Called to God's Table

          In angst-ridden poetry, thinkers, whose ponderings pour out beautiful verse or angry verse, express their questions, their frustration, and their confusion.  In those questions see this: see a person desperately seeking God.  Even if his language is raw and strewn with bitter, atheistic sentiment, deep down he – the critic, the skeptic - needs what only God can give, and he or she, the poet knows she needs it.

God smiles and invites that person.  “Come, drink.  Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” Thirsty for truth?  Come.  Thirsty for hope.  Come.  Are you literally thirsty because you live where clean water is hard to come by?  Come.  Come to the living waters of God.  Everyone who thirsts, come.

          I saw a man crawling along the sidewalk.  He has some kind of degenerative condition either in his legs or in his back.  His body is contorted in a shape that doesn’t appear human as he uses his hands to drag himself, useless legs and all, up the street.  He’s extremely poor in a country that is, for 95% of the people, extremely poor – Ethiopia.  So for him there is no treatment, no surgery, no physical therapy, no wheelchair.  His condition begins as a pain in the back or legs and then gets worse and worse until his legs no longer work and he has to continue on by dragging himself through the dirt, using his hands as his feet.  He’s poor.

          To him, God says, Come!  Come buy wine and milk.  Come, and without money, eat your fill.  Delight yourself in God’s rich food. 

          Through his prophet Isaiah, God reminds the world that He is a God who calls and invites.  Noah was called to be part of the story when God started over.  Abraham was called to a place he did not know.  Moses was called to face the enemy and lead God’s people to salvation.  Jonah was called to lead the enemy to salvation.  And in Isaiah 55, God calls the thirsty to drink God’s living water and the hungry and starving to feast at God’s table. 

          God calls us – each one of us.

          When I was a college student, I remember receiving invitations from theological seminaries.  We were invited to attend weekend programs with titles like, "Come Explore your Call."

Or, "A Weekend of Discernment."

Or, "What Plans does God have for your Life?"

Nearly every seminary had a program where they recruited college juniors and seniors who studied in religion departments or participated in campus ministries.  The recruitment was based around the question Are you being called into vocational ministry?

          Now, some 25 years later, I have to ask, is it only "vocational ministers" who are called by God?  Is it that someone decides to be a lawyer or a teacher or an accountant, but is called to be a pastor?

          I think all who turn to Jesus are called by God.  I believe God even calls people who have not put their faith in Him.  In Luke 15, it says he seeks the lost.  God goes out of His way to draw those far from Him into His embrace.  Maybe in terms of one’s profession, people wait tables or hammer nails to pay the bills not because God called them into food service or construction.  I am under no illusion that everyone is working in a job to which God called him or her. Sometimes we do jobs because we need to work.  That was my story when I was high school substitute teacher many years ago.

However, all Christians whether pastors, waiters, truck drivers, nurses, or college professors are called by God.  Furthermore, table-waiting or trash collecting can indeed be a call for a season of life even if not for a life time.  Every person who is part of the body of Christ is called by God.  In most jobs, we have the opportunity to live as called persons who give witness to the love of God and the life we have in Jesus’ name.

          At HillSong, we are going to spend five weeks in a church-wide emphasis exploring God’s call on us.  Specifically, we will consider what it means to live our lives as part of a bigger story.  We will look at the story of God and how God calls us to be part of it.  What do our lives look like when we live daily with a sense that God is summoning us?  Who are we as a people and as individuals when we live in God’s calling? 

Each of our small groups will be given thought-provoking questions to include in their prayers times as they engage with what we do on Sundays. 

I described the man I saw in Ethiopia, the one crawling along with a back and legs bent in ways I have never seen.  Can any two people be less alike than me, a healthy, educated, middle class American, and this Ethiopian man who lives in a completely broken body – mangled because no medical care is available to him? We literally and figuratively are worlds apart.  And yet, he and I share this.  The water we both need for life and the food that makes us both rich beyond the dreams of the wealthiest people on earth cannot be earned or acquired but only received from God as a gracious gift.  In Isaiah 55, God declares that He wants to give that gift.  He wants to give both me and that man and also you the living water and the sumptuous food set on Heaven’s table; moreover, he calls us to that table!

God does not silently sit at the crossroads and hand out blessings to whomever happens to stop.  God proactively reaches out and invites.  We are summoned to God’s table.  In fact, in Jesus Christ, the eternal God, steps out of Heaven and into our time-bound world as he takes on himself all the pain of the fall and of sin and death. Jesus coming in the flesh is how God hand delivers the invitation to each of us. 

Two ways we live in our calling and enact the gift of God are the Lord’s Supper and communal meals.  Of the Lord’s Supper, also called the Eucharist, James K.A. Smith says, “it is a normative picture of the justice of the kingdom of God.”[i]  The broken Ethiopian man and you and I and Donald Trump[ii] and any other person we can envision all have an invitation and we each have equal standing.  We each come to God’s table unworthy.  We are not invited because we deserve to be there.  We’re invited because we don’t deserve it.  Jesus died for us while were yet sinners.  The broken bread evokes the reality of his broken body.  The dark juice is his spilt blood – shed for us.  The justice of the kingdom; here, all come because of God’s grace.

Smith also says the Supper constitutes us as an eschatological people.  With that fancy theological verbiage he means we are directional – living toward the end and then toward resurrection.  In the resurrection, the broken man will not be broken.  I will not be a rich American in the present sense, where I am wealthier than most people in the world.  In Christ we are all called to inherit the riches of God.  Participating in the Supper reminds me of where we are going and it reminds me to work for justice while we are on the way there.  In the case of the man I saw on the street, I did not work specifically to empower him other than through my prayer.  But I was in Ethiopia as a part of a HillSong trip to join in an effort to help other people who are materially poor, but relationally filled with abundance. 

At the table the justice of the kingdom sets us all – the crippled man, Trump, the people we visited, you, me – as equals and we all, in Christ, look forward to eternity at God’s table where Isaiah 55 is no longer a prophetic anticipation, but an eternal, literal reality.  We go from working for justice to living in perfect justice in God’s physical presence.  We go from praying for that time when we can eat and drink without cost or limitation to eating and drinking without cost, enough for everyone.  We are called to God’s table and we enact that call by taking communion in worship with other believers.

Another way we enact and anticipate the call of God is by sharing table fellowship; eating together.  After worship today, we’ll have lunch together.  We’ll eat food prepared by us and provided by us.  We each bring something to share.  Is it clear that this is much more than a biological act?  All animals take in food and their bodies convert that food into energy needed for life.  When we sit together, we eat food that has been carefully, lovingly prepared. We sit with old friends and new friends.  We laugh, reminisce, retell old stories and hear other stories for the first time. 

In all this we enact, or “live toward,” the community in which we will spend eternity.  We could reduce the significance of it all by saying, “Well, it was a nice potluck at church this past Sunday.”  That would be a true statement, but also an incomplete one.  The “nice potluck” is a gathering of the people of God in joy.  We don’t come just because it’s the best choice among many options for how to spend a Sunday afternoon.  We come and eat together and join our hearts to each other because we are called to this.

The enactment is also anticipation.  We are called people – called to have lunch together but also called to spend eternity together.  When our bodies and our souls feel things we would describe as “contentment” or “happiness” or “satisfaction,” those words are the best we can do in communicating what is happening.  But those descriptors fall short in portraying the feelings we’ll have when we sit at God’s table in the resurrection.  What we do today in taking communion and then in sharing a meal together whets our appetite for the table God has set for us. 

Smith calls the Lord’s Supper a meal “to go” because it is but a “foretaste of the feast in the Kingdom.”[iii] As persons called to God’s table we spend our lives moving toward God and bringing others with along the way.  Three spiritual practices of answering the call to God’s table are (1) participation in communion with the church, (2) participation in community meals like today’s potluck in a community of brothers and sisters in Christ, and (3) the offer of hospitality to one another and to strangers outside of the worshipping context. 

Two of these spirituals practices can be done within the next hour – the Lord’s Supper and a meal enjoyed together.  The third, hospitality, is one I pray each of us will explore in the week to come.  Hospitality can take countless forms.  Experiment with it.  Discover how you will extend hospitality to another person.  I think you’re called to this. We all are.

And the words of the call come from God through the prophet Isaiah. 

“Everyone who thirsts, come.  You that have no money, come, buy, and eat.”

“Listen carefully and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.”

AMEN

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[i] J.K.A. Smith (2009), Desiring the Kingdom, Baker Academic (Grand Rapids), p. 201.

[ii]This reference specifically to Donald Trump comes as he is most likely to be the Republican nominee for president in the 2016 race.  His polarizing campaign has been viewed by progressives as dangerous as with great bombast he continuously says xenophobic, racist things.  The Republican establishment has gone to great lengths to defeat him, yet he continues to win primaries.  At this point, just mentioning his name in a sermon, especially suggesting that he would sit at a communion table, is enough to raise hackles in the crowd.

[iii] Smith, p.200.

By the Name of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:5-14)

Sunday, April 26, 2015

            Who are we?

            On the trips our church takes to Ethiopia, people from there see our group.  They hear us speak English.  They see us emerge from a guest house that is foreigners.  They watch us buy things designed to be sold to tourists.  They may not know our affiliation or that we are there to work with poor children.  But one thing is clear.  We are Americans.

            I travel back to Roanoke and spend time with old high school friends.  We reminisce about good times we spent as kids and a lot of those memories happened in the home where my parents still live.  Whatever else I am, in those moments, I am of the Tennant family.

            Who are we?

            Heather and I and other pastors gather, and it is clear, we are of HillSong Church.  Sometimes in an ecumenical gathering, I am the Baptist in the group.

            American; Tennant; HillSong; Baptist; who am I?  Who are you?  On what do we stand?  What is it that undergirds who we are, how we think and act, and all that we do? 

            It was a key moment for the apostles John and Peter.  Just before they entered the temple, a handicapped man asked for a hand-out.  He had been disabled from birth.  His entire life’s identity was built upon begging.  On what did he stand?  Nothing.  His role in society, his very identity, was that of one who could not stand and could only survive by the generosity of others. 

            Then Peter said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk.”  In the name of Jesus Christ; and this man who have never walked, stood and jumped and leaped and praised God.  Heather discussed this last week in her sermon from Acts 3.  Right there in the temple, Peter preached an impromptu sermon in which he accused the leaders of killing Jesus (3:15) and then invited them to come to faith (3:19, 26).

            On what do we stand?  What authority authorizes the way we live our lives? 

            The leaders in Jerusalem stood on shaky ground according to Peter.  They heard him clearly affix responsibility for the death of Jesus to them.  They saw clearly that Peter and John healed a man everyone knew – a full-grown adult who have never in his life walked.  They felt the movement of history as the crowds flocked to the disciples to hear them talk about salvation in Jesus.  The leaders in the temple needed to cut this off, before it got away from them. 

            The priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them “much annoyed” says Acts 4:2.  These officials of government and religion did not like the claim that in Jesus we have resurrection – his and ours when we put our trust in him.  No, they did not like any of this.  These officials stood on their own unique understanding of scripture, a perspective that assured them of power. 

            Do we dare confess a faith that upsets the conventions of our time?  Tolerance of all religions, which means saying all religions are okay and basically teach the same thing; this sentiment rules in our time.  Do we dare oppose this by saying Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him? 

An individual person’s individual rights are sacred and not to be threatened in our culture.  We believe in the autonomy of the individual.  At least, that is what we claim to live by.  Do followers of Jesus dare say, no, my rights are not as important fully submitting myself to Jesus as my Lord and my King?

The priests and Sadducees stood on their privilege as leaders.  They expected all in Jerusalem to live by this foundation, so they were furious that the disciples of an already crucified man would continue defying their authority.  But they could not deny what everyone witnessed.  The man with useless legs was now completely healed and jumping around praising God.   

How could they maintain power?  Who were they?  Those in leadership positions in the temple may not have consciously wondered that, but the actions of Peter and John created a crisis for them.  They who understood themselves to be the ones in control now had to face forces beyond their reach.  Verses 14-15 say, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that [these] were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.  When they saw the man who had been cured standing beside them [Peter and John], they [the officials] had nothing to say in opposition.”

All they could do was pose the question.  Their last gasp, their final lurch for control was to name this thing that was happening.  “By what power or by what name did you do this” (4:7)?

On what do we stand? 

What authority authorizes the way we live our lives?

Who are we?  Americans?  Tennants or Asbills, Johnsons or Bakers, Folliards or Sits?  Baptists?  Who or what makes us, drives and defines our actions and attitude, our thoughts, deeds, and words?

All the priests and Sadducees could do was throw the question out into the crowd, into the air, out where all gathered would hear and consider.  All Peter and John could do was give one answer – the only answer they had, the only answer that is true.  “Let it be known that this man is standing in good health by the name of Jesus Christ whom you crucified, whom God raised from the Dead” (4:10).

A few years ago I watched a film produced by an independent Christian film maker.[i]  It was about a couple professors at a Christian college in the late 1800’s.  They were debating morals.  Is it enough to speak and truth and do good works or must our truth and our deed of help and benevolence be done in Jesus’ name.  One professor said as long as good is done; it does not matter if it is in Jesus’ name or simply in the cause of doing what’s right.  His colleague disagreed.  He insisted that unless deeds were done in Jesus’ name, they could not be considered really true or truly good.

The film involves a time machine and caricatures that lack verisimilitude.  I found it silly.  But the debate between these fictional Christian college professors from the 19^th century is fascinating and is timeless.  In any context, we could ask, is a deed good in and of itself?  Simply speaking, yes.  It is good to give food to hungry people.  It is good to provide education to impoverished students so they can develop their minds, reach their potential, get good jobs and climb out of poverty.  These are a few of thousands of examples in which I see non-Christians contributing.  I have seen people who say, “I am not Christian,” contributing to the good of humanity.  Sometimes non-Christians outdo Christ-followers in generosity. 

Yet at a much deeper level, I side with the view that it is not enough to simply do good things.  At some point, after people have been healed, fed, clothed, educated, and given shelter, they gain power.  When they gain power, those who had been holding all of it will feel threatened and a confrontation occurs. 

“By what power or by what name are you doing this?”  The question is inevitable.  When it comes, we need more than groundless claims that love is self-evident and charity is self-evident and compassion is self-evident.  Where do these values come from?  Who are we that we dare stand on these things, and standing on these values, what gives us the gumption to help people? 

Unless we are in Christ, we are speechless.  If we are in Christ, our lives have purpose and we do not lack for words.  His Holy Spirit provides them.  “By what power?”  We answer, “We heal and we feed and we travel and we work and we love and we help in the name of Jesus.  He was crucified by sin, yours and ours.  He was raised by God.”  And we say as Peter said, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under given among human beings by which we might be saved” (4:12). 

I do not say any of this to reject the good things unbelievers do to help people in the world.  We have sponsors who support children in Kombolcha, Ethiopia who are not Christian.  We gladly receive their non-Christian sponsorship dollars and I affirm that what they do is helpful and is good. 

I find here in this story, in Peter’s word when the question is put to him that the intent of the Holy Spirit of God and the driving force in Peter’s actions not only heals crippled men at the temple gate and feeds hungry Ethiopian kids.  The driving force also transforms the giver of the gift.  The temple leaders, the Sadducees, some of the most lettered intellectuals of the day were silenced by uneducated fishermen from backwater Galilee.

How could that be?  Peter and John and everyone who acts in the name of Jesus by the name of Jesus speaks and works with power that is beyond what any human possesses. 

On what do we stand?  We stand on the name of Jesus. 

Who are we?  We are a community of followers of the risen, Jesus Christ, the King.  He is our testimony.  He gives meaning to what we do – transcendent, eternal meaning.  He binds us together as a family with God as our Father.  Under His banner, our acts, both the work in our day-to-day lives and the works we do that are explicitly Christian are part of a greater story – the story of the emergence of God’s eternal kingdom.  This included the work of home, vocation (our jobs), and the work of relationships, family, friendships, acquaintances, neighbors, and unexpected encounters.  In all works in every part of life, He is Lord and we speak, act, and think by His name. 

This week, you and I won’t be dragged before officials who want to know why we performed as miracle healing on a handicapped man who has never walked.  The world is different.  We will have opportunities to help people and do good things.  Right now we as a church body are invited to pray that God would ready us, so when those opportunities come, we’ll respond by His name in His power sharing His love.  Fueled by the Holy Spirit we will not only be inclined to do good and helpful things; we will also be ready to respond to anyone who wonders about us by pointing them to Jesus.

Please join me in silent prayer as we, the church, join our hearts together in asking God to fill us, empower us, and ready us to be His witnesses.

Now please join me in this responsive prayer.

Leader: Lord Jesus.

Congregation: You are the risen one.

Leader: Fill us with the hope and the power of the resurrection

Congregation: Help us to speak and act in Your Name.

Leader: Lead us, Lord Jesus.

Congregation: We commit ourselves to you.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295725/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_9

God Expects Justice

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Isaiah 45:8 (CEV)

⁸ Tell the heavens to send down justice
    like showers of rain.
Prepare the earth for my saving power
to sprout and produce justice
    that I, the Lord, create.^[a]

Isaiah 45:8 (NRSV)

⁸ Shower, O heavens, from above,
    and let the skies rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation may spring up,^[a]
    and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also;
    I the Lord have created it.

          God created the world, the universe, you, me.  A few atheists have sold a lot of books rejecting the existence of God.  By far most scientists, even those who aren’t at all religious would not claim science does away with God or the idea of creation.  That’s not territory covered by scientific research.  Church goers agree that God created everything.  We may debate the mechanisms by which God created, but we can agree God is the creator.

          Anyone who studies the Bible knows God creates intentionally.  God had a vision in Eden.  The culmination of God’s work came in creating one in his image, the human, the woman and the man. 

          God creates.  God creates with a plan.  God sees humans as His greatest creation and the center of his plan.  We know God as Father, Son, and Spirit, three in one.  The trinity exists in relationship as God is relational.  Human to God, human to creation (nature), human to human, and human to society; we live as God intended when we construct our lives around relationships.  We do our everyday work with relationships in mind.  When we live in humility, peace, and most importantly in love, then things are the way God wants them to be. 

          Look around the world.  Are things the way God wants them to be?  In some cases, yes.  Overall, no.  So what does God do?

According to Isaiah in the exile, God makes it rain. 

“Tell the heavens to send down justice like showers of rain.”

“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness.”

Prolific writer and preeminent scholar Walter Breuggemann cites Isaiah 40-55 as the foundational word of God that comes out of the exile.[i]  Any people utterly defeated in battle on their homeland and then dragged to slavery 1000’s of miles away would be overwhelmed and disoriented.  In 586 BC Israel was. 

Israel had, prior to the fall at the hands of Babylon, been guilty of systemic idolatry and systemic injustice.  The wealthy few prospered while the most vulnerable of society suffered.  The prophet Amos and the earlier chapters of Isaiah both take up this point. God’s response to his own people’s generational, systemic disregard of his way was to allow Babylon to rise in power and crush Israel.  The prophet interpreted Israel’s pain as coming not from Babylonian cruelty, but from God’s punishing hand.  Babylon was God’s instrument.

The exiles perceived themselves to be defeated and by extension, their God, the God Abraham had been defeated by Babylon’s gods.  No, Isaiah said.  All the horrors are a result of turning from God.  And, now, the punishment is over.  As bad as things look, God is bringing a new day.

This is Isaiah of the exile.  This is the word from the exile on which all other words from that time stand.  Isaiah comes onto a scene of depression, despair and rage, and into that he speaks hope that transforms and praise that recognizes who God is.

          Brueggemann calls Isaiah’s prophetic poetry ‘invitational.’[ii]  Isaiah calls Israel to a new hope, a hope for a new reality.  The Holy Spirit animates Isaiah’s message as we read it.  In Isaiah we are invited to be washed in the rain God sends.  But what is it exactly that falls on us when we are the rain God sends?

          In two English versions of Isaiah 45:8, we see a word in the original language translated in two different ways, once as ‘righteousness’ and once as ‘justice.’  Which is it?  Is this a matter of one translation being correct and the other wrong?

          Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance says this Hebrew word, ‘tsedeq’ means righteousness.  However, The New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance in a more expanded definition says the word can mean ‘righteousness’ or ‘rightness,’ and it belongs to a family of meanings that includes ‘fairly,’ ‘just cause,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘vindication’ in addition to the definitions already noted. 

          Just as the best way to construct our reality is in terms of relationships – to others, to God, to creation, to human society – the best way to take in these Hebrew words and concepts is in how they relate to other concepts and in how they are lived out.  It is not a matter of a precise definition so much as in the idea lived out relationally in the world as God created it and intends it to be.

          I offer a few other Hebrew terms.  First ‘mishpat.’  This term is used three times in Isaiah 42 and is translated ‘justice.’ One commentator describes is as God’s absolute divine right, true religion as lived out in everyday life.[iii]  Next, ‘Hesed,’ which is God’s loving kindness.  Throughout the Old Testament, God is known by ‘hesed.’  It is this loving kindness that drives God to rescue his people from exile even though their sins of inequality and ill-treatment of the poor, widow and orphan are what got them in trouble in the first place.  And finally, ‘shalom.’  This can mean peace but a fuller meaning is life in which all is in harmony and all is well.  This is life that prospers. 

‘Tsedeq,’ ‘mishpat,’ ‘hesed,’ and ‘shalom;’ in the way these terms play off each other in describing God and God’s expectations for human life, we see justice, mercy, love, peace, and hope. 

Please note, whatever this means for our activity, justice does not come because we work for it.  We should.  We should be advocates for justice.  But it originates with God.  God brings justice.  In Isaiah’ terms, God rains justice down.  Also note, in Isaiah’s day, God did this through human agency, not by way of miracles.  The agent of God’s justice was the Persian emperor, Cyrus.  He led the defeat of Babylon and he freed the exiles to return home.

Some Israelite did not appreciate that God would accomplish God’s purposes with a gentile pagan.  God responded, “Woe to you who strive with your maker, earthen vessels with the potter.  … I made the earth and created humankind upon it; I stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.  I have aroused Cyrus in righteousness and I will make all his paths straight” (45:9, 12-13).  How awful!  Will God do this by way of some Persian who doesn’t even pray?

Today, are we ever opposed to works of justice because we don’t like the people at the microphone?  I don’t know how you feel about Al Sharpton.  As the story of unarmed Michael Brown being shot by Officer Wilson unfolded, the dominant theme was the horrific trend of African Americans being killed by police instead of protected by those commissioned to protect and serve.  Add to that the alarming reality that African Americans are far more likely to be arrested for crimes where whites are likely to get off with no prison time for the same crime.  We have injustice – systemic injustice. 

But, I hear many Christians I talk to say they don’t like Al Sharpton.  I don’t know why he’s the voice at the microphone.  I am not hear to defend or criticize him.  But when a white guy gets community service for a crime and a black guy gets 6 months to a year for the same crime and it happens all the time, that’s injustice.  When there is a trend of unarmed young black males getting shot by white policeme, we have a problem.  When one of those killed is the same age as my 12-year-old white son and he was shot doing the kinds of things my boys does, I get scared.  I have a black son who will be 12 soon.  We who follow the God that insists upon human beings living in peaceful and loving relationships with each other cannot bicker about our distaste for the voice at the microphone. 

This is not about Al Sharpton or Bill O’Reilly or whomever.  Nor is it about recent tension in the United States.  That is one of our current signs of rampant worldwide injustice.  Racial inequality is an example but not the only one.  And it is not even about injustice.  This is about God.  God demands justice as a norm among the people He created. 

In describing the concept of justice in the Old Testament, Brueggemann says that it recognizes that “the well-being of the community requires that social goods and power to some extent be given up by those who have too much for the sake of those who have not enough.”[iv]  The very first Christians did this in sharing resources so everyone in the church could flourish (Acts 2:44-45). 

A core New Testament value is generosity.  The book Philemon takes this to an extreme where the Apostle Paul subverts an accepted first century practice, slavery.  He tells the slaveholder, Philemon, ‘Your man, Onesimus, is no longer your man.  He is God’s.  He was a slave, but now, you, he, and I are all in one family, brothers in Christ.’  Paul did not condemn slavery as an institution in and of itself.  He envisioned something grander.  In Paul’s view everything in life is re-imagined in light of Christ.  When we are in Christ, racism, slavery, poverty – these are all unthinkable.  The God who rains down justice and righteousness, peace and harmony has no place for suffering and hunger and inequality.

So, if we say justice is from God, not a result our works, then where is it and what are we to do?  Where was God when Michael Brown was shot, when Eric Garner strangled?  I read this that the richest 10% of the world’s population owns 87% of the world’s wealth.  Maybe that doesn’t bother you.  When I think of the Old Testament concept of distributive justice and when I think of the core value of generosity in the New Testament and when I hear Jesus saying that when we share with the poorest of these his children we are sharing with him, I am deeply troubled by this reality.  A few people are ridiculously rich and seemingly without concern for the billions who struggle with malnutrition, lack of educational opportunities, and inadequate housing.  Where is God?  Where is the God who rains down justice?

And if justice comes from God, what do we do? 

First remember that our understanding of ideas like justice is in terms of relationship.  We are connected to the orphans in Ethiopia, to the immigrants lacking documentation who are expelled from America, to Michael Brown’s mother.  In God’s view, human beings are connected to one another in relationship.  So, our first action is to see how one person’s pain is an injury to God’s creation. 

Second, as we read Isaiah, and imagine his words of hope as words for us, we remember that God is present in the world today in Spirit – the Holy, and in body – the body of Christ which is the church.  So, yes, justice is a work of God, and God does His work through the people who make up his church.  Our prayer life has to be one that moves from silence before to the action of love and compassion given to women and men. 

This becomes specific when a disciple’s life is full of relationships of compassion that are based in volunteer efforts.  We don’t just sponsor an orphan in Ethiopia.  We write letters.  We send pictures.  We pray for the child by name.  As much as we can we enter the child’s life relationally.  We don’t just volunteer to help build a ramp on someone’s home who cannot afford to hire contractors.  When we go, we talk to that person.  We hear her story.  We are blessed by sitting with her.  We don’t just enter protest movements, walk in marches, or sign petitions.  We befriend people whose lives are different than ours.  We enter their stories and take them into ours. 

We think about injustice relationally, and this includes the complete elimination of “us” and “them” language.

We follow God from prayer to action.  In this our action is always based on relationship more than project completion.

Third, we think of justice with an eye toward human flourishing.  A few years ago, the youth group was in Atlanta helping underprivileged inner city kids improve their reading.  Our partnership with the CBF missionaries there helped a multiple levels but one persistent theme is that if these kids master literacy and comprehension, they will be able to succeed in school.  If they succeed in school, they might be able to get good jobs that enable them to shed the label “underprivileged.”  Instead of surviving, these kids, today called “poor,” having learned love and developed academic skill may be able to thrive professionally and relationally.  The justice and compassion works that fill our lives and connect us to people are carried out with an eye toward human flourishing. 

 We won’t bring justice to world, not even as the body of Christ doing the work of God.  When Jesus was present, the world did not change.  But those around him did.  The world continued to sink in sin, but he was present, offering a new hope, just as Isaiah offered a new hope.  Now, we lived between the resurrection and the final day when God will set everything right.  Now, we are the voice that points the world to God.  We who believe in the resurrection God and the glorified future he promises are “unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.”

Justice will always be a dominant theme in the prophet’s words and a defining characteristic of the church.

AMEN

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[i] Brueggemann (1978), The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.70.

[ii] Brueggemann (1997), Cadences of Home: Preaching among Exiles, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p. 46

[iii] K. Keil (1890) in Commontary on the Old Testament in 10 Volumes, translated by James Martin (reprinted 1973), William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids), p.175.

[iv] Brueggemann (1997), Theology of the Old Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.737.

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[i] Brueggemann (1978), The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.70.

[ii] Brueggemann (1997), Cadences of Home: Preaching among Exiles, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p. 46

[iii] K. Keil (1890) in Commontary on the Old Testament in 10 Volumes, translated by James Martin (reprinted 1973), William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids), p.175.

[iv] Brueggemann (1997), Theology of the Old Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.737.

A Trip to Ethiopia

Presentation of Kombolcha, Ethiopia Mission Trip

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, May 20, 2012

(1)        LEAD UP TO THE TRIP

In December 2009 my wife Candy Tennant and a dozen others traveled to Ethiopia and visited “care points” run by Children’s Hope Chest.  One of those sites was Grace Baptist Church in the city of Kombolcha. 

In March 2010, Peter Abera, an Ethiopian man from Kombolcha visited here and told his story to HillSong Church. He was born Ethiopian Orthodox, a form of Christianity and the most prominent faith in Ethiopia.  During the famine, he worked at a World Vision feeding center run out of Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  There, he accepted Jesus as his Savior.  I am not suggesting the Orthodox Church does not preach the Gospel.  But Peter did not learn to be a Jesus follower in the Orthodox Church.  He didn’t come to Christ until he was mentored by a World Vision worker who shared both food and the Gospel. 

Word traveled to Peter’s father who came to the Grace Baptist Church with a gun, intent on killing his son for leaving Ethiopian Orthodoxy.  Peter was terrified, but the man who had discipled told him to go into the building.  That man brought out a table and poured some coffee. 

Peter’s father set his gun on the table. The man who himself had grown up Muslim and then turned to Jesus at Grace Baptist Church, explained the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Peter’s Father listened.  His heart softened.  They called Peter.  His father put the gun away and embraced his son.

These events took place in the 1990’s.  Peter toured the United States in 2010.  One of his stops was here, HillSong Church.  He shared his story, which I just told.  That day, we invited people to support Grace Baptist Church by supporting the Children’s Hope Chest Care Point there. 

Support is rendered by sponsoring a child.  You send $34/month and you begin a relationship with a child who is educated at the school run by Grace Baptist.  The child gets a uniform, school supplies, and a meal every day.  Some of these kids live with their parents who are extremely sick.  Some have lost one parent and live with the surviving parent; these kids are called single orphans.  Some children lost both parents and live with a relative or guardian.  These are double orphans.  Whether the child is a single orphan, a double orphan, or a kid whose parents are alive but very poor, their needs are tremendous.  We have poverty in America, but in most cases, even our poor would be relatively well off compared to the poor in Kombolcha.

When Peter spoke at HillSong, people signed up to be sponsors.  Today, there are over 160 children in the program at Grace Baptist Church and about 90 are sponsored.  Over 40% of those sponsors come from HillSong church. 

What if we went to visit these kids?  What if we did that every year?

(2) WHAT WE DID

       In 2011, Candy and I went to Ethiopia to adopt our daughter M__.  While there, we went to Kombolcha, an 8-hour bus ride from the capital city, Addis Ababa.  We saw children who have great potential but are shackled by poverty.  The kids embraced us and loved us.  All we did was pass out care packages and take pictures.  And give hugs.  Lots of hugs. 

       I met with the leaders because I wanted HillSong to visit but only if that would be a good thing for them.  Maybe hosting a bunch of Americans would put an unneeded burden on them.  They assured me that a visit would be most welcome. 

      

When Candy and I returned to the United States, we began planning.  There was enthusiasm for the trip here at HillSong.  I imagined us as a church visiting Kombolcha every year.  That’s still my vision, but now that we have been on the firs trip, the vision is expanding. 

       Last year, May to November, many at HillSong attended the initial meetings.  Then, the interest waned.  Conflicting schedules, health, family obligations and other things got in the way.  For various reasons, autumn was passing and we had me and Sara Timmons and Laura Driggers.  Candy has also advertised the trip to sponsors outside our church, and they began signing up.  Soon, we had a team of 15, people from Michigan, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina.

We began preparing through conference calls.  I asked team members to share their Christian testimonies, on the calls.  In addition to that time of sharing, we planned our Bible camp.  Essentially what we would do in Ethiopia is go to the Grace Baptist Church every day and put on a 3-hour Bible camp for some of the kids in the morning.   The camp consisted of Bible lesson, arts/crafts, recreation/parachute games, and the distribution of care packages.  We also had several donations to pass out – balls, backpacks, water bottles, etc.  And, each day, we fed the kids a snack.  We’d take one group through in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

       As our team took shape, I thought, “This is not what I had in mind.”  I envisioned a HillSong team.  This team was a collection from all over with only three HillSong members.  But God was in it.  I was affirmed in the calling that yes, we were to go to Ethiopia.  At the same time, God showed me it wouldn’t look exactly as I thought. 

The time for the trip was getting closer, and I got a phone call.  “Rob, I need to come and talk to you.”  That usually means something is wrong, which is OK.  Christians walk with each other in life when something is wrong.   “Rob, I need to come and talk.”  Heidi Soden called and said those words, but it was because deep inside her, something was very right.  Even though all the deadlines had passed, she felt compelled by God to go on this trip. So, she came to see if there was any way.  I called the organization handling the logistics of our trip, the One Child Campaign.  Thy made it happen.  Our team of 15 was now 16, four from HillSong. 

Then March 21^st came – the day of our departure.  I learned that Sara Timmons can sleep anywhere – plane, floor of the airport, uncomfortable, crowded van.  Because she can do this, she is rested.  When the team is groggy and tired, she is awake, smiling.  We were working with 160 kids who speak Amharic.  A bright smile goes a long way.

I learned that nothing seems to faze Heidi.  She handles it all – the travel, the jetlag, the moments of scheduling uncertainty – she handles it with grace.  And she steps right in to any situation.

I learned that it is important to have a physician like Laura on the trip.  I also learned if you sit next to her for 13 hours on a plane, you won’t get bored.  She is extremely committed to Jesus and she is a conversationalist. 

We all learned that the Ethiopian airlines feeds a lot of meals and when it is meal time, they wake you up no matter how much your seatmate urges them to let you sleep.  Every time poor Laura would talk herself tired and drift off to sleep, they’d come with more food.  I would say, “Just let her sleep.”  Ignoring me, the flight attendant would shake her and say, “Chicken or fish.”  Half the time, I think she was so tired she wasn’t sure what she ordered even after she ate it.

I learned (again) what a fantastic my wife is.  With M__ only being with us 10 months, it wasn’t right for Candy to leave for 9 days.  But the entire time we were in Ethiopia, her fingerprints were all over the trip.  She was the conference calls in on all the planning. 

Here’s an example.  At the guest house, when we checked in, I was given a cell-phone.  Then I looked at the rather detailed notes Candy had put in a folder for me.  It said, “When you get to the guest house, a woman named Mercy will give you a cell phone.”  I looked at the woman and said, “Um, is your name, Mercy?”  She smiled and said, “Uh huh.”  I thought to myself, “I better read this folder carefully, every day.”  And, by the way, four members of the team used that phone to call back home throughout the week.

Our team was truly brought together by God.  We had a teenager, a nurse, a waitress, two pastors, a physician assistant, a school principle, a special ed teacher, a university professor, an office manager, a groundskeeper, and five stay-at-home moms.  There are super-Christians or sophisticated world-class travelers.  Some are over 50 years old, and one is 14.  Some are have a lot of formal education.  Some do blue-collar work.  One team member is a diabetic and she did fine.  One is a vegetarian, a vegan in fact, and she had some food challenges, but also did fine.  Look at these people.  YOU can sponsor a child and you can go on one of these trips.  You can be spectacularly used by God just by making yourself available. 

       At the Bible camp, the kids loved the games and the care packages.  They threw themselves into the crafts time.  They listened and participated when I taught the Bible lesson.  As we did our camp, in the distance, over a loud speaker, we would hear the Muslim call to prayer.  Many Muslims live in Kombolcha.  Among the children and within the Grace Baptist Church Family, some come to Jesus from a Muslim background.

      

(3) WHY

       This trip is about telling Jesus’ salvation, sharing basic needs of food and education and love with extremely poor children, and establishing relationships with those kids and the adults who care for them daily.  With the sounds of Islam filling the air, we told these kids that Jesus is God come in the flesh to take the sins of the world.  We went to Ethiopia to share this, to meet material needs, and to love the children in person.

       The most emotional portion of the trip for most of us came when we got to visit the homes of the children we sponsor.   We got to see 3^rd world poverty up close.  This wasn’t a CNN report.  With our bags of gifts –fruit, coffee, sugar – we went and visited the children.  The child Candy and I sponsor lives with 5 others in a home that’s not bigger than my office here at the church. 

       There is a reality about who Jesus is and some of us cannot see that reality until we step out of our familiar surroundings and into another world.  We go to help the kids yes, but also because we need to.  In order for us to become who Jesus is calling us to be, we need to go.

(4) WHAT’S NEXT

       Next year’s trip is March 9-18.  That corresponds with UNC’s spring break.  MY hope is that we double or triple the number of HillSong people who go.  I’d love to see five from the Encounter small group on next year’s trip.  Already, 17 people have signed up.  I now know this trip is God’s, not Hillsong’s.   The people in Ethiopia were so enthused with our time with them, they are eager for us to come back.  They cried when we left, and we did too – a lot.  Many have already signed up to go back. 

I am convinced God is calling Hillsong to be part of this. I urge you to pray and ask God if you are being called to sponsor or to go. 

(5) LONG-TERM

       I see this as the beginning of a long-term relationship:  HillSong Church, Children’s Hope Chest, Once Child (the organization handling logistics), and Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  In 2013, our Bible camp there will be during UNC’s spring break March 9-18. 

       We might plan other 2013 trips to Kombolcha.  I am exploring the possibility of a medical team going in the Fall. 

(6) WHY IT MATTERS (TO YOU) (ON MAY 20, 2012 IN CHAPEL HILL)

       What does this mean here, now?  We invite you to be part it.  Sign up now, so we can begin preparing.  See Candy or me if you’d like to go.  All you need to is be available.  Teachers, waitresses, maintenance workers, nurses have all gone – these aren’t extraordinarily wealthy folks.  They are folks who hear God’s call, trust in his help, and sacrifice things so they can go where He is at work.  Teens, people over 50, diabetics – all are happy they went and plan to go back.  You can do this too. 

       Or, maybe you’re called somewhere else.  Laura Shrewsbury goes to Ukraine nearly every year where she is a part of a Bible camp for Gypsy children.  Uganda, South Africa, Haiti – we have people who have been or are going to these places.  There is the potential for a future trip to the Dominican Republic. 

       Maybe you are called locally.  Jonathan has the youth on mission every summer.  It’s home repair work and has been done in downtown Roanoke and on an Indian reservation.  We have numerous ministries right here in Carrboro-Chapel Hill and right in our own church.  Personally, I want everyone to go to Ethiopia.  But more than that, for the sake of your growth in Christ, I want you – every one of us – to answer God’s call to step out of comfortable places and into uncertain places where trusting Him is essential.  We don’t live in Faith until we truly give up control. 

INVITATION

       As we move into a time of prayer, singing, and invitation, let this also be a time of considering.  God is calling you, maybe to Ethiopia.  Maybe to something else.  As we sing during this time, I invite to come to the front and pray, asking God where He is calling you.  Or come and ask God, if you already have an idea, to clarify the call on your life.  This isn’t only for young people.  This isn’t only for travelers or people with a certain skill set.  God has a call on every life here.  I am asking today that all of us come and kneel and pray and ask God to reveal the call, clarify the call, and solidify the call.  Maybe coming to the front to pray is not what you usually do.  Maybe that’s the first step in being willing to say to God, “I’ll do as you command.  As the worship team leads, come and pray and ask God to show you the way to the live of service in Jesus’ name he is preparing for you.  Come.