What Do We Do Now?

 Horrifying. Saddening. A light shed on the atrocities committed.

This news has continued to come over the last couple months. The horrors of children ripped from their homes, and ultimately being buried in unmarked graves. Missing the dignity of a proper burial and a chance for family and friends to say good-bye. The terrible reality of things done in the name of country and in the name of God.

Things that never should have been allowed. Things we quickly condemn when we hear about them happening in other places. Things that break the heart of God and should break the hearts of those who claim His Name today.

As I've watched this unfold. Heard the news. Read the reactions. I've wrestled with how to respond myself. With how to even try to make sense of any of this. How do I respond? What can and should I do?

To be honest, it's only in the last few years that I've become more clearly aware of this lengthy part of Canada's story. I wasn't trying to ignore it, but I'd never heard much about it.

It's unfortunately easier than I thought to come up with explanations and reasons. To keep it at a distance that means I don't have to do anything. 

But, I don't want to do that. I don't want to continue in the patterns of the past. It doesn't do any good for anyone.

While I would never compare what my family went through leaving everything behind when they fled the persecution they were facing and came to Canada. But, I did learn an important lesson from stories my great-grandparents told about their experiences or the experiences of their parents.

I learned how important it is to really listen and care about another's story. Not listening to confirm your opinion or understanding. Listening to hear the other person and what they're saying.

I had a quote from Beth Moore come up again recently that explains what I'm trying to say better than I can:

"We cannot have compassion if we don't go sit with people and enter in to how they see it."

As we grapple with what has been discovered - as a country, as a church, as individuals - we have to learn to sit with people and enter in to their experiences of this part of history. Not to analyze, or argue, or convince them of something. But to learn what it was and is like for the other person.

This isn't easy. It takes hard work. It's hard to hear. As Danielle Strickland writes:

"Presencing yourself to enter into the other person's experience. To be part of the joy and the pain. This is the most transformative part of listening and the hardest one to allow yourself to do."

But it is exactly what we need to do. We need to really listen to those who are still living with this. To those who still deal with the results of this terrible part of Canada's story. To those who live with the pain.

We cannot ignore this. Or try to pretend it didn't happen or it wasn't that bad.

It's only in really listening that we can begin to heal. That we can begin to move forward.

Love Your Neighbour

The Parable of the Good Samaritan.

If you've spent any time around church or reading a Bible, you probably know this story pretty well. It's one we talk about pretty regularly as Christians.

Luke 10:25-37 records this parable and the rest of the exchange that goes with it. Before you go with this post, please read it again. Click on the link, or look it up.

Read it slowly . . . every word.

When I read it recently, I was challenged by some of the questions that came to mind:
What made the priest and Levite cross to the other side of the road as they passed the man who had been beaten and robbed? Why were they so careful to avoid him? Where was the compassion for those in need we expect religious leaders to have?

I think Jesus is being intentional in using the specific people He does in this story. The priest and Levite were religious leaders. We don't know exactly why these men were travelling this road. Since they were going from Jerusalem to Jericho we could guess they were returning home after service in the temple.

As religious leaders in the temple, they would have been well aware of the religious requirements and what would make them unclean and unfit to serve in the temple, even if only temporarily. Rather than help their follow Jew in need and risk becoming unclean, they chose to avoid him completely.

In reality, they missed the point of what God was trying to show His people through the law. Religiously, they were clean before God. But their hearts weren't in the right place, and God is pretty clear that matters more to Him.

We easily get caught up in the exact same things. We may be doing everything right religiously, but if our hearts aren't moved with compassion by the same things that move God's hear, we've missed the point completely.

In this parable, Jesus used the Samaritan as the example we should follow. The Samaritan was moved to compassion and action by what he saw. He was willing to pay a personal price to love someone society told him he shouldn't love.

As I reflect on some of the issues currently a major focus of discussion in our society, I'm left with a few questions:
How are we doing, as Christians, at actually loving our neighbour in the way Jesus describes in this parable?
What would it look like if we all actually allowed our hearts to be broken by what breaks God's heart and them moved to action because of it? What kind of impact would that actually make in our society?

I'm not saying it's easy. I know it's hard. I know it's dangerous to pray a prayer asking God to break our hearts for what breaks His.

About eight or nine years ago, I realized my heart was no longer moved by the brokenness and pain I saw everyday. I walked past a couple of interactions and activities that shouted about the pain and brokenness of those involved. I had been working at my job for a few years and things like that had become commonplace.

As I sat in my office later that day, I told God I didn't want my heart to become hard to what I'd seen. I told Him I wanted to see each person I walked past through His eyes. They I prayed the "dangerous" part. I told God to do whatever He needed to do to soften my heart again.

The answer to that prayer came a few days later. Without sharing details that could identify this person, I found myself in the position of returning money to someone I'd grown up with knowing he was likely going to go spend it on drugs as soon as he left. But, it was his money and there was nothing I could do to stop him. As I handed him the money I looked at him and reminded him of God's love. To date, that's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

A couple months later, another person I'd known growing up crossed my path at work and they weren't doing well. I knew the potential they had and I was watching them seemingly self-destruct for a couple weeks.

I with I could say these stories had happy endings, but the truth is, I don't know what has happened with either of them in the years since. I don't know if I'll ever know.

But, those two interactions definitely answered my prayer for God to soften my heart. And I realized that a soft heart is one that loves at great personal cost. When we see the pain and brokenness of others, if our heart breaks for what breaks God's heart, we will care and we will take action.

Getting Into the Pain & Brokenness of People

Everywhere you look in the gospels, Jesus is doing things that upset and angered the religious leaders of His day. He didn't do it just to make them mad. He was revealing the places where they were missing the point.

Somewhere along the way, the religious leaders had gotten more caught up in the rules about things rather than the heart of the reason why God had created that law in the first place. The is what Jesus pointed out in Luke 6:1-11. The religious leaders were more concerned about what Jesus' disciples were doing on the Sabbath than what God created the Sabbath for in the first place.

Just a little bit later, Jesus challenges the Pharisees on how they treat people. Luke 7:36-50 records an encounter with Jesus and a conversation with a Pharisee that I think we sanitize when we read it. We picture at least a somewhat presentable person coming into Simon's house and anointing Jesus with perfume, and weeping at his feet, drying them with her hair.

We understand it was a costly jar of perfume she used and we talk about the cost to her. We talk about Simon, the Pharisee, whose home Jesus was visiting when this occurred. All are good things to notice and learn from. But, I think in our version, we miss something important.

Jesus honours and values this woman, who was seen only as a sinner by society. Jesus saw who she really was and called it out in her.

When Luke writes that she was a woman who lived a sinful life, he's not talking about the sin that, although we know it's still sin, we have somehow deemed acceptable to struggle with. This woman was a prostitute. She lived a life that went completely and openly against God's laws. She would have been pushed to the outskirts of society - excluded and looked down on, often treated poorly.

Put yourself at the table for a minutes. You've been invited to have dinner with Jesus. Everyone at the table lives a good life. You all follow the rules and do everything you're supposed to. While you're eating dinner, someone comes into the home you're gathered in, uninvited.

For the sake of helping us understand this, this person is homeless - their hair is unwashed and messy, their clothes are dirty from sleeping outside in a tent for months, they're carrying all their personal belongings with them. Everyone at the dinner party knows who they are - they have a reputation in the community.

When this person enters the room, they offer Jesus their most prized possession and fall at His feet weeping. They've created quite the scene and everyone is watching Jesus to see how He responds.

What will Jesus do? Will He send the person away? Will He reprimand them? Will He try to ignore them?

But, as you all watch, Jesus reaches down and wraps His arms around the person. He embraces them and lifts them up. Instead of the disdain this person is used to experiencing, Jesus has love in His eyes and on His face as He looks at this person. Jesus seems not to notice or care about the appearance or reputation of the person.

Jesus begins to speak like - to point out the good in this person, to identify the beauty and image of God in this person that society doesn't see. Jesus doesn't condone the poor behaviour and choices that have led to this person's reputation, but neither does He talk only about it.

When I look at how Jesus treated the woman in Luke 7 and so may others in the gospels, I have to think that Jesus would have spent His time in the middle of the broken, hurting and lost people in our society. He wouldn't have been looking down on them trying to give them a negative label.

Think for a moment. When I started describing the person who came into you dinner party with Jesus, what words came to mind as how you labelled the person?

Junkie . . . Hopeless . . . Just an addict . . . Lost cause . . .Dregs of society

I hope not. I hope reading those words was as difficult for you as it was for me to write them.

I think I'm pretty safe to say those wouldn't be the words Jesus would use. Labels like that destroy people. They don't love them the way Jesus modeled for us.

What about the words . . . man/woman created in the image of God . . . loved by God . . . value . . . worth . . . I think these are what we need to see when we look at people like this person who intruded on our dinner party with Jesus.

Where would Jesus be in our society?

Jesus would be in the middle of the pain and brokenness. Yes, that includes the illness, death, family breakdown, job loss, etc of those of us who have homes and aren't looked down on by society. But, we can't keep operating like those are the only places Jesus would be.

Jesus would also be in the middle of the pain and brokenness of those who we generally see as outcasts in our society. Instead of judgement and anger and disdain, Jesus would be loving them and speaking life and identity to them. He would be inviting us to come alongside and love these people. He would have, and still does, expected His followers to be an active part of the solution.

If you're still with me, thanks. I hope I've challenged you. This been a challenging post to write and I've had to wrestle with what this looks like in my own life. I don't get it right all the time. But, I think we have to allow ourselves to be challenged by Scripture if we claim to follow Jesus.

Living Social Justice

So, if we're supposed to be involved in social justice, as I wrote last week, what does it look like for us?

How do we actually make it a part of what we do?

How do we do it well?

In many ways, I think this is a bigger problem than we realize. Unfortunately, we haven't always done this well in the church. And in our struggle to figure out how to do it, we've actually done harm - mostly unintentionally.

I think our struggle to figure it out and do it is actually the reason why it might seem easier to try to avoid social justice and try to separate it from what we preach.

But, I also think the fact that it's so difficult at times is exactly why we need to be intentional about being hands on with it. We can't try to separate it from the gospel or leave it for professionals. We need to be involved ourselves.

I also wonder if part of our struggle with how to do as that we often think it has to start with changing to laws of our society. And that seems impossible or overwhelming, so we don't try. Or, we don't like how people have tried to do just that in the past and don't want to be associated with that, so we do our best to avoid those associations.

But, what if that wasn't where we were supposed to start?

What if we have it backwards from how we're supposed to be doing it?

What if it was supposed to start with us in the trenches doing the work, being involved with people?

I'm not saying we should be quiet and not say anything. I'm not saying that there aren't issues where we need to make our voices heard. But, I do think our voices will be better heard and considered if our actions reflect what we're saying. When we're living what we talk about, our voices are ones that people can't ignore as easily.

So, it has to start with our daily lives, with our interactions with people. We start with loving people - all people. We love even those who are living lifestyles that we disagree with. We earn the right to speak about those things, by loving people first.

Where can we make a difference for people as we go about our daily lives?

I believe that if we claim to be Christians, then we need to be involved in these issues, just as Jesus was. And Jesus' example in the gospels is one of loving people and caring for them even when His society saw them as other. We start with the people in our paths and put that love in action as we interact with them.

As I've wrestled with this, I've realized just how important it is that we all begin with the little things. For me, it can become too easy to think I'm off the hook because of where I work. But, nothing could be further from the truth. I may work where this is part of our every day life, but if I'm not living it in all of my life, I'm missing out on what intends for me, and my voice is silenced.

Who are the people on periphery of your everyday life that society, or your upbringing, or your thinking has taught you to see as other?

How can you change you interactions with that person now?

What about Social Justice?

Is social justice part of the gospel?

Should the church care about it?

I've watched with interest over the last few weeks that debate that has begun about the role of social justice and the gospel that we, as the church, should be preaching.

The debate began with a statement from some well-known Christian leaders and scholars saying they didn't believe that social justice was a part of the gospel that the church should be proclaiming. Shortly after this statement was published, other Christian leaders and scholars began to talk about how the gospel is incomplete without social justice (here and here).

There are wise and godly men and women on both sides of this debate. People whose thoughts and writing I turn to when I'm wrestling with an issue myself - to help me think it through and form my thoughts based on Scripture. I've spent time reading the arguments on both sides of the debate. And I went back to Scripture to see what it says.

Ultimately, it's God's Word where my understanding needs to come from. As I was studying Scripture on this topic - Jesus' words and actions while He was walking on this planet and at how the early church lived their faith - I came to what seems to me to be the conclusion that makes the most sense to me.

What we often call social justice today is absolutely a vital part of the gospel. If the gospel we're preaching doesn't include this, or even intentionally ignores it, then we're presenting an incomplete gospel to those we're trying to reach.

If this is true, then the church should be at the forefront of these issues in our society.

Not as a political force.

Not in the same way that our world might tell us social justice should look.

But as the hands and feet of Jesus doing the work.

These days the term social justice can divisive. There's more than one definition people throw around for it. I want to be clear on what I'm saying, so before I go any further, I'm going to explain what I mean when I use it.

For the purposes of the rest of this post, social justice is about being involved in caring for, providing dignity, and providing opportunity for those who are commonly seen as less than in our society - whether because of homelessness, addiction, mental health struggles, poverty,r ace, sexuality, or any other way we separate people into groups. It' snot about taking away from one person or group to give it to another. It's about opportunity and removing barriers for people - through education, support, etc. It's about loving and caring for those in our society who need help.

When I look at Jesus' teaching in Scripture, I see a focus on helping the poor and caring for those seen as less than in His day. Jesus treated every person He encountered with dignity and love - whether lepers (Luke 10:11-19), or the woman who was unclean because she had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5:25-34), or the Samaritian woman at the well (John 4:1-26).

All of these examples are of people Jesus' society would have said He could ignore and treat poorly, but Jesus didn't do that. He gave them His time, His attention, His healing.

In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks this clearly on this:

"Then the righteous will answer him: Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
The King will reply: Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:37-40)

I'm not sure where it could be more clear that we need to be involved in these things.

We also see the early church was involved for caring for the poor among them and in their communities. Wee it described in Acts 4:34-35. In Galatians 2:10, we see a conversation between Paul and the apostles that placed and importance on caring for the poor.

Finally in James 1:27 we have the clearest words on this:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Two things listed that God is looking for in us, and the first is about caring for the poor and defenseless in society.

I see no way around it. Social justice is a vital part of the message of the gospel the church is to be proclaiming to a broken and hurting world. We cannot separate the two.

We may all have different ways we're involved in this based on how God has created us. But, we have no excuse not to get involved.

If you're still reading, I realize I probably stepped on your toes a bit with this. I know studying this stepped on my own toes too. But, I think this is too important an issue to just stay quiet on. Sometimes we need to face the uncomfortable truths we say we believe and see if our actions match them. Whether you agree with me or not, we have to wrestle with this and figure out what it looks like for our lives.