Leaning Forward

Just when you thought American Idol was aging and losing its popularity, think again. The show’s debut this year attracted nearly 28 million viewers, the biggest audience since its season debut. If we were to be honest, not all of the 28 million were glued to their TV sets to see who would be the next Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, or Carrie Underwood. An enumerable amount of people were glued to their TV sets to see those who, lets say aren’t the most talented. While I do acknowledge that this is made for TV and for entertainment purposes, there’s something about watching another person fall and finding humor in their humiliation that attracts many of us.  

 In John 8:1-11, there’s an event where the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery before Jesus, and all of those that He was  teaching that morning. The  humiliation, condemnation, and worthlessness she must have felt  as the “church leaders” singled her out and exploited her.  Surely there were those that she knew in the crowd that had no idea of her lifestyle and perhaps some that had even engaged in the behavior with her. Why weren’t they called out as well? These so called leaders claimed to know God and to love God yet their claims were obviously hollow.

Jesus recognized this not just as a test of the Mosaic Law, but of the very heart of the Father Himself. Notice Jesus’ posture in the story. The Scriptures tell us that, “he stooped down”. While the religious leaders were standing over her and looking down at her, Jesus was willing to  “stoop” and meet her right where she was. While the religious leaders were picking up stones, Jesus was extending a hand to pick her up.  While the religious leaders were quick to quote the Scriptures, Jesus was willing to act upon them. 

If you were to ask the average person on the street what the church stands for, I’m convinced that they couldn’t tell you. However, if you were to ask the same people what the church is opposed to, they wouldn’t have any trouble answering.  God is for us! He loves humanity, and He opposes sin because of what it does to us and our relationship with Him.  How many of us would have responded to the adulterous woman the same way Jesus did? Each day we have an opportunity, like Jesus, to stoop down, lift up, and actually do the Scriptures. Let’s stop going to church and start being the church. Let’s be His hands and feet!

Like many of you I’ve been in shock over the images that I’ve seen from television depicting the devastation of Haiti following last week’s earthquake. Some of our pastors from Healing Place Church have been on the ground in Haiti with a team of physicians and other volunteers. The reports they are bringing back are all too surreal.

I very lucidly recall the devastation that Hurricane Katrina brought to the Gulf Coast, and in particular the evacuation of New Orleans. I remember being in the airport and seeing bodies lying on cots or slumped over in wheelchairs. I remember seeing bodies laid out on the floor tagged with the color “black” because there was no chance of survival, and I remember how the room reeked of death.  I have to tell you though what I’m seeing and hearing from Haiti is more  troubling than anything I’ve ever seen or heard before. Reports say that an estimated 200,000 people are dead and many more missing. Prior to the earthquake, Haiti had approximately 138,000 orphans. That number will undoubtedly increase. The number of amputees is astronomical, and many have crushed limbs just waiting to go to surgery.

I don’t know much about Haiti, and what I do know is not good. I’ve heard about the supposed “pact with the devil” years ago, the common practice of voodoo and witchcraft, the political corruption, and the extensive poverty. Yet, despite all of that, I believe that the Body of Christ has an obligation and a responsibility to act, and to act with the heart of the Father. The church should be the first ones reaching out to the people of Haiti and the last ones to leave. God is a lover of humanity, and the Scriptures tell us that He takes no delight in the events that unfolded this past week. His heart is broken, and what breaks His heart should break ours. 

When you read the Scriptures, and it doesn’t matter whether you read a prophet book or a poetic book, a Law book, or one of the Gospels, one thing is clear, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger all matter to God. There will always be room in God’s heart for them. Can I say the same about my heart? You see, this is not just about Haiti, this is about my heart and who I do or do not have room for.  If I simply watch the images on television and feel sorry for the people of Haiti and do not act, then the truth is there is no room in my heart for them.  My compassion must be followed by action, or there isn’t any compassion.

Church, this is our moment to shine. This is our moment to show the love and compassion of the One True God. This is our moment to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. We can’t allow our hearts to be turned away because of the busyness of our schedules, the images of looters, the distance that separate us, or the differences in culture. As we begin to meet the physical and emotional needs of the Haitian people, this country will be open to hearing the Gospel like never before. When you are impoverished you not only lose your place to live, food to eat, and clothes to wear, but you lose your capacity to dream. You lose hope!  Who else can bring hope to a broken and devastated people like the Body of Christ. It’s time to respond! It’s time for us to ask, God what would you have me to do?   

 A couple of months ago we honored the women in our program with a “chick night”. We pampered them with free manicures, scalp massages, and high heel shoes. The men cooked and served the ladies for the night. We wanted to honor them and and let them know that they have value, that they matter … they matter to God and they matter to us. 

Last month, it was time to honor the men. We had pool tables, ping pong, play stations, and football on the big screen.   We couldn’t get a live game so we watched the 2007 National Championship game between LSU and Ohio State.  Yes, that was my idea The ladies cooked chili with Fritos, decorated the room with a football theme, and served them this night. It was sooo much fun.

We believe that healthy things grow, and we wanted to create an environment where relationships could be developed and cultivated. Likewise, we believe that unless you have a relationship with someone, you will not be able to speak into that person’s life. Something or someone is informing you each day as to who you are and who you are becoming. Unfortunately, the people in our program have surrounded themselves with the wrong voices. The Scriptures teach that “… in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” Ed Young says, “ask the right people the right questions, and you get the right answers.” My pastor, Dino Rizzo,  recently talking about choices said it this way, “right voices … right choices”. That’s exactly what we wanted to do for the men and women in our program. If they hear the right voices long enough then they’ll begin to make right choices. That’s a win for everyone! That’s a win for families, for neighborhoods, for the city of Baton Rouge, and Louisiana as a whole.

The past two weeks have been a great awakening for me. I’ve witnessed three of the most disturbing events. First, I was attending a resource fair at one of our state prisons. In between groups of inmates coming out, a trustee walked by my table and handed me a copy Straight Low Magazine (a LA prison magazine). What I saw on the cover caused my heart to fall to the floor.  There was a picture of a man with a tattoo of a pentagram on his forehead, another tattoo of a line dividing his face in half, and a third tattoo of the word suicidal on his throat.  I opened the magazine and began to read his story. At 3, his parents divorced, at age 7 he began smoking marijuana, at 11 he was addicted to heroin, and by the 8th grade he had dropped out of school. His mom later remarried a police officer who repeatedly physically beat him. His childhood was filled with various run-ins with the law, satanic worship, and numerous attempts at suicide. He hated himself, the world, and everyone in it.  I left that prison in disbelief.

Later in the week, I received word that a man that one of my co-workers and I had just ministered to earlier in the month died as a result of alcohol. He literally drank himself to death. I’ll never forget the conversation we had with him back in July. As he opened up to us, he began to share that he started drinking at the age of 5. In his culture of Bosnia, this was very common.  He then opened up his heart and shared with us that his own father had raped him as a child, and had “passed him around” to his other male friends. He’s pain was so severe that the only reprieve that he could get was through death.

This week one of our clients came in the office and informed us that he, his wife, and their children had not eaten in several days. We always keep canned food around the office for times like this, but as I was as I compiling a a box of  groceries,  I heard this voice inside my head tell me “you’ve never experienced what this is like … to be hungry and go without food.” How embarrassing and humbling that must be to have to tell someone that you have not eaten in several days, that there is no food in the pantry, and no financial means to get any.

  All the pain, hurt, and desperation that I saw in these stories just reminded me that I don’t have to go to Africa, or any other “far off” land to do missions. I can do missions right here where I’m at. There’s a mission trip waiting for me right next door, across the street, in the cubicle next to me, in the desk behind me, and very possibly under my own roof. Sometimes the only pain and heartache we see is our own, but the truth is the world is filled with pain, heartache, loneliness, and hopelessness. Jesus said, “The greatest among you must be the one who serves” Luke 22:26. One of the key values of the Kingdom of Heaven is servanthood. Opportunities to serve are all around us, if we’ll just be looking.

I recently returned from vacation in the Smoky Mountains with my mom, sister, and her three children. Go-karts, swimming, amusement parks, picnics. You name it we did it. The three  kids (7, 5, & 3) get to choose at least one activity that they want to do. Emily likes ice skating. Connor wanted to see an Old West gunfight, and Rachel she wants to swim. She LOVES the water. She wanted to go swimming in the streams with the dolphins, but I had to tell her that wasn’t possible. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. She, Rachel, has such a sense of humor. She laughs at everything, which makes me laugh at everything, and my soul needs that! The worst part about spending time with the kids is that I eventually have to come back to LA. Each time I leave, Rachel will ask me, if I would come live with her forever? To which I respond, “I wish I could but I have to go to work and take care of Caesar (my Sheltie), but I’ll live in your heart forever” to which she replies, “that’s not good enough.”  

I love the honesty in her answer. I think that she speaks for a lot of us when it comes to our hang up with God and the  moments when we’re called to walk by faith and not by sight. We want tangible, verifiable, concrete evidence from God, and if it doesn’t happen then faith is just not good enough. The Scriptures tell us, and we may even quote it from time to time “without faith it is impossible please God”, and “we walk by faith not by sight”; yet, in the very next breath we ask God for proof in the form of signs.

When we talk about faith it’s a lot of times in the context of facts, dates, and events, and that’s not really what faith is. Faith is about connecting to the Creator of the universe in a way that cannot be perceived by the five senses. Faith, as the Scriptures talk about, gives us insight to the unlimited possibilities of God that are all around us. Faith allows us, like Moses, to see the invisible God and when we see God; we begin to see everything differently. We begin to see the beauty and wonder of life. We begin to experience what it means to be spiritually alive. I believe this is along the lines of the conversation Jesus was having with Nicodemus (John 3), when he said that you must be born again. “Nicodemus (paraphrasing here) you know the Scriptures, you’re a keeper of the law but it’s all about rules, tradition, and denominations, and at your core you’ve never come alive spiritually through faith.”

… Faith unlocks the realities of what it means to be alive! 

I know it would be easier if we had visible evidence of what God was doing around us, or even an explanation from God Himself would seem to make the journey less stressful, but God does not work like that in our time and space.  Why? We see the world through our eyes, but we see God through our soul, and it is our soul that must connect with Him.  When we do that, a spiritual rebirth takes place and we begin to see ALL of life from His perspective.