Jesus the Outreach Worker

If we are going to understand something, we have to know the context.

If we use the word "bear" does it mean "to carry" or does it mean "a large hairy beast that wants to eat your face off"? It's important to understand which meaning.  And we understand by the context around the word.

In the ancient world there was a group of proto-monks called "the desert fathers and mothers" who lived in the desert to follow Jesus strictly, better than most people, anyway.  There was one monk who wandered off every week and his brothers wondered where he went.  They got curious enough that they followed him and found out that he visited a brothel every week.  That is not good.  Not at all.

So they held a tribunal to judge him.  They got a bishop, told him the circumstance and told the bishop to excommunicate the wandering brother.  The bishop said, "Wait.  We first need to listen to our brother and find out what he was doing."  

"But we KNOW what he was doing.  He doesn't need to spell it out."

"Nevertheless."

When the brother spoke, he said, "It is true.  I visited a brothel every week.  I am guilty of that.  But I visited the brothel because my sister is in there and I went every week to beg her to leave and to become a nun instead."

Context is important.

When we read the gospels, it is important to know the context.  We need to know the point.  Sure, we know that Jesus was teaching about the kingdom, but what was the kingdom?  We know that Jesus died, but what did he die for?


Some want us to focus on the truth that Jesus was divine, that this is the context of the gospels, that every story is to point to that truth.  Some want us to focus on the truth that Jesus died for our sins, that this is the point of every story and teaching.  Some want us to focus on forgiveness.  Some want us to focus on God's grace.  All good things.

But like the brother, sometimes it is good just to ask the person who is the focus.  It just so happens someone did ask.  It was John the Baptist.

John was sitting in prison, freaking out because the person he handed the mantle to is causing a bunch of strange controversy.  John is a law and order man and it sounds like Jesus is breaking the law.  Saying some strange, unorthodox statements.  So John wanted to double check and sent a couple followers to check Jesus out.

Jesus told John's followers, "Sure, look what I'm doing for a few hours."  After the day passed, Jesus said, "Go and tell John what you saw: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and good news is preached to the poor.”  Matthew 11:5

The context of what Jesus was doing was his loving, merciful work.  When he taught, when he confronted others, when he challenged, when he quoted the Bible, it was all with this intention: to provide assistance for those in the greatest need. 

What was Jesus doing?  He was walking down the street in town after town and finding people who were hopeless and sick and impoverished and in need of desperate help, and he provided them with just what they needed.  What they needed at the moment, and what they needed to turn their lives around.

In Oregon there are many teams of people who just go around with life-saving supplies and provided them for people on the street—socks, food, blankets, sleeping bags, tents.  Whatever they need so they can survive for another night or week or for the winter.  These people are called outreach workers.  They go to where the need is and try to provide it.  This is what Jesus did.  He was an outreach worker.  He saw needs and met them.  And this is the heart of his teaching, his miracles, his focus on the kingdom, his forgiveness.  It is all about practical acts of mercy.

***
In one of these works, healing a blind person, Jesus said,

“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.  Night is coming when no one can work.”

I want you to notice a slight grammatical point—the first person plural.  Jesus didn’t say “I” must work, but “we”.  The healing and provision and great acts aren’t supposed to just be gazed at us in wonder.  We are supposed to figure out how we will do these deeds ourselves.  This is a ministry that is supposed to be characteristic of the whole kingdom of God, by all who participate in it, not just Jesus.

Some might say, Jesus is speaking to his apostles, not to all of us today.  To that I’d say look at the speech Jesus gives to his disciples in John 14-17.  We certainly accept that passage.  It is full of basics, such as “Love one another” and “I prepare a place for you.”  But it also says, “The works I have done, you will do as well. And greater works than these you shall do.”  Even as we are commanded to love, we are commanded to do the kind of work that Jesus did.

We could ask the question about how to do miracles… but that’s not the focus.  Jesus said that if we give a cup of cold water we've done a great work.  Or if we've housed a homeless person.  Or if we've visited people in prison.  Let's not get caught up in the supernatural element.  Rather, we should learn some of the principles that Jesus taught us about how to help people in general.  Let’s not get caught up by focusing on the supernatural aspect of Jesus’ work.  Rather, let’s focus on the acts of mercy Jesus wants us to do and why we should do them.

Some want to say that social action is separate from the gospel.  Jesus says that social action is all that the gospel is about.  If you preach "good news" without giving food to the hungry, then your news isn't good at all. 

And if you don't act out the mercy and love of God, then your faith is dead.  I heard that before.  I probably read it in a meme or something. 

A Tale of Two Angels

It begins with two spiritual beings, walking down a dusty road.  Their bellies are full, their souls happy from having spend the afternoon with Abraham, known for his generous hospitality.  But they head to Sodom, which is rumored not to be as gregarious.

After a half day of walking, they enter the city, to coincidentally meet Abraham’s nephew, Lot, who urges them… desperately urges, it seemed to them… to come to his house.  “No,” they reply, “It’s a nice day, we’d like to stay in the town courtyard..”  “NO!... um, I mean, it’s better that you do not.  Please, I have some fine food.” So they agree.

That night a mob of men pound on the door to rape them,  Lot tries to put them off, but the mob is insistent.  They will not allow a visitor enter their town without being abused.  The angels looked at each other, nodded, then used their authority to blind the men and get Lot and his family out of town.  They authorized for the town to be destroyed that very night.

These specific angels are mentioned again in Scriputre.  In Hebrews, we are warned to “Pracitice hospitality to strangers, for some have entertained angels without knowing.”

Curiously, Jesus makes an interesting allusion to this story as well.  Jesus is choosing disciples, breaking them up into pairs, and telling them to visit town after town—dirty, wandering, hungry, without any sign of wealth, perhaps without even shoes.  They are to enter the town looking and being impoverished, from head to toe.  When they enter into the town, they are to proclaim a new nation, a nation of God’s righteousness and to heal the sick in that town. 

The question, says Jesus, is whether they will be welcomed or not.  Will they be helped and granted food or shelter?  Or will they be ignored or even abused?  If they are not helped, says Jesus, “Wipe the dust off your feet as a judgement against them.  I tell you, on the final day, it will be harder on them than the town of Sodom.”

When Jesus sent his disciples to go out and do evangelism, he did not send them with tracts and ties.  Rather he sent them with the boldest message: poverty.  Are you a town that helps the poor or harms the poor?  Are you an Abraham or a Sodom? 

On the final day, each person in the world is divided between Abraham and Sodoms.  “When I was hungry, “ Jesus says to the Abrahams, “you gave me something to eat.  When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.  When I was naked, you clothed me.  When you did this to the least of these, my brothers, you did so to me.”

Who are these brothers?  The disciples, the messengers sent by Jesus to our town in need.  They came not just to preach, but to test us.  Would we help them?  Would we be generous?

And if we did not, Jesus says to us, “When I was a stranger, you didn’t let me in.  When I was sick and in prison, you never came to me. When you did not do this to the least of these, my brothers, you did not do it to me.”
And these Sodoms receive the judgment of Sodom.  

The Problem With Christian Holidays

Whew.

The roller coaster of the Christian calendar is over.  It's a lot of work, especially if you are in church leadership.  You get prepped for Advent, work hard through Christmas, get a month or so of planning for the next season and then it's Lent and Holy Week and the big event, Easter.  It's pretty exhausting. 

If you are exhausted, please take a deep breath. You deserve it.

All the church work for a few events in Jesus' life.  Important ones, though.

• Jesus; birth and the incarnation.
• Jesus' forty day temptation in the wilderness.
• Jesus' victory parade into Jerusalem.
• The last supper.
• Jesus' crucifixion.
• Jesus' resurrection.

These are certainly times to remember and celebrate.  But I wonder about the things we are missing.

• The baptism of Jesus
• Three years of ministry, healing and comforting the poor.
• The transfiguration.
• The bulk of Jesus' teaching.
• The cleansing of the temple.

I'm sure that pastors teach on these subjects occasionally.  But they are outside the "main events" of church life.  Jesus' healing and teaching is brought out most Sundays in the gospel readings of the annual liturgy, for churches that use that tool.  But still, it seems that we can focus on the "big three" of events-- birth, death and resurrection-- to such a degree that we can forget about the other, equally important events.

Certainly Timothy Keller thinks that we can easily forget:
"Jesus’ teaching was not the main point of his mission. He came to save people through his death for sin and his resurrection." 
I don't think Rev. Keller is saying that we should just forget about Jesus' teachings.  Only that, if you were going to forget something, forget about the teachings and keep the death and resurrection.

This makes sense if you think that Jesus' death magically eradicated sin.  But that isn't why Jesus died.  Jesus died and was brought back from the dead to establish the kingdom of God.  Entrance into the kingdom eradicates sin and puts us all under a different system of justice, one based on repentance and mercy. 

When we see the death and resurrection of Jesus as the establishing of Jesus' kingdom, then we can see their proper place in the whole of what Jesus was accomplishing.

• Jesus' incarnation showed the kind of person who could do the work.
• Jesus' ministry showed the heart and power of the kingdom, or, as Jesus says, "The kingdom of God is upon you."
• The teaching of Jesus is the constitution of the kingdom, the principles and laws which provide the building blocks of the kingdom.
• Jesus' death is what was necessary to set aside the old kingdom and to establish the new.
• Jesus' baptism, transfiguration and resurrection shows that God is displaying the choosing the right man for the job, certifying Jesus' kingdom.

It seems to me, if we put Jesus' ministry and teaching on a second or third rung on the Christian ladder, we are left with an outline without a heart.  If we celebrate Jesus, and declare him to be Lord, but we do not live out Jesus lifestyle of supporting the poor or celebrate the poor and outcast in our teaching, then we have the semblance of a people of Jesus, but not the reality of it. 

Experience Jesus Today

Jesus seemed really cool, dying for us and all, when he was a long time ago

But I don’t appreciate him in my neighborhood.

First thing, he tells a guy with AIDS that he’s healed.

I mean, you KNOW what that guy is going to do and pretty soon it’s disease everywhere.

He tells a couple people who have local markets to quit and become mystics.
Great.  Where am I going to get my fish now?  They had good fish.

He walks into a mental health ward, says some mumbo jumbo and then sets them all free,

Telling them to go downtown and tell everyone what God did for them.

So the town is full of psycho fanatics now.

Worst of all, he went to every drunken bum, every lazy chick in an RV, every single mom on welfare, every illegal stealing jobs from good folks and he told them that the mayor is a rat, the local CEOs are immoral, the bishops are corrupt and that THEY should be in charge instead.
I mean, I don’t like the mayor either,
But what I hate
Really HATE
Is to see these good-for-nothings walking around town as if they own it.

I preferred it when Jesus was meek and mild.

Jesus the Strategist

In general, the church's strategy to deal with poverty is twofold:

First, give poor people food and clothing.  That'll help them live another day.

Second, teach poor people the gospel, which will cleanse them from their sin.  That'll help them deal with their setbacks and get on the right track in life, so not be poor anymore.

Assumptions
There are a number of wrong assumptions that come up from this approach to poverty.

-That the poor are poor because of individual sin
-That the poor have less of Jesus than the middle class do

-That food and clothing is sufficient to meet people's needs

-That relief is the kind of direct help that is good enough.

The answer

Jesus' answer to poverty was a multi-faceted approach.

1. Healing
Jesus didn't just feed and clothe people, although he certainly did that.  He listened to desperate people, discovered their needs and used what resources he had to meet them.  This was a variety of things-- healing blind eyes, feeding poor, paying other's taxes, raising the dead, offering forgiveness of sins and more.  Jesus didn't come to the poor assuming he knew what they needed.  He heard their needs from their own lips.  That was his system of relief?

2. Ending Systemic Poverty

Jesus publicly spoke against the systems, political and religious, that kept people poor.  He launched a protest against the system of the Temple for keeping out the women and the Gentiles. And then he embarked on a program to undermine systemic poverty in his nation.  His strategy was to be executed although an innocent man, to plead his case before God and then to get the poverty pimps out of power.  His plan was shown to be approved by the resurrection.  And the systems were ousted by 70AD.

3. Create Community

Jesus' third strategy was to create a religious community that focused as much on helping the poor as they did on worship.  The primary economic action of the church was providing for the poor, not only for their own community, but for people in need around them.  The church leadership were assisted only if they were poor-- if they could provide for themselves then they would.  So

me of the more wealthy community members provided their own houses for meeting spaces.  But almost all money given to the church was used for programs for the poor.  This approach came from Jesus' teachings.

The strategy of the church concerning poverty is far removed from Jesus' approach, except for some Christian organizations (Mennonite Central Committee is happily one of the exceptions).  But when congregations deal with poverty in their communities, this three-pronged approach of Jesus is far from their minds.  There is much hand-wriging and perhaps a ministry to the poor that barely hangs on.  I challenge churches to consider a strategy to seriously make an attempt to undermine poverty in their communities.

Jesus' Politics, part 1

Jesus got up at the beginning of his final week and decided to make a declaration for public office.  He had a couple volunteers gather a colt and he entered Jerusalem.  Every good church-going person knew what was going on—he was fulfilling holy writ, that the next king of Jerusalem would go in triumph on a colt, a humble animal.  So his supporters gathered around him, made a parade into the city of Zion, and celebrated his candidacy.

To the people of Jerusalem, this was not such good news.   Although they were looking for a Messiah,  Jesus and his followers were foreigners, from the hill country, impure from their close proximity with foreigners.  Their accent was strange and their background questionable at best.  These upstarts were barely welcome to worship with them, let alone rule them. 

Jesus, in his first work in Jersusalem, just observes. He strolls through the streets with his throng of supporters, goes up to the temple and just observes the goings on.  He sees the sacrifices, he observes the praying men, and he sees the outer court filled with tables, allowing men to exchange their foreign coin with temple money, and then move over to purchase animals for worship.  He mumbles to himself, and then leaves the city for the day.

The next day, as is his custom, he gets up early to pray.  As his supporters rise and they eat and pray, he leads them back into Jerusalem, heading straight into the temple.  The morning routine was in full motion, with many rising early to exchange their coins and to purchase animals for sacrifices.  Jesus heads straight to the money exchangers, and knocks over their tables.  Outraged, they come at him and he picks up a long piece of rope and uses it as a whip, causing them to step back.

“Muggers!” he cried.  “Bandits!  You are stealing God’s glory!  People from all over the world come to worship my Father, and you take the only place they are allowed to worship and use it for your business.  You steal from God himself!  Get out!  Allow the women and Gentiles back in the temple, giving them a place to pray!” The money men quickly pack up their things and go. 

The local priests and some ruling authorities see this commotion and are outraged.  The high priest gave these local businessmen this space in the temple.  Who is this hick, this foreigner to drive them out?  They heard of him—he is the one who declared his intention to be king of Jerusalem.  Now, it seems, that he is taking over for the high priest!

“What right do you have to do these things?” they demand.  “Who gave you this authority?”

Jesus looks at them slyly, “I will answer your question, if you answer mine.  Was John the Baptist from God?”

John, of course, undermined the authority of the priesthood and the temple, declaring that all were unfit for the coming kingdom of God.  But he was also massively popular and the priests didn’t want to be given a bad reputation so they answered, “We refuse to answer your question.”

Jesus smiled, “Even so, I refuse to answer yours.  You figure it out.”

Jesus then announced to all in front of the councilmen,  “A successful businessman spent years creating and causing his business to thrive. He decided to hand his business over to a set of managers, and allow them to run it.  However, these managers refused to grant the owner any of the profits of justice and mercy that he deserved, that he worked so hard for.  So he sent them messengers and lawyers and  holy men to give him his fair proceeds.  The managers, deciding to rule the business themselves, tore up the letters, beat the lawyers and killed the holy men who demanded justice from them.  Finally, the owner decided to send his son, who had great authority.  The managers saw the son of the businessman and thought that if they killed him off, there would be no one to contest their ownership.  So they beat him up, forced him to sign a release agreement, threw him out of the building and killed him.

“What do you think the owner will do?  He will come back with a group of thugs and beat these managers and kill them, and place his business under the rule of someone who will do as he asks.”

Then Jesus turns to the councilmen and priests, “What kind of authority are you looking for?  Or do you think you can run things any way you want, without justice or mercy?  Remember the holy words, ‘The stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone.’  The very one you reject and kill is the one who will rule over you and kick you out of the kingdom.”

Black Jesus and Rabbi Jesus

The latest version of Jesus is pleasant, jovial, friendly and weed-smoking.  And there’s a number of good Christians that are up in arms about it.

Senior pastor Kerry Buckly says, "It was horrible, disgusting and completely offensive. Down to a person, everyone in the youth group was offended. It just shows where we are a nation. … We have no respect for God.”  And that’s just after watching the trailer.

Certainly the first episode had a number of questionable activities.  Jesus is living a party life, living in a van, partaking in weed and he hosts parties where he’s not welcome.  He’s a moocher, he participates in illegal activity, and is arrested.  The first episode also diminishes Jesus’ death by having a character say, “Yeah, that was 2014 years ago, that's old.”

But if this portrayal of Jesus is problematic with the modern church, then I suspect that they wouldn’t much care for the original Jesus.

Because that Jesus travelled from town to town, going to one party after another.  He described the kingdom of heaven a number of times as a “feast” (which is just another name for party).  In Luke 14, Jesus uses a party as an illustration of the kingdom of God at least three times.  And he says this while at a party.

The original Jesus was homeless, of course, having “nowhere to lay his head.”  He was poor, and a mooch, because he held his parties in other people’s homes.  One example is Zacchaeus in Luke 19, where Jesus just tells him that he’s having a party at his home.  Often Jesus held parties in places where he wasn’t welcome, such as Simon the Pharisee, where Jesus insulted his host because he wasn’t fawning enough (Luke 9).

What about weed?  Jesus certainly didn’t smoke weed, did he? Some more religious cannabis users want to show Jesus smoking janga, but since weed didn’t grow in the Middle East in the ancient world, that didn’t happen.  However, Jesus was about drinking wine.  A lot of it.  The good stuff, which is the more fermented kind.  He was known as a “drunkard”.  My more conservative friends say that Jesus never got drunk, but there certainly isn’t any evidence for that.  He certainly hung around with people who were drunk.  And really, what is the difference between alcohol and weed except that alcohol is more likely to make you violent?

Sure, Jesus is a moocher in the episode, but he gives as much as he takes, sometimes more.  He is seen as a joyful, generous, miracle-working man, trying to encourage everyone to be kind, compassionate and at peace with each other.  The statement about his death is called into question by the end of the episode because in the end Jesus helps everyone

So what really is the problem with Black Jesus?  It’s the same problem religious leaders had with the original Jesus—he is on the wrong cultural side of the tracks.  Religious folks are naturally conservative, always trying to reach back to a better time in which people were more polite, less irresponsible, more moral and generally safer.  It doesn’t matter that this time never existed.  But in general, religious folks like order.  They want to squelch any attempt at chaos or irresponsibility.

But Jesus was irresponsible.  He quit his job, left his family (even though he was responsible for his widowed mother), travelled from home to home with a number of disreputable men and women(!).  Jesus had no regular income and encouraged his disciples to live off other people’s charity.

And Jesus was chaotic. Sure, he talked about God’s will, but he was always tearing at the institutions of his day, whether the priesthood, the temple or even the law.  He challenged the political and economic institutions of his day and encouraged a sort of anarchy.

Let’s face it, the original Jesus, just like Black Jesus is an affront to middle class, reputable morality.  Religious people just can’t handle that.  So they will talk about how “blasphemous” Black Jesus is.  When really what they find blasphemous is the original Jesus, just like the religious institutions did 2000 years ago.

As for me (and the people in my congregation), I’d much rather hang out with Black Jesus than the Jesus that they have in their churches.  Constantly dying, rule-making, stern and institutional.  Mind you, I would find Black Jesus to be a bit more like the original Jesus if he’d talk about sacrifice and humility as well as joy and love.  But I’m willing to give the show a chance.  It’s a pretty good start. 

Your Kingdom Come

Once upon a time there was a kingdom of children, with a wise and celebrated leader.  The leader was a healer by trade and he brought these children from abusing families to be his children, and he cared for them with sweetness and gave them a wonderful home with all his vast resources at their disposal. 

At one point the children, still very young, decided that they were old enough and that they could take care of themselves.  The leader said, “You are still very young and need someone to guide you.  You can feed yourselves, but you can’t get along together.”  The children rose up in protest and anger and demanded that they be left alone to take care of themselves.  The leader said, “You are ultimately in charge.  If you want to leave my house and take care of yourselves, you can.  But I would rather you stayed in my house and lived with me and let me care for you.  I love you so.”  These words fell on deaf ears, and the children, as a group, decided to leave that night and rule themselves.

You could guess what happened.  The children, at first, were focused on surviving together and figuring out how to eat and build their shelters.  But soon little squabbles broke out.  Broken bones happened that weren’t healed correctly.  Some children wanted what they did not make, and if they were bigger, they took it.  More and more children got hurt, and everything was a mess. They chose some of the children to be in charge, to bring some order and stability, but all they did was cause more hurt.

But rather than think to themselves, “We should go back to our leader’s house” the children blamed the leader for all their troubles.  “The leader could heal my hurts, but he didn’t,” some would say.  “The leader said he loved us, but look at how miserable we are!”  “The leader could feed us better than this, but he abandoned us.”  “The leader is angry at us because of our misdeeds and so is causing us to suffer so.”

Of course, the leader never took his eyes off of them.  He loved them so, but he knew that they wouldn’t welcome him.  Finally, he couldn’t stand seeing them in their misery so he went and visited them.  Right away, he saw a child who was covered with sores and so he brought out a bottle of salve and made him feel better right away.  He saw another child who was irrational with anger and he spoke to him and calmed him and gave him peace.  He saw another child who was suffering with a broken bone that never healed, so he gave the child a local anesthetic, reset the bone and carefully wrapped it.  He saw two children fighting and he separated them, listened to them and loved them.

Soon many children flocked to him, realizing that he didn’t come to punish, but to love.  And he told them, “You all need to learn how to care for each other.  Take the effort you put in your anger, in your punishment of each other and put it into love.  Stop studying how to be in charge, and study how to help each other better. You have everything you need to care for everyone.”

The chosen rulers of the children could see their power slipping away, and that children would soon choose the leader to be in charge of them again, he was so kind and caring.  So they arrested the leader, beat him up to an inch of his life, and told him he had to leave.  He turned to the children and said, “I have to go.  But I will always be here.  Any of you can choose to have me as your leader again.  All you have to do is ask me, and I will guide you to love and care for each other.  Just call out my name, and I will be there to lead you.”  At this, the rulers of the children stabbed the leader, causing him to bleed, and he left.

Some of the children wondered if the leader was too weak to lead them.  Some of the children wondered if they should go to him, and try to find the house where they all once lived.  Many of the children said that the leader was just selfish and he was trying to trick them.  But many of the children listened to the leader, called out to him and he did lead them.  We aren’t sure how, but he did.  They would say, “Leader, your kingdom come.” Then he would come, secretly, and lead those children to love and to care for the other children, even if the other children didn’t deserve it.  And the world became a better place because the king came, if only for a little while.

This is a representation of Peter Abelard's soteriology.  I don't believe that it is a complete theology of salvation, but I do think it represents a better theology than substitutionary atonement. 

The Deck or the Lifeboat?

I was in a church networking meeting today, and we were discussing a ministry for young homeless women getting temporary shelter, and their struggle to find enough finances to begin their necessary work.  I was listening to pastor after pastor talk about how there just isn’t enough time to focus on a ministry like this, and finally I spoke my heart:

“As a group, we don’t seem to have many resources.  We don’t have a megachurch in our midst that can float a ministry like this on their own.  But the budget isn’t excessive, and all that would be required is for each of the churches who have some financial stability to welcome the director and let her speak to her need for five minutes.  You don’t have to be a partner, but ownership in a ministry like this requires more than being a cheerleader.”

A pastor mentioned that many ministries are asking for help.

The network leader prayed at the end, “May we not use our passion to force other passions out.”

Other passions?  Like perhaps the passion of having prayer groups?  Or the passion of having group praise?  Or the passion of giving our pastor a upper middle class lifestyle?  Praise is essential, as is prayer.  Our pastors deserve to know that they are respected and that their needs are met.

When Jesus came to earth, his ministry was focused on two things: preaching the gospel and saving lives.  His teaching was essential, but the rest of his time was spent feeding the hungry, healing the sick, delivering the mentally ill, and allowing people to practically feel God’s welcome and forgiveness.

For the most part, our church finances are spend re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  We may hear the people screaming, drowning, but we don’t consider that our business.  We need to spend our time and money on better worship.  We need to set up an event and activities to draw in the youth.  We need bigger, nicer facilities to draw more people in.  We need to get more involved in politics to set our nation on the right course. We need more time to do denominational activities, to calm down the family who wasn’t listened to in the last board meeting.

Rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

We need to stop thinking that the place to be is on the deck, arranging worship as we all sink.  If we aren’t in the lifeboat, then we need to stop thinking that we are in ministry at all.   If we aren’t saving people from drowning, then why did God put us on the Titanic at all?

And when I am saying “saving” I am not meaning this as a symbol of convincing people of our tired doctrine.  I mean saving lives.  Delivering people from death.

• Branice is a nineteen year old who had been on the street throughout her high school years.  Just before her eighteenth birthday, she got pregnant by a homeless man whom she had loved for years.  Branice was still using meth and marijuana well into her pregnancy, given to her by her boyfriend, well into her pregnancy.  Finally, winter came and as a church we decided that something desperate needed to be done.  I obtained some temporary housing for her, and I sat down and talked with her about her future. That she would probably lose her baby at the moment of birth unless she makes some serious changes.  A couple agreed to house her through the winter until the baby came, and she agreed to contact agencies until she had a plan for her life with her baby.  The couple also agreed to adopt the baby if the state refused to let her keep the baby, an open adoption so that she could visit her child.

Today, the baby is healthy and adorable, living with her mom, Branice who is nine months clean and sober, through treatment, going to groups, and looking for work.  Her boyfriend moved on, and she demands that if he sees his baby at all, it is only when he is sober.  She has been transformed.  It didn’t take much. Just some encouragement, and some housing, and some money. 

• Tom was living on the street with his blood pressure so high that the doctors wondered how he was still alive.  The church offered housing and work so he could live in peace.  He praises the Lord every day for his new life.

• Mark was a drug user and dealer until a member of the church allowed him to sleep in their backyard and he finally got himself straight and now leads the landscaping crew at the church.

The church should be a lifeboat.  It should save lives.  If all we are is a show, we should shut down.

What does this have to do with passion? 

If our passion is about the show, about keeping rules, about new songs, about camps and retreats, let’s just pack it in.  We are not a ministry.  If we are not rescuing the dying, if we are not saving lives—literally saving lives—then we aren’t fulfilling the ministry of Jesus.  Letting people die around us, as they call us begging us for help, that is not of Christ.

Our passions should be prioritized.  Saving lives comes first.

“Rescue those being led away to death;

Hold back those who stagger to slaughter;

If we say, ‘We didn’t know!’

Does not He know it who weighs the hearts?”

Proverbs 24:11-12