.

So ask God to help you to understand the days you are given. They are short, but they are significant. Don't complain about the state of things. That is a poor use of the little time you have. If you are a believer, then you are filled with the Spirit of God and this is the age of the Spirit. The God that set the cosmos into motion is within you. I may be poor and helpless, but the Spirit who wants to touch lives is not. My days are short, and so were Jesus' days on this earth. Three short years have changed so many lives. It's not length of the day. It's the significance God brings to the day. But nothing happens if I waste the day, if I don't invest. I am tempted to say there is always tomorrow to make a difference, but why lose out on another day. Lord, please help me to count my days and make my days count.