I had the opportunity to write a gospel “tract” for our church’s first neighborhood Christmas Tree lighting. The theme of our party was taken from Dr. Suess’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, of whom it was said after his heart change, “Maybe Christmas means a little more.” Taking the idea of Christmas meaning more, I wrote this…

“It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags…What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more…” – Dr. Suess

The more of Christmas is more than a season.
It’s more than a wish, a thought or a reason.
The more that is more is more than a feeling,
it’s rooted in hope, a promise so appealing.

The more of Christmas is a promise kept,
a promise to undo what sin and death left,
a promise so strong, a love even stronger,
left death without sting, a power no longer.

The more of Christmas is a person not a thing,
a flesh and blood Son who brought into being,
a love so intense, a love so divine,
a love that would enter your heart and mine,

The more of Christmas is a gift freely given,
a cross into which three nails were driven,
a life for a life was the gift received,
for all who would trust in Christ and believe,

The more of Christmas is your heart to give,
to the one who saves and bids you live.

Something that was likely true for you as a kid as well as your own kids is that kids tend to be somewhat possessive of their toys…even when they’re not all that interested in them. It’s ironic that most of the squabbles my kids have over their toys is not when they’re playing with them, but when someone else is playing with them. Unfortunately, that possessiveness continues on into teenage years and even adulthood. However, I have found that this changed somewhat when I got married. I soon realized that what was mine was Denise’s and vice versa. And when we had kids, I realized that nothing was mine anymore.

And while that may be true with stuff, it is even more true for us over things like our calendar, our work, even ourmoney. It is easy for us to think of my calendar, my work, or my money as if they belonged to us. 

One of the areas that I constantly need help with is that transition from work to home. When I make that transition, all I want to do is to be with my family. I don’t want to get into a conversation with my neighbor, or I don’t want to have to talk on the phone with anyone. I have put in my hours in at work and I deserve to do whatever I please. That’s a terrible thing to admit, but it’s true. When it comes right down to it, I get just plain selfish with my time. Why? Because I believe that my time or my calendar or my money is mine to do with as I please. I am the one who gets to decide what I’m going to do and who I’m going to do it with.

How do you think God feels about that mindset? Yeah, I don’t think He’s a big fan of that. In fact, His word is crystal clear. Over and over again, especially in the New Testament, God declares that we, you and me, belong to him. Paul tells Christians in 1 Corinthians 6 that our bodies belong to the Lord because He has bought us with a price. In 1 Corinthians 12, he tells us that we belong to the church when he talks about the different parts of the body of Christ. There is nothing in our life that belongs to us. It all belongs to him.

Show of hands…how many of you like to be interrupted, especially if you’re doing something that requires quiet or concentration. Since I can’t see you, I’m going to assume that you don’t. In fact, no one likes interruptions. We don’t like them because we’re no longer in control of our time or our calendar. Someone has made a claim on our time.

It reminds me of the parable of the Good Samaritan. And while the point of the parable is to answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” it is also instructive for thinking about who who owns my time.  Both priests that passed by saw helping this half-dead fellow as an interruption to their schedule. There were services to hold, sacrifice to make, festivals to plan. Additionally, if the man were dead, handling his body would have caused them to become unclean. They would have been unable to perform their jobs. 

For the Samaritan to be a good neighbor, he had to interrupt his schedule. In Luke 10:33, we read, “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” It’s not like the Samaritan was roadside assistance looking to help folks in trouble. He was on his way, just like the priests. But he was willing to be interrupted to answer God’s call to serve and help.

I need to see that the interruptions to my plans and lives are actually God’s plan for my life.  The interruptions we experience are not detours around God’s plan for our life. They’re actually bridges connecting us to His plans. While these interruptions catch us by surprise, they don’t catch God by surprise.  In fact, he is behind them. He has ordained them to come to pass that we might know more of Him.

So as you think about your time, your house, your work and your money, remember who they belong to. Second, when God brings an interruption into your life, don’t despise it. See how the Lord may have brought it into your life not because they need you, but because you need them.

Growing up in church, one of the hymns we often sang was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” We sang it so much that I memorized the lyrics. Even now, I still remember those familiar words…Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

Little did I know that these weren’t just poetic words we were singing, they were Scripture. But where in the Bible did these words originate? As a younger man, I decided to find out. How surprised I was to find out that they were taken from the book of Lamentations. I don’t think I had ever read Lamentations at that point in my life. Honestly, it sounded like a pretty depressing book. Plus it was in the prophetical section of the Old Testament and I generally stayed away from those.

But there they were, right there in the middle of Lamentations 3, verses 22 and 23. The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. As I began to read through Lamentations, and then eventually Jeremiah, for context, I saw how appropriate, and how powerful those words were.

You see, the two-kingdom nation of Israel has been decimated. The Assyrians had long since destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and scattered its people among their empire. The Babylonians had more recently obliterated the southern kingdom of Judah and those they hadn’t killed, they carted off to Babylon. And yet even before that happened, Jeremiah’s own people had abused and persecuted him mercilessly. For years they had harassed him as he prophesied the pending judgment of God for their rebellion and waywardness.

Jeremiah, who has been referred to as the weeping prophet, had good reason to weep. As he laments the pain, the heartache and the abandonment he experienced as a prophet at the hands of his own people, he also grieves the heavy-handedness of the Lord who did not relieve that burden when he asked. He did not answer Jeremiah’s prayers the way Jeremiah wanted him to. It seemed that He had a different purpose for that pain.

As Jeremiah wrestled with his afflictions and wanderings, as his soul was bowed low by the burdens he was carrying, He remembered what is true about the Lord and that truth gave him hope in the midst of his affliction.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

God’s steadfast love, his covenant faithfulness and mercy never end. We are never cut off from them. Kroger may run out of toilet paper, Walmart may run out of hand sanitizer, but God’s steadfast love and mercy never run out. There is a never-ending supply. Each and every morning there is a new supply to sustain us by and to refresh our souls. And unlike Kroger or Walmart where you have to get there first thing in the morning to get toilet paper or hand sanitizer or you’re out of luck, God’s supply of mercy lasts throughout the day and night in plentiful supply. You won’t run out.

In times like this, it’s good to have someone like Jeremiah articulate the sense of loss and grief we are all experiencing. While it’s certainly of a different nature than Jeremiah’s, we still feel that sense of loss and oppression from the coronavirus.

And yet through it all, let us come to the same place that Jeremiah does. That place where we realize that the Lord is our portion and therefore we have hope both now and forevermore, Amen.

Heavenly father, how we thank you for your never-ending mercies that are in new supply every morning. We need them far more than we could ever realize. Remind us over and over again of this mercy when our souls wander and are afflicted. May we find hope in you as our portion. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are you looking for a new Bible reading plan as you start the new year?  The good folks at HeReadsTruth.com and SheReadsTruth.com have provided just such a plan.  Each plan varies in length depending on the subject matter.  Often the current plan is a book of the Bible, like Matthew (the current plan right now) or a theme of the bible, like hospitality.  The plans range from 2 weeks to 6 weeks, and the current plan is always free.  They even have a read through the Bible in a year plan as well.  If you download the app (He Version and She Version), you can access previous plans for only 1.99.  You can also buy hard copies of each of the studies from their website.

Each day, the plan offers a devotional reading that accompanies the sections of Scripture to be read on that day.  Of the devotionals I have read, they are well-written and wonderfully illustrative.  This is my go to for daily Bible reading, and if you’re looking for a daily reading plan, I would encourage you to check them out.

Grace + Peace!

     

Advent marks the coming arrival of the Lord Jesus.  We need Advent.  We need time and space to wrap our minds and hearts around the incarnation.  That God became man…he became human…he became touchable and vulnerable.  He did that so that we might experience peace. That we might know it and treasure it.  He came to heal the deep wounds of our alienation from God caused by original sin and our own sin.

However, we often settle for an easy healing.  We do that by minimizing our sin-sickness or denying that such a sin-sickness exists at all.  The false prophets in Jeremiah’s day were guilty of leading the people to just such an error.  God exposes this error, for “they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14) God declares that this is the worst kind of spiritual malpractice.  To declare peace, to declare healing, when there is still conflict and sickness is fraudulent. It is monstrous and merciless.  Such a “healing” not only fails to heal but creates deeper wounds and scars.

Jesus, on the other hand, not only came to declare peace, he became our peace.  The Apostle Paul writes of his work of peace in Ephesians 2:14-16:

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The peace Jesus purchased on the cross for us came because we were at enmity with God first and with one another second.  Jesus removed the offense of our sin on the cross, thus reconciling us back to God (the root cause of our lack of peace).  The effect of that peace with God brings about peace in the body of Christ.  God has removed the division our sin has caused to make us one people.

While Jesus has paid the penalty of our sin and broken sin’s power in our life, the Holy Spirit continually applies Christ’s saving work so that we might know and experience His peace.  And yet, the presence of sin remains and will until Christ returns again.  Only then will we know and fully experience the peace of God.  Only then will the absence of conflict be felt.  Only then will the universal flourishing of God’s shalom be known.

And so as we celebrate the first Advent, we live in a second Advent as we wait for Jesus to come again.

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21:3-4

I love when glimpses of heaven break into our daily experience.  They are often rare and subtle, making them easy to miss, easy to ignore.  One of those experiences happened in our family the other night.  It happened in such an unlikely way.

Our family rented the American Girl movie, Grace, from the Library, as my daughter, Anna Sloan, loves American Girl dolls, books and movies.  We snuggled up on our couch outside and watched it on a beautiful fall evening next to a fire.  It was an idyllic setting.

The movie was heartwarming and filled with many redemptive themes, like selflessness, sacrifice, and forgiveness.  At the end of the movie, my son, Jackson, who is tender-hearted, started crying.  That’s not all that unusual as he cried at the end of Charlotte’s Web.  As a matter of fact, we all were crying after watching that movie!  But he wasn’t crying because something sad happened at the end of this movie.  He cried because something happy happened.  All of the conflicts and climaxes in the story gave way to this marvelous resolution.  It was that hoped-for resolution that caused the floodgates to open.

It caught us a little off-guard and so we asked him why he was crying.  Through his sobs, he said over and over, “I’m so happy, I’m so happy.”  Jackson was happy sad.  In that nine year old body, his eternal soul recognized the beauty of redemption.  He couldn’t articulate it with words, but he could express it with emotion.  It was a sacred moment for Denise and I.  Watching him be happy sad, was like watching that strange phenomenon of the sun shining while it’s raining.  We all need to be reminded that the steady rain of conflict and suffering in this world will eventually give way, will eventually be swallowed up by the brightness of the Son.  We need to be daily reminded that, “Behold [God] is making [right now in eternity] all things new.”

Jesus promises us that the new life He is bringing will not be burdened by trouble.  There won’t be any reason for us to cry…no death to mourn, no pain to endure.  They have all been swallowed up by the victory, Christ our Savior, won on the cross.  We know it in our hearts and one day will know it in reality.

And yet I wonder…

Will there be any happy tears in heaven?  Will we experience tears of joy as we behold the beauty of Christ, the full radiance of his glory?  Will our hearts be overcome at the sound of his name as it is proclaimed by the heavenly host?  As we cry out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty,” will that cry include tears of joy?

God wipes away tears that are associated with trouble, sadness and grief, but does he wipe away tears that are associated with joy, beauty and glory?  On the one hand, tears of joy, seems reasonable knowing that we will receive glorified (perfected) bodies, which includes emotions, when Christ returns again.  On the other hand, tears, even tears of joy, seem to be a response to some kind of brokenness.  Tears of joy over a starry night come because we’ve seen far too many cloudy nights.  Tears of joy over seeing the Rocky Mountains come because we’ve been in the lowlands for far too long.

Based on what we read in Revelations 21, it seems that all kinds of tears will end when Christ returns.  All the more reason to be happy sad while we wait on His coming.  I pray that I will have the same awareness and tenderness to the happy sad moments in this earthly life that Jackson had.  I continue to be thankful for all the ways my children remind me of the priceless value of child-like faith.

“…I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Matthew 25:35b

One of the things that fills me with joy is my son’s desire to welcome people.  Jackson has “never met a stranger.”  He has a welcoming heart and is unafraid of reaching out to the stranger.  I wish I could take credit for that, but he didn’t get that from me or from Denise.  It is just part of his wonderful God-given personality…has been for several years.

And yet, I’d be lying if I said that his welcoming personality doesn’t worry me at times.  Conversations about “stranger danger” seem to go in one ear and out the other with him.  He is blissfully ignorant of the fallenness of this world.

The truth is, I really don’t want him to be afraid of strangers.  I don’t want to create anxiety that everyone he meets could try to harm him.  It pains me to condition my kids to fear strangers because there are some who could hurt them.

I sometimes wonder if that kind of conditioning doesn’t carry over into adulthood.  That we can somehow become oblivious to the stranger.  It’s not that we’re afraid of them, we just don’t “see” them. We get so absorbed in our own world that there is no room to welcome the stranger.  There is no margin, no time.

And yet as Jesus fleshes out the implications of living life in His kingdom in Matthew 25, he doesn’t give qualifications.  He doesn’t limit welcoming the stranger to those who have margin in their schedule or who have the gift of hospitality.  It’s not something we do for spiritual extra credit. It’s something that all Christians are to do.

Furthermore, He says that to welcome the stranger is to welcome me.  Jesus is saying that to welcome the stranger is not to welcome them for me.  It is to welcome me as if I was the stranger.

So who is the stranger that Jesus is talking about?  What does he mean by that term?  The Greek word for stranger here is xenos.  It can also be translated, foreigner.  Our English word, xenophobia, which is the intense or irrational fear of foreigners, comes from that Greek root.  A stranger is someone who has moved into a new town or neighborhood or school or job and they lack relational connection.  They likely don’t know the particular culture of the community they’ve moved into.  They are very much on the outside looking in.

The truth is, we have all been strangers at one time or another.  We were the ones on the outside looking in…the ones without the relational connections we once enjoyed before.  We were strangers, adrift in an unfamiliar sea looking for a friendly port to dock our life in.

And then someone (hopefully) welcomed us.  They invited us in.  They helped us make connections. They helped us understand the new culture we were entering into.  Our discomfort began to ease and we felt more connected and comfortable in our new community.

And yet we aren’t just physical strangers who need one another’s welcome.  We are also spiritual strangers, who need Christ’s welcome. During our worship service at Rivermont EPC, we have what we call, the Fellowship of the Peace of Christ.  It’s a minute where we intentionally stop and welcome one another in Christ’s name.  This practice in informed by the Apostle Paul’s command in Romans 15:7 to, “welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.”

What does it mean that “Christ has welcomed us?”  It first must mean that we were strangers.  We were strangers to things of God. But it’s more than that.  We we were estranged from God.  We were cut off from God’s presence because of our sin.  We were outsiders.

But God did not leave us as strangers.  He sent Jesus Christ to welcome us out of the misery, separation and condemnation our sin produced.  Make no mistake, His was a costly welcome…one that required Jesus to become a stranger himself by taking the punishment our sins deserved upon the cross.  He took on our estrangement, which was reflected in his cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” so that we would never know estrangement again…so that we would forever know God’s welcome.

We welcome the stranger because we have been welcomed by Christ…welcomed into his family as an adopted son or daughter.  Who needs to receive that same welcome from you this week?

What does it mean to be made in God’s image?  That was the question I was confronted with as I visited the Hogar Padre Vito Guarato (Father Vito Guarato Home) just outside San Salvador.

I was in San Salvador to visit my friend Humberto Alfarez, who directs Sports Outreach in El Salvador, as well as get a better understanding of his ministry there.  Humberto is an amazing man and servant of the Lord.  He is a relationally-rich man.  People love being around him.  They are drawn to his love for the Lord and his love for them.  That was on full display when we arrived at the Guarato Home.

The Father Vito Guarato Home is an orphanage where more than 120 children, teens and adults with severe mental and physical handicaps are loved and cared for by a team of doctors, nurses and 100 or so aides.

The orphanage is an oasis carved out of the rugged mountains. A beautiful sanctuary acts as a physical and spiritual hub for the compound.  All of the other buildings radiate out from the sanctuary like spokes on a wheel.  After a brief tour of the compound, we gathered in the sanctuary for their daily mass.  The front was lined with wheel chairs for the physically disabled while those with mental disabilities sat in chairs next to our team.

Amidst the cacophony of sounds from these worshippers, I was struck that even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I knew that God did.  He has “ears to hear” the worship of his children, whether it is intelligible or not. I was deeply touched by what I witnessed and experienced.

After the service, our team and the residents gathered under a shelter for snack time.  This was my first chance to really interact with these residents.  I was paired with a gentlemen who was on a liquid diet because of his condition.  My instructions were simple.  Help him drink the bottle.  That’s it.

It turns out that he wanted to drink it himself.  I wanted to oblige him, but I had been instructed not to let him do it.  It became this tug-of-war that ended with him wearing about half of the liquid on his shirt.  Fail!

Up until that happened, I had just felt uncomfortable being there.  Now I felt helpless…even useless.  I couldn’t even do the simplest of things.  How ironic.  I felt emotionally what they daily experienced physically and mentally.  I, who was fully able, found myself disabled and powerless.  It reminded me of something Henri Nouwen observed when he went to live in a L’Arche community in Toronto.  He captured it in his book, In The Name of Jesus.  He wrote…

“the first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then.  Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction.  My considerable ecumenical experience proved even less valuable.  When I offered some meat to one of the assistants during dinner, one of the handicapped men said to me, “Don’t give him meat.  He doesn’t eat meat. He’s a Presbyterian.”  Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety…these people forced me to let go of my relevant self—the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things—and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.”

I felt that keenly.  I felt wrecked by it.

Furthermore, what did it mean to be made in God’s image?  It surely doesn’t mean health and wholeness.  It doesn’t mean accomplishments.  Here before me were children, teenagers and adults whose bodies and minds were broken beyond repair.  Yet, they smiled. They laughed.  They loved.  They had an endless joy that was contagious.  Is it possible that they embodied child-like faith in God more than I did? It sure felt that way.  Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 18:2-4.  “And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” I think if there had been a disabled child or adult present, he might have said the same thing about them.  The greatest in the kingdom won’t be the highest degreed person or the most accomplished person, it will be the humble man, woman and child who know their neediness and look to Jesus alone to save them, to heal them and to restore them.

I wonder if that feeling of helplessness and powerlessness I experienced isn’t the kind of humility we are to come to Jesus with.  To readily and eagerly admit our utter dependence upon his grace and mercy to do anything. Anything!  To see that our value to God isn’t our physical or emotional or mental wholeness.  It’s not even our spiritual wholeness that makes us valuable to God.  It’s just the opposite.  It’s our brokenness that attracts God to us.  It’s our weaknesses that prompts God’s pursuit of us.  Praise God for his faithful and relentless pursuit to make us His children.  May I possess such child-like faith that would lead to maturity in Christ.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. James 1:19 (NRSV)

Why do I often get this backward?  Why is it that I am so slow to listen, yet quick to speak and quick to anger?  I see this play out in all of my relationships – whether it’s with Denise, my kids, my co-workers or my neighbor.  I have a hard time obeying this command.  But why?  Where does this urge to speak first and listen last come from?  James says that we can trace the answer back to our heart.  It is rooted in a need to be right, to feel in control of our lives.

If being right or feeling in control of my life is what I’m living for, then I will seek to control people. I will control them with my words (quick to speak) and my emotions (quick to anger).  I will do whatever it takes (except listen) to get people to see and accept my point of view.

This was on display in Charlottesville last week as we were reminded that racism is not a thing of the past but very much a thing of the present.  There was a lot of quick speaking and quick anger (even leading to deadly violence), but not much listening.

And yet while that was taking place in Charlottesville, a group of 125 men, women and children from different racial, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds gathered for a picnic at the Hunton Randolph Community Center, itself a monument to the racism of the past, as it served as the black YMCA in Lynchburg.  This monthly picnic is an outreach of No Walls Ministry, of which I am privileged to serve on the Board.  No Walls Ministry exists to help churches cross cultures to engage in racial reconciliation while working together for poverty alleviation in all its forms (spiritual, financial, emotional, et. al.).

This ministry is shaped and empowered by the gospel of God’s grace in Christ.  Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14, “For [Christ Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.”  Through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, he has made peace not only with God, but with one another.  The dividing wall of hostility towards our sin has been removed.

And yet as we bring churches from different cultures together, there is a great deal of past hurt and pain that must be dealt with before we can experience the fruit of reconciliation.  I have observed three elements that must be present in any reconciliation attempt, especially for whites churches (majority culture) engaging black churches (minority culture), which is our cultural milieu in Lynchburg.

The first thing we must do is to listen.  We do well to listen to the perspectives of our black brothers and sisters…perspectives about their culture as well as the white culture.  As a majority culture, we are often ignorant of our own culture and how we are seen by minority cultures.  One of the questions that Denise asks her Diversity Class at Liberty University is, “What does it mean to be white?”  The question usually makes the white students uncomfortable and unsure how to answer while the non-white students have ready answers.

I remember traveling to Honduras to spend a week with one of the missionaries a former church supported.  He was working with young boys he had helped get off the streets of Tegucigalpa.  He had established a home for the boys where he and his staff loved them, fed them, clothed them and educated them all in the name of Jesus.  One day, we were sitting in one of the classes and the missionary asked the boys about their perspective of the US.  I was shocked to hear some of their negative perceptions.  Living in the US, it is easy to think that we are God’s gift to the world. Yet there are those who have a different experience.  I certainly wouldn’t have known that had I not listened to their perspective.

We must also take the time to listen to the story of our black brothers and sisters. To listen to their history.  We must be willing to hear all the ways that we, and those who have come before us, have injured, mistreated and devalued them and their culture.  Listening to their stories and their perspectives shows that we care and helps pave the way toward reconciliation.

Secondly, as we listen to their story and their history, it is appropriate for us to lament.  To lament the ways our black brothers and sisters have been injured, mistreated and devalued.  To lament the horror of slavery that took men and women made in the image of God, descended from Adam and Eve, being treated as property.  As chattel.  To lament the horror of the mistreatment of Native Americans, whose culture was destroyed in an attempt to Christianize them.  We grieve the injustices that have been perpetrated against them as painful as it may be to us.

How readily the psalmists remind us of the need and call to lament over the injustice of this world…the violation of shalom caused by sin.  Sin done to us and by us.  Sins done to people groups and by people groups. We lament the brokenness of our humanity and the ways we offend God by our treatment of others.  We lament the societal and systemic injustices of the past and the present.

There is yet a third and final element to embrace as we walk down the path of reconciliation.  We must learn from those in minority cultures.  To sit at the feet of our black brothers and sisters and learn from them.  To look to them as guides, and even mentors.

Serving on the Board of No Walls Ministry has put me in the path of godly and mature men and women from non-white cultures.  They are not only friends but mentors to me, exposing me to aspects of their culture I knew nothing about.  They are teaching me about gratitude.  They are teaching me about hospitality.  They are teaching me about community.  They have helped me understand how to help those who are poor without hurting them.  I don’t know where I would be without them.

If you’re serious about racial reconciliation, I encourage you to find someone from another culture – African, Hispanic, Asian – and listen to their story and their perspectives.  Lament with them over the injustices they have faced at the hands of our majority culture.  Learn from them as they teach you not only about their culture but your culture as well.

In doing so, may we be quick to listen, quick to lament and quick to learn.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

If you’d like to explore this further, I will be co-teaching a class at Rivermont Pres. on Wednesday nights this Fall with Julius Thomas and SharDavia Walker, two black members of our church who work with college students through Campus Outreach.  We are teaching a class on cultural intelligence using Soong Chan Rah’s book, Many Colors, that will help us better understand our own culture while pushing us to consider the Biblical call to unity in Christ.  Hope you can join us.

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26

I’ve become a frequent shopper at our local Goodwill.  There are several reasons for that. For one, I have a lot more buying power at Goodwill than at Brooks Brothers or Vineyard Vines.  That’s been a huge blessing after my weight loss earlier this year.  Secondly, I like supporting the mission of Goodwill in helping the unemployable become employable.  But perhaps the most fun reason is this.  I like to hunt for a good bargain.  It’s somewhat addictive.  I like finding a gently worn Brooks Brother shirt and paying $3.79 at Goodwill versus paying $100 or more for a new shirt at a Brooks Brothers store.  To me, that’s a great value.

I don’t know if it’s my age or stage in life, but the subject of value keeps coming up.  Specifically, the question I’ve been wrestling with is “what does it mean to be valuable?”  What does it mean to be valuable to God and his kingdom…to my wife and my children…to my friends and family…to my neighbors and my city?

When we say something’s a good value, what do we mean?  How do we measure value?  From an economic standpoint, we measure value by comparing the cost of an item to the enjoyment received from it.  If our enjoyment is equal to or greater than the cost, we label that purchase a good value.  On the other hand, if the cost of buying/owning something outweighs the enjoyment, it’s a bad value.

On occasion, I have missed a stain or a tear on a shirt or pants from Goodwill.  When I see the stain or the tear at home, I immediately feel like I wasted my $3.79.  Though I paid very little for the shirt or pants, I receive no enjoyment because I can’t wear them.  That’s a bad value (Thankfully, they let you exchange it for another item!).

How do we measure value in the Christian life? What makes us valuable before God?   Stop and finish this sentence.  I am valuable to God because ___________________.  What did you put in the blank?

There is a real temptation to think our value to God comes by what we do.  It’s easy to think my value comes from the kind of work I do, or the kind of husband and father I am, or the obedience and sacrifice I am able to give God.  I am valuable to God because of what I can add to the kingdom.  But is that right?  Is that really where our value comes from?

In God’s upside-down economy, our value to Him is measured not by what we bring to him but what He has given to us.  Our value comes from the one who spent everything to make you and me His child.   It is our identification and union with Christ that makes us valuable before God.  I’m so grateful for that truth because apart from Christ I’m a lousy deal. I am riddled with all kinds of stains and tears (wayward thoughts, careless speech, and a rebellious heart).  It’s not that God was blind to those stains and tears.  In fact, it was those stains and tears that actually drew Him to me.  It’s what made me the deal of a (eternal) lifetime.

If we’re honest, we can say that there are times when we feel like we got a bad deal from God.  We wonder just how valuable we are in the midst of our pain and heartache.  We hear Jesus’ question, “Are you not of more value than they (the birds)?”, and shrug our shoulders.  “Am I that valuable that he would let this happen to me?” You may feel like a remaindered book that has been banished to the $1.99 book bin.  You may feel undervalued and thus unwanted.

Yet Jesus would show us in Matthew 6 that if God can take care of birds who neither  grow or store their own food, then he can take care of the crown of His creation who have been redeemed by Christ.  After all, it is Christ’s death and resurrection that are the proof that we are valuable in God’s sight.  This is the deal, and it’s a good one!