acceptance

Jul

2024

Called to be alongside of others

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

by David Sellnow

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_Tech_University,_Student_Union.jpg

In my early years of ministry, I led weekly Bible studies on campus for a student group at a large public university in Texas. Anybody was welcome to attend. One who began coming regularly was Linda, who was somewhat older than the traditional college-age students in the group. After attending for a couple of months, asking many questions herself and listening to the discussions I led with the group, Linda approached me after one of the evening sessions. She told me, “I’ve decided you’re not a cult leader.” “I’m glad to hear that!” I said. Linda explained she had spent over ten years of her life stuck in a thought-controlling cult. After getting out and getting reoriented, she became a cult interventionist, helping extricate others from similar situations. The religious body that was the parent church for our student organization had a reputation for fixed doctrines that everyone agreed to. That had been a red flag for Linda, and she had decided to investigate our group. Thankfully, I had passed the test and was not a cult leader. I wasn’t mind-controlling anyone or causing spiritual damage. We were digging in Scripture together and sharing thoughts openly and equally.

Sadly, there are religious leaders and religious organizations that dominate in ways that are abusive and harmful. Much research has been done into complex post-traumatic stress disorder, including religious trauma, when religious systems harm rather than help. It happens when individuals are made to feel fearful and trapped and depressed and lose who they are. They experience an erosion of their individual personality. They are compelled to conform themselves to the dictates and decisions and rules of the group (CPTSD Foundation).

Not all stern, unbending churches are inflicting religious trauma in the formal sense of the term. But they may be ignoring the hurts and hopes and needs of many who are looking for good news and instead find mostly restrictions and legalisms.

I knew a young woman whose pastor preached that any and all forms of birth control were wrong. The young woman’s fiance had the same, unyielding view. As he and she talked about marriage, he insisted they should have as many babies as they could. Any attempts to limit that he saw as sin. The young woman was terrified, wondering if her body and mind and emotions could handle so much. Her pastor and her fiance were overemphasizing one thought in Scripture, that a man who has many children has been given a great blessing (cf. Psalm 127:3-5). They meanwhile were ignoring another Bible imperative, that husbands are to show consideration and concern for their wives and honor their needs of body, mind and spirit (cf. 1 Peter 3:7).

I knew young men and women who were training for roles in ministry in the church, who would not talk about internal struggles they had. If they had doubts or questions about any particular spiritual teachings, they were afraid to express them. If they experienced any mental health challenges, such as feeling anxious or depressed, they did not dare admit these things out loud. The church culture that surrounded them made them feel that any admission of weakness would disqualify them from ministry. They feared being dismissed from pre-ministry training because they weren’t good enough, weren’t strong enough, weren’t perfect enough to be pastors or teachers. Somehow they were forgetting the stories of all the human faith leaders we see in Scripture. Scripture openly shows the flaws and shortcomings of Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and others whom God called into leadership. Good leaders lead through God’s strength, not their own (cf. Philippians 4:13). We don’t lead—and we are not disciples—because we are perfect people.

Religious groups and religious leaders can lose that understanding and that humility. They can begin to view themselves as having a rightness that’s righter than others, a betterness that’s better than others. They overlook their own failings and inconsistencies and judge persons who don’t adhere to their rules as out of line, as less than, as falling short.

These are the kinds of things that the LORD spoke against, through Jeremiah, saying, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! … You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them” (Jeremiah 23:1,2).

In One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins,” Emmy Kegler points us to Jesus’ parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). She says, “The thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves. They can’t roll away on their own. Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful; whoever was in charge was wasteful with them. Coins get lost because they lose their shine, because dirt and rust cling to them, and without careful attention, they turn a color indistinguishable from dust and mess.” Lost and dismayed and scattered souls are often in that condition because persons charged with responsibility in faith and religion have not kept their focus on God’s grace, have not maintained mercy in their preaching and their practice. As a result, people are cast aside—or they pull away because they are afraid, because they feel shamed and judged, because they are not led forward in hope and joy.

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob5d/16730007506

Do we do things in our own ministries and dealings with people that make others feel less than, as not properly in line? Are we more concerned about holding onto our own traditions than we are about welcoming others who have different backgrounds and different perspectives? Do we think of the church as our church, as if it belongs to us and anybody coming to us needs to fit in with our expectations and think the way we think? Do we put signs outside our churches and banners on our websites saying, “All are welcome,” but if folks come who aren’t the kind of people we were expecting to join us, make them feel unwelcome?

Back in the early days of the Christian church, the members who had been part of the Jewish traditions of faith did not easily adjust to having Gentiles joining the faith. The new Gentile Christians did not share the cultural context of Judaism, and often were made to feel like second-class citizens. The apostle Paul, who had described himself as the most enthusiastic proponent there could be of the Jewish faith (cf. Philippians 3:4-6), addressed that problem. In the church in Antioch (in Syria), he even confronted the Apostle Peter for going along with the standoffish behavior that Jewish Christians there were showing over against Gentile believers (cf. Galatians 2:11-21). In his letter to Gentile Christians in the Greek city of Ephesus, Paul reassured them that they were fully equal members of the church. He wrote to them, “You were [once] without Christ … aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. … But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall between us. … You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:12-14,19). Paul also strongly made this point: Christ “has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace …. Through Christ all of us have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:15,17-18). Jesus had fulfilled God’s laws for all of us. So laws and rules of the Jewish community were not to create a barrier to Gentile persons finding a spiritual home in the church. The church was not to have rules that made people change who they were in order to belong.

Nearly two thousand years have gone by since Paul wrote those words to Gentile Christians in what was then primarily a Jewish church. Today, do we Gentile Christians, with a long history and tradition in our practices of faith, need to hear the lesson Paul was teaching to Jewish traditionalists back in his day? Have we become so used to the church fabric and makeup as it has been that we don’t (or won’t) open our eyes to new people and new possibilities for the church in our own time? Do we truly welcome everyone, as Jesus welcomed everyone? Or are we sometimes too focused on ourselves to be full of caring and compassion for others?

Think of the ministry of Jesus. He labored with all his energy to reach out to every soul in need. At one time, when he and his disciples were exhausted from their work and had not even had time to eat, he said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). They decided to cross Lake Kinneret, but the crowds hurried on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them (Mark 6:32-33). What did Jesus do as he went ashore? He saw the great crowd (over five thousand people), “and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). Tired as he was, he took the time to teach them, delivering words of comfort and hope. And along with his teaching, Jesus then also did a miracle of mercy, providing a meal of bread and fish for that whole crowd, more than they could even eat (cf. Mark 6:35-44). We’re told of the general pattern of Jesus’ ministry that “wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed” (Mark 6:53-56).

We are called by Jesus to carry on ministry in the same spirit as his ministry. Do you remember the woman who had been suffering for twelve years from hemorrhages, who said she just hoped to touch Jesus’ clothes and his power would heal her (Mark 5:25-34)? Do you remember the Syrophoenician woman, from outside of the children of Israel, who came to Jesus for help for her daughter, and said to him, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). People of all sorts and all needs reach out for love and acceptance and hope and help. They may not even be consciously reaching out toward the church. But they may be reaching out to you, if you are in their circle of acquaintance. Don’t look down on them. Don’t turn away from them—any of them, no matter who they are or what they are. Reach out to take their hand. Reach out to put an arm around their shoulder. Reach out as an ally to them, as an advocate for them, as a friend and partner. If I may use a Greek word, be a “paraclete” to them. That’s a word that Jesus used when he promised to send us his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “ I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete [Παράκλeτοß], to be with you forever. … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (John 14:16,17). The Greek word parakletos, literally translated, means one who is called to the side of another. Jesus has been that for us. God’s Spirit has been that for us. We are called to be that for one another, for our neighbors, for our friends, for strangers, for enemies, for everyone.

We are not a cult, trying to control others and make them follow us without question and without thinking. We will not be like the shepherds Jeremiah described, who scatter and drive souls away in fear and trauma, rather than attending to them with care. We hope to be the sort of shepherds the LORD said he would raise up, providing a witness to God’s love and an embodiment of his grace, so that those whom we reach “shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing” (Jeremiah 23:4). We will not demand people fabricate their own righteousness; rather we will point to the Savior God raised up in Jesus, whose very name by which he is called means: “The LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). We are the church, established by Jesus, being “built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:22)—and for all of his people. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10). Christ, in his mercy, has called us alongside him that we might call others alongside us. We proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). Let us be that light, in Christ, to all of our neighbors, near and far.

For a related devotional thought, see this post on The Electric Gospel: https://theelectricgospel.com/the-house-of-disposable-souls/

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Mar

2023

A creed for personal confidence

For those who may struggle with low self-worth and pressure themselves into perfectionism

This past week’s podcast episode of Cafeteria Christian was entitled, “Giving Up Perfectionism for Lent.” The thoughts shared there reminded me of many ministry students I worked with over the years. This was something I wrote for them.

– David Sellnow

Confidence anchored in Christ

I am a child of God. I have a Father who has lavished me with his love and calls me his very own. I need not worry about what anyone in the world thinks of me, because I am already and always a child of God. And what I will become in my future with Christ is even greater than I can imagine. (1 John 3:1-2)

I am a worthwhile person. I have talents and abilities that are uniquely my own. I don’t need to try to be as this as someone else or as that as someone else. Each person has their own gifts to use, their own role to play. I simply will accept who I am and the character and gifts God has given to me. I won’t worry about what I’m not or what I haven’t yet become. I will walk in the Lord and with the Lord, and he will lead me to surmount whatever challenges I face. (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12)

Image credit: Ridwan Jaafar on Flickr

I am a human being. I know that I fall short of glory in so many ways, but that hasn’t stopped God from loving me or redeeming me. I do not have to achieve perfection as a person. Indeed, I need to admit that I can’t achieve perfection, even in small things. I will stop trying to chase perfection in one thing after another, because such a pursuit only wears me out in body and soul. Instead, casting all my anxieties on the Lord, bringing him all my weariness and burdens, I know he will care for me. I will find rest for my soul. (Romans 3:23-24, 1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 11:28)

I can conquer all things through Christ, who loves me. I can do all things through him who gives me strength. I may be weak and frail in myself, but Christ’s grace is sufficient for me. His power is made perfect in my weakness. The only perfection I need is his. No task, no challenge, no hardship, no criticism, no pain or pressure of any kind will ever be able to separate me from the love that God has for me or the love that my friends in God have for me. So I can love myself. I will love myself. In Jesus I am loved and lovable. In Jesus I am strong and capable. In Jesus I am alive and life is livable. (Romans 8:37-39, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 12:9)

I am human. I am imperfect. That will always be the case, as long as I walk on this earth. But I will walk tall and grow strong, because my Lord and his love go with me. No one—not even I myself by my own insecurities—will be able to stand in my way, because my God will never leave me nor forsake me. (Joshua 1:5-9)

I am loved. I am a child of God. I need not be discouraged or afraid.

A version of this article was published in 2014 in Forward in Christ magazine.

Aug

2022

Humility = Service (part 1)

Thinking of others, not just of ourselves

The thoughts for this post and another that will follow next week stem from readings for Pentecost 12, August 28, 2022: Proverbs 25:6-7, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, and Luke 14:1, 7-14.

If you are familiar with the TV show, The Price is Right, you know the call to bidder’s row: “Come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Price is Right!” What would you think if someone barged down the aisle, uninvited, and insisted, “No, I am the next contestant; I should have been the first contestant; I should always be first in line”?

A more everyday example: I was driving recently on a section of city freeway that was under construction. For several miles, the right lane was marked “exit only” for each upcoming exit, causing congestion in the remaining lanes. In spite of that warning, in between each ramp, some drivers would speed down the right lane, then cut back into traffic at the last minute, not exiting.

That sort of behavior gets us mad. But let’s be honest. Isn’t such behavior something we all exhibit quite often? Are we always considerate, patient, humble, kind, looking out for others’ well-being? Or do we do our own end-arounds, trying to bypass others, putting ourselves ahead even if it means leaving others behind?

Too often, a lack of humility shows up in our hearts and lives. Let me describe some scenarios. You’ll recognize what I describe–but don’t be too quick to point a finger at some neighbor or relative or coworker. Think first of ways that these descriptions also might apply to things you feel or say or do.

There’s a group of people at a meeting. Everyone’s input is important, because everyone is affected by the decisions made. But Mya Myview thinks her viewpoint is the most important. Everyone else must eventually agree with her, or she’s not happy. She speaks up first. She speaks up loudest. She interrupts and contradicts others when they offer their thoughts. When the decision doesn’t go her way, she storms out of the room. Mya much needs a healthy dose of humility.
Bob Bossy isn’t the boss, but he acts like he is. At work, he hovers over his colleagues and tells them how they should do their jobs. At home, on any project he works on with his wife, he’s going to control the planning and the process. He’ll tell her exactly what to do and how to do it–although most of the time she has as much know-how as he does, sometimes more. But he has to feel like he’s in charge. Bob can’t be humble; he’s too busy being bossy.
Sophie Selfie knows, she just knows, she’s the most talented person on the planet. At her high school, she expects to have a solo at every choir concert. She assumes she should get the lead role in the school play. She posts videos of herself online all the time, showing off her singing, her theatrics, her tips for hair and makeup and wardrobe that are all just perfect. She’s offended and angry that her number of followers on social media isn’t growing as fast as she deserves. Sophie Selfie thinks humility is for lesser people than herself.
Roger Rightly is certain he is right with God, certain his religious studies have made him an expert on all that is true. He’s certain that others must practice religion just as he does if they want to have God’s blessing. He writes letters to the editor of the local newspaper, condemning the immorality of those who don’t live up to his standards. If someone that he deems unworthy visits his church—maybe with clothing or piercings or jewelry he thinks inappropriate, or not matching his mindset as to what families should look like or how gender norms should be—Roger makes sure they feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. His mission is to make the world line up with the lines he has drawn around religion and belief and behavior. Roger Rightly lacks mercy and doesn’t understand humility.

Likely you could share other examples–about people you’ve known …. or confessions from your own life. Humility is not natural to our spirits. One way sin has affected all our spirits is how self-absorbed and self-indulgent and self-promoting we all can be. We think highly of ourselves. We look down on others. We prioritize our own desires. We neglect others’ needs, sometimes even trample on others.

Thank God we have a Savior who didn’t think of his own place in the universe first, but put us ahead of himself. “Christ Jesus … though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:5-9). It is because Christ was willing to humble himself on our behalf that we have life, we have hope, we have salvation. And Christ calls us to follow him on the path of humility. Christian faith asks of us: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

God’s proverb says: “Do not put yourself forward … or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble” (Proverbs 25:6-7). Rather than pushing and promoting ourselves, we do well to serve others diligently and humbly. When we do, then we may be called upon to take up roles of leadership or positions of responsibility. As Jesus emphasized, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). The leaders Christ seeks have hearts like servants. “The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves” (Luke 22:26, cf. also Matthew 23:1-12).

When we practice humility, we engage in service to others. Rather than thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought, we “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3). We recognize that within the body of Christ, each of us has individual gifts and abilities (cf. Romans 12:4-8). As “good stewards of the manifold grace of God,” we will “serve one another with whatever gift each of [us] has received” (1 Peter 4:10).

Humility means not pushing others around, but lending a helping hand. Humility means not insisting on my way, but listening to the thoughts and concerns of others. Humility means no inflated views of how good or right I think I am compared to others, but recognizing that only by the grace of God I am who I am (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 15:10). When we have that perspective, we will go forward in a path of service to others, knowing that we are what God “has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10).

************

To be continued …

Next time: Acknowledging our ability to be of service to others

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

May

2022

Love for all, good news for all

A message for the 5th Sunday of Easter

“Love for All, Good News for All”

Readings to consider: Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35

All along, God had made his mission clear. While God had chosen the nation of Israel to carry his promise until the promised Messiah came, his promise always was for everyone. All people were to be told his good news and welcomed into God’s family through faith, hope, and love. God described, through the prophet Isaiah, that it was too small a thing for the Messiah to be just for tribes of Jacob, the people of Israel. Rather, the Savior would be given as “a light to the nations,” for God’s salvation to “reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). God’s people in Christ never have been defined on the basis of the blood running through their veins, but rather on faith in the promises of Christ that lives in their hearts.

The earliest group of New Testament believers—the church that had gathered around Jesus’ message in Judea and Galilee—was a Jewish church. As they shared the message of Jesus–how he had fulfilled all the long-awaited promises—their natural tendency was to share the message with other Jews, people like themselves. But the Lord showed Peter, one of the key leaders of the early church, that they needed to expand their vision.

Peter’s vision by Domenico Fetti (1619)

God gave Peter a profound experience in a vision, then brought Peter to the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, to see faith in action there. Peter said to Cornelius and those with him, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. … All the prophets testify about [Christ] that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:34,35.43). Peter witnessed a strong outpouring of God’s Spirit on the members of that Gentile household. They were people so different from Peter and his colleagues culturally, but they were united by faith as one in the name of Jesus.

If those early Jewish Christians, so deeply rooted in their unique customs and traditions, could begin reaching outside of their cultural community to people very much unlike themselves … what does that say to churches like ours today? We are people who have had the gospel for a long time, who have been blessed richly in our faith community. But have we been a bit slow, a bit reluctant, a bit hesitant, about speaking of salvation outside of our comfort zone, outside of the rather narrow circles in which our paths usually run?

Think about the vision God gave Peter–a vision of all kinds of animals for food that would be unthinkable for a Jewish person observing a kosher diet. The vision was about much more than cultural diet laws, though. Peter came to understand God’s essential point–“What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 11:9)–meant that we should not call any person profane or unclean (cf. Acts 10:28). Do we tend to think of some persons as unclean, unsuitable, unwelcome alongside us in God’s family? Do we look at people whose ways are different from ours, or whose background is different from ours, or whose lifestyle is different from ours, and completely overlook them as souls with whom to share God’s love and hope and truth?

God wants us to reach out more boldly, more widely with his good news—not just to people like ourselves, but also to people dramatically different from us. Otherwise we are putting limits on the love of Jesus. When Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34), he wasn’t telling us to love only those already inside our fellowship within the church. Jesus’ call to “have love for one another” (John 13:35) encompasses every other person around us, every fellow human being. Jesus emphasized, as one of the greatest commandments: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). And do you recall how a religious lawyer tried to wriggle away from that responsibility by saying, “And who is my neighbor” (Luke 10:29)? Jesus responded with the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35), referring to a people group that Jewish lawyer detested and would have gone out of his way to avoid. Jesus made quite clear that someone who shows mercy to his fellow human beings–every fellow human being–is the one fulfilling the law of love as a true “neighbor” (cf. Luke 10:37, Romans 13:8-10).

Allow me to share a couple of examples that illustrate how we can be too inclined to limit ourselves and our outreach with the gospel.

A number of years ago, I did a ministry internship in one of America’s largest cities. The congregations of the metro area were planning expansion, looking at locations for planting additional churches. I was assigned to do demographic research, to find out which portions of the urban sprawl were projected for population expansion. This would give cues about where future church work might be warranted. I didn’t really know the city yet; to me, the research was simply a matter of maps and statistics. The area I suggested deserved immediate attention, because of swelling numbers of residents, turned out to be a section of slums. Others on the planning committee looked at me incredulously. “Put a church where?” Their pattern had been to put churches in the suburbs, in affluent neighborhoods, so that the ministry efforts could be paid for by offerings from the people who came. The mission planners asked, “How could we afford to start a ministry where the people had no money to support it?” That seemed to go against the spirit of what sharing God’s grace and goodness is meant to look like.* Yes, as we bring others to the gospel, we will urge them to become supporters of gospel ministry themselves. But when the apostle Paul was doing outreach and starting new churches, he made a point not to accept money from people. As he put it, he and his missionary colleagues did not want to put any “an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12). A policy of doing outreach only where it seemed the efforts could be financially self-supporting was a form of structural discrimination, neglecting poorer populations who needed gospel love as much as anyone. Such a policy risks Jesus saying to us, “Just as you did not help the least of these who are members of my family, you did not help me” (cf. Matthew 25:40,45). Rather than viewing prospective audiences for the gospel from a worldly point of view, we are called to be “ambassadors for Christ” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-20), reaching out to all persons, without making distinctions.

Or another story.** A church had just had summertime Vacation Bible School (VBS). One young mother had brought her two boys to VBS. She also babysat another boy who lived in the same apartment complex. She had asked that boy’s mother if she could bring him to the VBS too, and so she did.

That little boy, who was 5 years old, enjoyed VBS so much that he went home and told his mother, “I want to go to school there all the time!” [The church had a Lutheran elementary school, starting with kindergarten.] So the boy’s mother asked about enrolling him for the fall.

The boy’s mother—we’ll call her Sally—was a working mom. Her profession was the oldest one around, as they say. She had made her living as a prostitute; had made enough, in fact, to buy the business from … well, we’ll call him the ‘previous owner.’ So now Sally was the proprietor or “madam” for a number of “working girls.”

The church had a policy that any parents who wished to enroll children in its school needed to enroll themselves in a Bible study course. Sally agreed with that; she said she’d be glad to take the Bible course if they could work it around her schedule. So, at the next meeting of the congregation’s board of education, the pastor and the ministry intern brought forward the recommendation for Sally’s son to be enrolled in the school … and told them what the woman did for a living.

The school board members panicked. They erupted with questions:

“Pastor, do you really want us to enroll this child in our school?”
“Are you sure the mother actually will take the Bible classes?”
“What effect will this child’s presence in our school have on the other children?”
“Won’t this cause worries for other parents?”
“How can we expect support at home with Bible homework or principles of Christian living when the mother’s life is so at odds with our church’s moral principles?”

The members of that church’s school board were faithful, believing Christians. But their gut reaction was not from an attitude of new life in Christ. The pastor reminded them of how Jesus’ own ministry reached out to prostitutes and other public sinners. Still, though, they struggled to get past their aversions. Each of us typically has the same aversions. Our thought process is something like, “Well, yes, I know prostitutes and drug addicts and alcoholics and ex-convicts all need to hear the gospel … but do they have to do it in our church?”

Eventually, the Christian love in the hearts of the members of that church committee rose to the occasion. They talked about the spiritual welfare of the child and how it was unthinkable to turn him away from the gospel he so loved when he heard it at VBS. They talked about a mother who, in spite of her personal history, was willing to listen to Bible teaching—and about trusting the dynamic power of the gospel’s teaching. So Sally’s son was enrolled in school, and Sally was enrolled in a Bible information class. Long story short, not only was Sally’s son nurtured in the good news of Jesus, but also Sally herself was brought to faith and made changes in her life.

May our attitude as Christians be inspired by the goodness the Lord has shown to us. May we be big-hearted and open-armed and opportunistic when it comes to declaring the praises of him who has called us “out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). May we not be content declaring God’s name only to persons with whom we feel a sort of safeness, people who look like us or act like us or come from the same sort of background as us. May we be bold to extend our hands and express our beliefs also to those very different from ourselves—whether that means different racial or ethnic backgrounds, or different religious backgrounds, or different moral backgrounds. Because, in the end, as human beings, we all came from the same background of needing God in our lives. We ought not think of ourselves as somehow better than others, somehow more deserving than others, somehow more inherently righteous than others. We all do well to say, in a paraphrase of St. Paul, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9-10). Or, to quote Paul directly from one of his epistles, “There is no distinction [between us], since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [and] are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24).

That is the message we seek to share, across every human barrier that exists. God’s love is for all. Christ’s good news is for all. We will share that love and good news with all. May God give us eagerness and energy to extend his grace and support the spread of his Word to everyone everywhere.

Prayer: “Lord speak to us, that we may speak in living echoes of your tone. As you have sought, so let us seek your straying children, lost and lone” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 676:1). Amen.

*This story was previously published in Faith Lives in Our Actions by David Sellnow, available on Amazon.com.

**A version of this story, expanded from the actual events, was included in the book, The Lord Cares for Me, by David Sellnow, available on Amazon.com.

Feb

2022

Why church?

I initially sketched out the thoughts of this post as a conversation starter for a church committee. I’ve reworked the thoughts for sharing here. Feel free to join the conversation here via comments, or to share with others if you find the thoughts useful.

********

Why church?

Our mutual need for spiritual encouragement

Attendance at church services was dropping year by year before COVID happened. Getting people back into church settings after pandemic lockdowns added further challenges. When anyone can access anything they want online, including spiritual videos and writings, who needs church?

We do need church … although not necessarily in the sense of buildings we meet in. Martin Luther reminded us that a building “should not be called a church except for the single reason that the group of people assembles there.” Those who gather give the house of worship the name “church” by virtue of their assembly (Large Catechism: Apostles Creed). We gather in order to connect with each other and with the Lord, to keep “encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:25). The first Christians (in the first century) didn’t have church buildings to meet in. They gathered in each other’s homes. They met wherever they could meet, knowing that holding onto hope and living in love wasn’t easy (cf. Hebrews 10:23-24). Like those first century believers, we still need community with each other and communion with God. As another writer on this blog has attested: “The benefit of having a close community with your church is immeasurable–a family of believers who all look out for one another in love, support each other in faith, and build each other up” (The Electric Gospel, 6/13/2014).

Image credit: Liturgy.co.nz

As Christians, we want to share the life and fellowship that we have with others. We invite others to join us in church–to be included in our prayers, in our songs, in listening to words from God together with us. At the same time, we seek to extend Christ’s message outside the church walls too, in every form of outreach available to us. Technology has been a blessing, allowing us to connect with persons near and far through blogs, emails, videoconferencing and live streaming. Where the ancient church used letters (“epistles”), disseminated from congregation to congregation, we rely on the information technologies of our time to stay in touch. If you’re reading this as someone outside the church, and you’re not yet comfortable stepping inside a church, by all means explore, browse, stream, investigate from where you are. Look for ministries that convey Christ’s love and welcome for all people. Listen for the warmth of Christ that says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I pray you will find a gospel-focused ministry in your area that could become a church home for you.

I’ve known plenty of people who have been uneasy about churches and ministries, as they had been deeply hurt by religious institutions and individuals. There are now institutes and studies examining religious trauma, which usually stems from struggles within an authoritarian religion or religious group, and then persons begin to “question the true extent of what they’ve been taught to believe” (Apricity Behavioral Health, 2020). There are podcasts, such as Cafeteria Christian, for listeners who want a connection to Jesus but have been disillusioned by the actions of many professed Christians. It’s understandable for non-churchgoers to be skeptical of the church. It’s imperative for those of us who are churchgoers to show our neighbors that they truly are welcome in our community. The church is to be a place for mutual spiritual uplifting, a place where Jesus guides how we treat one another: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). When someone is in need of encouragement and seeks spiritual guidance (whether by attendance at church or accessing ministries online), we want them to know they have a friend in Jesus–and in us.

Let people come together–inside the church and through the extended outreach of the church–in ways that provide mutual spiritual encouragement in the spirit of the Savior.

********

Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
has broken ev’ry barrier down;
now to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

– “Just As I Am,” Charlotte Elliott (1835)

Jan

2022

Hidden in Plain Sight

The Quiet Power of God’s Presence

Thoughts for Epiphany (January 6) and for the Baptism of our Lord (Sunday after Epiphany)
David Sellnow

They say that heaven is 10 zillion light years away
But if there is a God, we need him now
“Where is your God”
That’s what my friends ask me
And I say it’s taken him so long
‘Cause we’ve got so far to come

-Stevie Wonder, “Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away,” Fulfillingness’ First Finale (Tamla, 1974)

Some of you might recognize those lyrics from a Stevie Wonder song from 1974. It was the case then–and remains the case always–that human eyes look for evidence of God’s presence in big, obvious ways. We think that if our lives are overflowing with an abundance of wealth and good health, that’s when God is with us. When times are hard, we assume we’ve been abandoned and God isn’t there. There are problems with this point of view. For one thing, having riches and success rarely indicates how close to God a person is. In fact, many powerful, successful persons often achieve such glories by godlessness–not by prioritizing kindness and walking humbly in the ways of God (cf. Micah 6:8). Another thing: The testimony of Scripture shows that God never abandons those who trust in his name, and he is especially with us in the experiences that challenge our faith in him.

Think of Job, who lost all his wealth and lost loved ones and cried out wondering where God was. God knew everything and was, in fact, striving to connect Job’s heart even closer to his own.
Think of the parables Jesus told. It was not the well-to-do Pharisee who was right with God as he bragged proudly of how much he’d done. The social pariah, the tax collector, who prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 9:13)–that’s who Jesus said was exalted in God’s eyes.
It was not the rich man “dressed in purple and fine linen … who feasted sumptuously every day” that ascended into heaven on the day he died (Luke 18:19-31). The beggar who sat in the street outside the rich man’s home, whose only friends were stray dogs that licked his open sores–that’s the person Jesus said was blessed.

When we look at the world through our usual human perspective, we don’t see God in action in the obvious ways we want to see.

The way we see things and the way things really often are out of alignment. As we go about our lives, we focus on physical, material, tangible things that can easily be measured. We are not attuned to sensing spiritual realities–the ways that in God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Psychologists have noticed something called “inattentional blindness” in how we interpret the world. Rather than noticing each detail around us, we tend to concentrate on the things most important to us. We see things in the context of existing mental frameworks that we have adopted (Kendra Cherry, “Inattentional Blindness in Psychology, VeryWellMind, 5/4/2020). If you’ll allow me to apply that principle in a broader way, our earthbound primary focus notices the flow of what’s happening outwardly in our lives, and we miss many details of what God is doing in and through and underneath those events. While “no one has ever seen God” (John 1:18), the hand of God is evident in things that can be seen. “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). But we tend not to look past outward appearances, and so we miss seeing important truths. “Focusing our attention on one thing can cause us to overlook another” even if the other is right in front of us. (Daniel Nevers, “A Brief History of Hiding in Plain Sight, Mills College Art Museum, 2019). That’s how we tend to be with the manifestations of God that are given to us. God shows himself, but human beings mostly fail to pay attention to these evidences of God. Spiritual realities escape our notice, hidden in plain sight all around us.

Think about the ways God made himself known when Jesus Christ came into our world. There were clear manifestations of the miracle of redemption God was bringing about, but most people’s attention was aimed in other directions. When God chooses to make his presence seen and known, he often does so in what seem like insignificant ways.

When Jesus was born, he arrived in one of the world’s least significant places, the little town of Bethlehem. The King of kings might be expected to be found in a palace, at the center of politics and power. Yet when astronomers from an eastern land came looking for him in Jerusalem, the king in Jerusalem had to consult Jewish religious scholars to ask where the Messiah was to be born (Matthew 2:4).
The woman who had given birth to Jesus was no one of fame or acclaim. She and Joseph, the legal father of the virgin-born child Jesus, both were “descended from the house and family line of David” (Luke 2:4), but otherwise they were pretty much nobodies. Joseph was a carpenter (Matthew 13:55). Mary was his teenage wife, who herself said the Lord had “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” when choosing her to bear the Christ child in her womb (Luke 1:48).
When Jesus was anointed to begin his work as Teacher and Savior, there was no grand national ceremony with parades and dignitaries. Rather, John, a cousin of Jesus, served as the prophet to point to Jesus as the Messiah. John lived in the wilderness by the Jordan River, wearing clothing of camel’s hair and subsisting on a diet of locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4). John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), and people did come to be baptized. Then Jesus requested that John baptize him also–“to fulfill all righteousness,” as Jesus insisted (Matthew 3:15). At Jesus’ baptism, “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22). But I wonder if most people who were there when that happened heard and saw things differently. “Look at that, a dove just landed on him,” I imagine many said, not understanding the spiritual significance. And, as happened on another occasion when the Father spoke audibly from heaven, rather than hearing the words “This is my Son, the Beloved,” the crowd standing there may well have thought, “Was that thunder?” (cf. John 12:28-29).

Our eyes and ears aren’t attuned in such a way that we grasp the workings of God, even when they happen right in front of us. Think of baptism itself, the holy act by which God claims us as his own. What do we see? Ordinary water, nothing special. A few simple words, as we are baptized into “the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). When we have our baptisms, there is no dove that miraculously appears or audible voice speaking from the skies. But with eyes of faith, we confess that “baptism is not simply plain water,” but that “it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word.” We believe beyond what we can see, that baptism “brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe” (Martin Luther’s Small Catechism). So also with communion, the Lord’s Supper. We eat and drink the most basic sorts of things – little bits of bread, small sips of wine. But because such simple actions were directed by Christ himself, whoever believes his words “has what they declare, namely, forgiveness of sin” (Martin Luther’s Small Catechism).

Such is God’s way of making himself known to us, his way of connecting himself to us, of doing the miraculous for us. It’s not typically in the spectacular, but in things that seem everyday and ordinary. Do you remember Naaman, “commander of the army of the king of Aram, a great man and in high favor”–but who suffered from the disease of leprosy (2 Kings 5:1)? Naaman had a slave girl who had been captured from the people of Israel. The slave girl urged her master Naaman to go see the prophet in Israel for healing. Naaman went to Israel, and the prophet Elisha merely sent a messenger to tell him to go wash in the Jordan River seven times and he’d be healed (2 Kings 5:10). Naaman became angry and began to leave, because he was expecting some great and mighty prophet to “come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord” and wave his hand over Naaman in dramatic fashion and cure the disease (2 Kings 5:11). Naaman had to be convinced by others of his servants, who said to him, “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it” (2 Kings 5:13)? So, Naaman did the simple thing the prophet had said, and he was healed.

That’s how it often is with God. As Elisha’s teacher, Elijah, had learned, don’t expect God to show up by splitting mountains in half or shaking the earth beneath our feet. God more likely will make his presence known in what Elijah heard as the “sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12), or “a still, small voice,” as the King James Version of the Bible expressed it. Every day, in all sorts of seemingly ordinary ways, God makes his presence known and shares his grace by the life and witness of people who are acting in his name.

There is the son who visits his elderly mother every weekend, spends time with her, takes care of chores around the house for her, cooks a meal for her. And when she has to go to a nursing home, the son continues to visit, even as his mother becomes more confined, her health diminishes, and her memory fades away.
There is the mother whose toddler is throwing a tantrum and cannot calm down, so she sits down on the floor and gathers the child in her arms and just holds on, closely, securely, through all the kicks and screams, until the toddler finally melts into her embrace and hugs her back and says, “I’m sorry, Momma. I love you, Momma.”
There is the student who sees a schoolmate being picked on by others, avoided and ostracized and gossiped about for being different–and this classmate seeks out and befriends the outcast. They sit together in the cafeteria, spend time together studying and not studying (just hanging out), making it clear to everyone that acceptance and understanding are better than prejudice and pettiness.

Those could be just human actions of kindness, yes. In many cases, though, they are far more than that. They are the acts of God’s people making God’s love known in the ordinary course of events, doing things that are, in fact, extraordinary. God is working to make himself known to others through you–ordinary people in your everyday lives. Nothing spectacular. Nothing dazzling. Just you laboring patiently to serve your family, your neighbors, your community. Just you loving earnestly and committedly, caring for others with hearts that have been invigorated by the Spirit of Christ. That’s your calling as God’s people. God says to each of you, “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. … You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:1,4). He also says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:2). How does that help, that strength, that rescue from the Lord usually show up in your lives when you are hurting or in trouble? Through the actions of people doing simple things, basic, necessary things, in God’s name. The neighbor who shovels your sidewalk or snowblows your driveway–because he knows you are away from home, caring for a sick relative. Fellow church members who take turns dropping off meals at your home–because you are the caregiver for a disabled family member or for your spouse who is going through chemotherapy, and they want to help bear your burdens. Complete strangers who contribute to an online plea for funds to help with extensive medical bills incurred from a major surgery or a lengthy stay in the hospital ICU recovering from disease.

Every now and then, God has intervened in history with supernatural interruptions of natural events. But more often, God does his work through us, his people, in less astonishing ways. Let me remind you again of the experience of God’s prophet Elijah. Elijah had the experience of God making his presence obvious and forceful and explosive. Elijah prevailed over the enemies of God by calling on God to do a miracle, to consume a sacrifice with fire sent from heaven. And God did so, spectacularly. “The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench” around Elijah’s offering (1 Kings 18:38). But the perspective of the world doesn’t readily change when a miracle like that happens. In fact, the enemies of God (and of Elijah) only got more determined against God’s plans and against God’s prophet. Death threats were issued from the royal household against Elijah, and he ran. He ran back to the mountain where God had once revealed himself to Moses, and felt ready to die. “I’ve had enough,” he said to God. “Take away my life” (1 Kings 19:4). Instead, God told him to get up and he would reveal himself to Elijah. God did show himself, but not in expected ways. Not in a mighty, raging wind. Not in a rock-smashing earthquake. God revealed himself In a still, small voice, in the “sound of sheer silence” (I kings 19).

God’s powerful presence is often in the still, small voice–a voice carried out into the world by individuals, one at a time, by people like Elijah, by people like you and me. God’s way of enacting change in the hearts of people, one person at a time, is by the simple testimony of his words on our lips and his love lived out in our lives. He brings about the miracle of salvation by one baptism, then another baptism, then another, sending his Spirit to live in each baptized person’s heart and life. He carries out the actions of salvation in our hearts and lives, as we who have been saved by grace through faith, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 3:10), go about doing those works on behalf of one another, and for our neighbors, and for our communities.

When you feel like God is 10 zillion light years away, like God is so far distant from your life that you wonder if he’s even there at all, look again. Listen again. Feel again. Take notice of the little things, the inconspicuous ways that God is showing himself. Others’ actions. Your own actions. All the everyday words and actions whereby God makes his presence known and shares his peace among us. The smallest of kind words and actions toward one of the least of those whom Jesus considers his brothers and sisters are gifts to Jesus and blessings from Jesus (cf. Matthew 25:40). As Martin Luther taught, “God is so in control that the good we do is really God’s work. We’re nothing but the hands of Christ …. In the good we do, we are ‘little Christs’ to each other” (Luther’s Works, Vol.34, p.111, Volu.24, p.226, Vol. 31, p.367-368, quoted by Mark Ellingson in Living Lutheran, August 11, 2017). May our lives each day appreciate and extend the Epiphany of Christ in this way.

Oct

2020

When you realize everything you were was wrong

Becoming aware that mercy triumphs over judgment

by David Sellnow

The evangelist Luke, chronicler of the Acts of the Apostles, was a writer who sought to give “an orderly account” of events (cf. Luke 1:3). Luke’s reporting concerning the conversion of Saul (also known as Paul) sticks to the facts of what happened. Saul had been “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). He sought permission from the highest religious authorities to go to Syria to round up followers of “the Way” — believers in Jesus as the Christ. Saul wanted to take them into custody and bring them back to Jerusalem as religious criminals. The Lord had other plans. He blinded Saul with light from heaven and said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Those traveling with Saul “led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:8-9). In Damascus, Saul was brought into the Christian community and baptized, and “began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:20).

Today, we’re used to journalists asking, “How did you feel?” when they interview persons after some life-changing experience. Luke didn’t pause to provide insights into Saul’s emotional state. We can well imagine the shock of it, though — suddenly becoming aware that everything he thought and everything he’d done had been aimed in the wrong direction. He had felt he was serving God by the rigid religious principles he pursued. But his insistence on his own rightness had prevented him from seeing what a merciful God really had in mind. In the encounter on the Damascus road, Jesus had said to Saul, “It hurts you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). Like a work animal kicking back against a master prodding it forward, Saul was resisting the message of grace that God was calling him and all people to believe. Rather than striving to squelch and suppress those who had come to see Jesus as Christ, the Messiah, Saul should have been joining “the Way” and working with them. And by God’s grace, that’s exactly what he then did. As the Apostle Paul, he later expressed his amazement that even though he had been “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence,” yet he received mercy because he “had acted ignorantly in unbelief.” He was awed by the grace of God that overflowed to him “with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:13).

The Epistle lesson for this Sunday (the 18th Sunday after Pentecost) provides another window into how Paul felt about his conversion from self-righteous Pharisee to someone trusting in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith (Philippians 3:4b-9).

In the church today, the tendency easily resurfaces to become adamant against “sinners” and “heretics,” the way Paul was prior to his face-to-face encounter with Jesus. Being convinced of one’s rightness and propriety can lead to overzealous efforts to keep the church “pure,” purged of those who aren’t the “right sort” of persons. When that thinking sets in, the fact that no one is the “right sort” of person has been forgotten. The truth is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and all are to be extended the mercy in Jesus’ name without distinctions or prejudices. The purpose of the church is not to police people’s opinions and condemn those who don’t comply with existing traditions. In fact, the Lord is unhappy with those who try to impose their own expectations and restrictions on others. “For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Love and mercy and welcome are to be shown to “a poor person in dirty clothes” who comes into a church assembly no differently than if a rich person “with gold rings and fine clothes” walked through the door (James 2:2). God is defined by love and mercy toward all persons more so than by laws and policies and dress codes and rules.

If you catch yourself thinking that your religious convictions are elevated above others, or that there are certain types of persons you don’t want in your church with you, be careful. You may be kicking against the Lord, insisting on maintaining a form of spiritual inertia rather than moving forward in mercy where the Lord calls you to go. What you have thought may need to be discarded as rubbish, compared to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord” (Philippians 3:8), and the compelling mission of extending mercy to all others in his name.

—-

Aug

2020

The House of Disposable Souls

A Fable

by David Sellnow

“In the land of spirit beings, there was a house that gathered souls.They sought out souls that were perfectly spherical. Any souls they discovered that were out of round or oddly shaped were quickly discarded. They sought out souls that were unstained and unblemished. Any souls they discovered that had bumps or bruises were passed over and rejected. They sought out souls that were shiny and glowed in a preferred range of colors. Any souls they discovered that were mottled or blurry or too dark in appearance were left behind and ignored.

“Over time, the spirits gathered a small collection of souls that they protected and preserved in their house. If any of the souls developed inconsistencies or loss of clarity or discoloration or dulling, those souls were removed from the house. The spirits would seek other, more impeccable specimens, as replacements. The house became known as The House of Disposable Souls.

“Elsewhere in the land of spirit beings, there was another house that gathered souls. They searched for souls of all shapes and sizes. They included souls that were imperfect, unpolished, irregular. They valued souls that were rough to the touch as well as those that were smooth. They recognized special worth in souls that were differently shaped and of variegated colors. They saw deep potential in all souls they encountered. They labored to help each soul radiate its own unique sheen, coaxing out natural hues and luster. If souls they found or souls in their care suffered cracks or were damaged, the spirits applied balm to heal the wounds. They sought to refresh and develop each soul, nurturing strength as well as tenderness. The house became known as the House of Renewable Souls.”

After concluding the story, the teacher asked her listeners: “Which of these houses cared for souls as the Creator of souls intended?”

The listeners knew they had growing to do in their own attitudes and ministries.

Scriptures to consider:

“The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. … I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7,10).
”Here is my servant, whom I have chosen. … He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick” (Matthew 12:18, 20).
”Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:26-30).

Prayer:

Creator of all, teach us to value each human soul in the same spirit as Christ our Savior, who said, “Anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). Amen.

—-

Dec

2019

If you see someone, be someone

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on June 30, 2019

If you see someone, be someone

by David Sellnow

“When Job’s three friends … heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. … They sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was” (Job 2:11,13).

Renae’s life had crashed in an instant. She had thought her husband was her soulmate, and her son had been her pride and joy. But in midlife, her husband, Randy, had an affair. She wanted to preserve their marriage, but now it seemed like a thousand-piece puzzle with no guide for aligning all the jagged edges. Then her adult son, Danny, was diagnosed with AIDS. He’d had HIV for a couple years before symptoms started to show. He hadn’t been one to do regular medical checkups, so the disease wasn’t discovered until his health began to deteriorate. The onset of AIDS also became the first time Danny told his parents that he was gay. He knew they held traditional views and would have a hard time accepting who he really was.

Indeed, Renae did have problems coming to terms with her son’s situation, as well as her husband’s infidelity. She wanted healing with Randy, but couldn’t stop herself from picking and gouging at the scabs of the hurt that existed between them. Her heart ached over Danny’s suffering, but she couldn’t bring herself to be at his side. She felt alienated from both her husband and her son.

Always an active church member, Renae felt cut off from her spiritual community too. No one called. No one stopped by—except her pastor.

“I don’t understand, Pastor Kim,” Reneae said. “I thought the people at church were my friends. It’s like I’m suddenly an outcast.”

“They tell me they don’t know what to say or do,” Pastor Kim responded. “I’ve urged them to come see you, to be with you—even if they don’t have all the answers. I don’t have all the answers either. Sometimes what the Lord wants us to learn from life’s struggles isn’t easy to see.”

“It seems all God wants is to punish me and give me trouble.”

“That’s not how God is. God is with us in our suffering, and wants us to be with one another in suffering. Speaking of which … how is Danny doing? Have you had opportunity to spend time with him?”

Renae stared at the floor. “I don’t know what to say to him,” she said.

“It’s less about what you say and more about being there for each other. Danny needs your love, and you need his love too.”

“But … but he’s not who I thought he was,” she stammered.

“I reckon God as our Parent could say that about all of us—children who are different from what he envisioned for us. Or, as Isaiah described, we’re like sheep who ‘have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way’ (Isaiah 53:6). But God came to be with us. Jesus came to walk alongside us and was willing to carry our sorrows and infirmities. ‘He took up our pain and bore our suffering’ (Isaiah 53:4), and all our sins were laid upon him. This is not a time to withhold your love from your son, Renae. There’s never such a time.”

“I guess all three of us need to try to understand each other and lean on each other,” Renae acknowledged. “Randy has been more supportive to Danny than I’ve been. He’s been spending time with Danny.”

“If there’s room in your heart to forgive Randy, I believe there’s room in your heart to be the mother your son needs.”

“Job’s friends came to him after his life had collapsed all around him. They didn’t really know what to say. In fact, as time went on, they said many of the wrong things. Read Job’s story if you want lessons on what not to say to someone in a crisis. But at least Job’s friends came. They cared enough to come and sit with him. They sat in the dirt for seven straight days before they attempted to say anything. Those days sitting on the ground beside their friend were perhaps the best way to offer compassion and comfort. This short life is long on problems. And in our problems, we need people to come and be with us—the way God himself came to be with us in our problem-plagued world.That Sunday, Pastor Kim addressed the congregation with a sermon about the friends of Job:

“You’ve heard the expression, ‘If you see something, say something,’ referring to signs there may be trouble or a threat to safety. I have a similar message for you today. If you see someone, be someone. When you see someone who is hurting, be someone who goes to that person. Be someone willing to sit in the dirt with someone who has been crushed down to the ground. Be someone who cares, someone who rebuilds and befriends. Be Christ to your neighbor, entering into their suffering, bringing compassion and hope.”

That week, Renae was visited by a number of her church friends. And Renae and Randy and Danny began reconnecting as a family. Things didn’t get easier, but they faced the challenges together.

DISCUSSION THOUGHTS:

Do you know someone who could use an encouraging word, or just the encouragement of your presence? When will you reach out to them?
If you need encouragement, who is someone that you can ask to come and sit in the dirt with you?

BIBLE PORTION TO READ: Job chapter 2

PRAYER:

Lord, give us friends when we need friends, and move us to befriend others when they need us. In Jesus, who came to suffer with us. Amen.

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

For those who may struggle with low self-worth and pressure themselves into perfectionism

Confidence anchored in Christ

Thinking of others, not just of ourselves

A message for the 5th Sunday of Easter

“Love for All, Good News for All”

Readings to consider: Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35

Why church?

Our mutual need for spiritual encouragement

The Quiet Power of God’s Presence

Becoming aware that mercy triumphs over judgment

A Fable

If you see someone, be someone

Subscribe