The righteous and the poor

I tried to teach through Amos with the youth at my church this past summer.  It failed miserably.  I got stuck in the middle of the second chapter and my mental and spiritual gears are still grinding on one short phrase.   In Amos 2:6 the righteous and the needy are placed side by side in a way that captured my attention:  “…they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals…” Amos 2:6 ESV.  Other translations use the word innocent instead of righteous – but best I can tell with my limited resources is that the Hebrew word being translated means just, lawful, and/or righteous (H6662 in Strongs).

This is a powerful statement in my mind.  God is casting judgment against Israel for their perversion of justice – but in it He doesn’t shake his finger at the “righteous” telling them to attend to the cause of the poor.  We actually find that the righteous are right in the middle of the injustice, side by side with the needy.  The righteous are oppressed in a way similar to the poor.  That linkage got me thinking about other places where language of poverty and righteousness find themselves next to each other.  What came to my mind first was the Beatitudes.  (If that’s where your brain went too, great! You can stop reading now and go do your own meditations.  If you’re thinking something along the lines of “The Beati-whats?” keep reading.)

The Beatitudes are a series of blessings that Jesus made during his sermon on the mount found in Matthew 5:2-12 and Luke 6:20-23.  When reading through it with Amos 2:6 in mind I was struck by the poverty and righteousness wording.  For poverty there are the words: poor, mourn, meek, hunger, thirst.  As for righteous language there is: righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers.  The two themes crash together in the middle when poverty language buts up against righteousness in Matthew 5:6 , “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (ESV, Emphasis is Mine).  Later oppression becomes blessing for the righteous when in verses 10 – 11 when Jesus speaks blessing to those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

Those connections in mind, I’ve been challenging my self – and my youth – to seek out poverty and find ways of joining with it.  To find a place where there is lack, be it relational or financial, and find a way to walk along side it in truth and love.  With my passion burning to see Jesus’ prayer John 17:20 – 23 realized as soon as possible – this approach to joining with poverty makes any lack within the body inexcusable (detestable might be a better word).  If there is lack within the body of believers anywhere in the world – we as brothers and sisters must give every effort to fulfil what is lacking.  Be it medicine and food to our family in Africa and Asia or friendship to the lonely that fill our churches here in America – we need to join with poverty until there is no more or untill we are all suffering joyfully together in a way only possible by being one just as Jesus and the Father are one.  Because by that unity the world will know that Christ was sent by God, and that the Father loves us (his children) with the same, perfect love he had for Jesus (John 17:20-23).

Thanks for praying!

I’m growing in satisfaction with how things went today.  God moved noticeably in several people, and I’m trying to rest in the work that I was able to see and trust in the things that God is doing beyond what I will ever know.  I’ve uploaded the raw audio to http://www.sermoncloud.com/dpc/unity-is-evangelism/ for those of you who are interested.  To explain the two distractions that are mentioned – at one point someone dragged a window onto the projector screen, and a little later someone shut off the main stage lighting…it was awesome!  Thanks again, and the Lord give you peace.

John 17 – Unity is Evangelism

I’m preaching on Sunday so please pray for me…right now…. Thanks.

Currently here are my sermon notes:

• Pray
• Read John 17
• Preach

1. Believe/Know – Shift in world view
2. Unity/One – Unpack being one as Jesus and the Father are one
3. Sent – Unpack being sent by Jesus as Jesus was sent by the Father

I’m still working on how I’ll expand that into a 30 minute sermon – but in rehearsing by myself I’ve managed to preach consistently 30 – 40 minutes. As practice I’m going to do a little unpacking here on my blog. If you have feedback please be specific and quick in case your comments might help to shape the sermon.

John 17 has been rocking my world for the last year and a half. The entire chapter is Jesus praying, and towards the end his words speak directly to the church throughout time. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,” (John 17:20). For a brief moment before Gethsemane, Christ focuses his prayer on the generations of followers to come, on “the sheep that are not from this fold”(John 10:16), on all of us who have believed and ever will believe. I find it compelling that to describe future generations of disciples Jesus labels the Church as “those who will believe in their word”. Believe is a major theme of John (e.g. John 3:16) and is very closely related to the theme of knowing (John 17:21, 23). So what does it mean to know and believe? It means knowing something in a way that it sinks into every part of your being, it means knowing in a way that changes the way that you think about things. At it’s core, truly knowing something changes your behavior as a result of having changed your world view. When you know and believe that Christ was sent by God all of life comes under the lens of scripture, Christianity, and ultimately Christ.

So Christ lays before the Father a petition for those who would believe in the apostles word, which was Christ’s word (John 17:14 – 17). There is three fold purpose for this petition.

1. That the believers would be one (17:21)
2. That the world would believe/know that Christ was sent by God(17:21, 23)
3. That the world would know that the Father loves the Church with the same love that He has for the Son (17:23)

Now here’s where things get really tricky for me. You see, these three purposes are so interwoven and the themes of Oneness, Christ’s Sent Nature, and The Father’s Love are inseparable. So pseudo linearly here’s my best attempt.

That we would be one/perfectly one so that the world might know/believe:

In his prayer, Jesus uses an equivalence statement to describe unity. “that they may all be one, just as you, Father are in me. and I in you, that they may also be in us,” (17:21). Somehow, as the Church binds together in the Godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) we are called to attain a unity that in someway resembles the interwoven nature of God. Look again at the tapestry that is woven just in these few verses: The Father in the Son (21,23); The Son in the Father (21); Believers in the Father and Son (21); and then the final stitch The Son in Believers (23). The relationship between the Father and Son is seen as key throughout John’s gospel. It is central to the attempts on Jesus’ life (yes, multiple attempts), because He made himself out to be one with God. Which was true – but it was “unbelievable” for many in Jesus’ day. It was Jesus’ connection to the Father that motivated his every action (John 5:36, 7:16, others). With Christ in us, we can strive for the intimacy that Christ and the Father had – and we can expect some strong resemblance of it. Why? Because Christ has already interceded that it would happen and Christ is fully inside of the Father’s will because he and the Father are one!

There is one more element of unity that is key, but we can’t get there until we look at one final theme. See, our unity isn’t the end of the petition Christ prayed for us. He continued praying “…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”(17:20) and later repeated “…so that the world may know that you sent me…”(17:23). Why is it so important that the world know/believe that Christ was sent by God? What shift in perspective and world view does that enable? The answer comes from asking the question: Why was Jesus sent? And the answer that most would give is very close to right: Jesus was sent to suffer, and die as the atoning sacrifice for my sins. Absolutely true. However, equally true, and more important to unity and evangelism: Jesus was sent to satisfy the Father’s need for justice. Jesus’ love for the Father put him on the road to Calvary, the Father’s love for the Son and for us sent Jesus there.

The standard for unity that Jesus set out points to a love entirely outside of ourselves (thank God!). That standard is that of the Father and Son’s love for each other. That love was passionate, it suffered gladly for the beloved. When we become incorporated into that love and incarnate carriers of the divine presence through the Holy Spirit we are invited to love bigger than ourselves. Christ enables us to suffer for God and for one another with zeal, joy, and patience. The reason that unity leads into evangelism – that the Son in us and us in the Father and Son provokes a knowledge and belief in the deity of Christ – is that when we begin to incarnationaly invest in each other it is so supernatural that the world will take notice. When we begin to walk out a true knowledge and belief that there is a transcendent love, a love that exists perfectly outside of ourselves, and that that love suffers passionately, that that love is unfailing.

This love will only fully be displayed in the church if we invest in one another dangerously. In my mind Christ’s prayer leaves no room for poverty in the church, it leaves no room for loneliness, hidden pains, closet depression, or any number of things we could “never talk about in church”. We cannot hide from each other in any way and expect the world to see Christ as truly sent by God. If there is lack or need, then brothers and sisters in Christ must give of themselves and their resources. The word compassion literally means “to suffer with”, and with Christ as our example for passion (suffering) so we cannot limit our giving to what is comfortable.

When we invest in the lives of our brothers and sisters sacrificially we are in a very small way sharing in Christ’s sufferings that we might share in his glory (Rom 8:17). It is not our prosperity that will attract the world to Christ – it is our lack of poverty. It is the way that we love each other, out of the eternal well of love that exists in the Trinity. In that perfected unity the world will know that Christ was sent by God and loves the church with the same love that sent Christ to the cross (John 17:23).

Unburned Bridges

Here I stand
The last man
Centered atop
An unburned bridge

All others
Have jumped off
Or run to shore
Now it is I alone at apex

With torch in hand
I consider options
Of setting arch ablaze
Or extinguishing the light

Another choice
Moves my hand
And smoke arises
From the cuff

Clothing consumed
To ashes at feet
Leaves me uncovered
A spectacle all the more

C.S. Lewis on Christian Marriage (Frighteningly Relevant)

There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members.  The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.

C.S. Lewis, 1943

Excerpt from Mere Christianity (Book 3, Section 6)

Something to think about: What is Poverty?

I came across this video recently. It asks some interesting questions, and tries to approach the questions and responses that poverty evokes from a unique direction. Before I put my 2 cents in, what do you all think? Agree or disagree? What thoughts are worth exploring from the clip? Are there places where the pastor errs Biblically or theologically? Are there places where he is right on?