E-mail of Encouragement to a Friend

Yesterday, my wonderful wife and I along with two friends had the privilege to help pack 10,000 meals with Restore Church in Silver Spring, MD.  The meals are to be given to two schools in Silver Spring, MD where 90% of the students are on the reduced –payment lunch program.  Before this event, one of our friends Meg made some awesome chili and invited us over to her place to relax and hangout.  Meg shared with us about her experiences volunteering for the Girls Club and how challenging it was for her and that it was an intentional decision on her part to embrace discomfort.  It was such a great reminder to me that people are not born with innate talent of addressing needs and that God does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called when we step out of our comfortable spaces.  I have blogged about this several times in the past, because it is a reoccurring theme in my life.  I decided to write Meg and thank her for her candor and to tell her it was an encouragement and good reminder for me.  Reading over the e-mail I thought it might be an encouragement to others so I decided to share it.

Meg,

Thanks for sharing about the Boys and Girls clubs yesterday!  It was particularly good to hear your honesty about the challenge of meeting with the other--culturally other, ethnically other, affluently other, educationally other, other with respect to age.  That so reinforced a theme that has been re-occurring in my life for probably the last two years.  We are a society that is absolutely obsessed with comfort and frankly there may not be a person more apt to choose and desire comfort in his life than me!  Moreover, to put this in spiritual terms I believe the desire for comfort is a very clever as well as successful ploy of the enemy to severe the hands and feet of Christ. 

It would be an interesting experiment, albeit really difficult to do objectively, to take a week and track where I seek comfort and where I intentionally welcome discomfort with the intent of moving closer to God.

Anyway, I love to see that you have stepped up with and embraced being uncomfortable for Kingdom causes with the girls in S.E.  And the fact that you admitted that you were uncomfortable was an encouragement to me.  I think too often we see people doing great things for the world and to the outsider it looks like it just comes natural for them.  I believe that perception is more often than not false.  I believe that if people knew that the people who are taking a stand with the poor, those with AIDS, the drug-addicted, trafficked boys and girls do so intentionally putting them in a lot of discomfort and these tension-dwelling people shared their struggles openly and honestly others would be willing to see themselves as having the potential to make an impact.

I pray that as our small group grows and we see each other stepping out and doing things that disrupt our routine and thus creating tension--tension that we embrace rather than run from, it will mold and shape us into who God wants us to be both as a group and individuals.  I also pray that it will become contagious.  I believe openly and honestly sharing our struggles that we have in tension-filled environments is paramount to making it contagious though.

Peace,

Steve

Some Thoughts on Luke 9:51-56

I have been eating in the cafeteria here at work for years.  However, it is only in the last year that I began to add to that time the reading of Scripture.  It forces me to slow down; something that I am finding is more and more beneficial to my life.  I have been reading the Bible for a number of years, admittedly off and on.  However, Scripture has come to life for me in the past year.  It is such a huge book that for much of my life I focused on quantifying my reading rather than qualifying my reading—what can I say I am a Westerner?  In the past if something did not make sense to me I would just look past it, but not anymore.  There are times when I will get stuck on a part of Scripture and sometimes struck on a part of Scripture and I will end up reading it over and over and that, I have found, is when it really comes to life for me.  This is what happened today for me with Luke 9:51-56.

Most of the time when I see the actions of Jesus he seems to be a pretty laid back kind of dude.  For example these guys show up one day with a woman they claim to have caught in the act of adultery exclaiming that she should be stoned and Jesus decides to kneel down and draw in the dirt (I have to share a quick aside here about this).  There have been arguments about what Jesus was writing.  I remember being at an event where Shane Claiborne was talking about sharing this story with some kids and he asked the kids what they thought Jesus was writing.  The best response was, “Hey lady, if what I am about to do does not get these guys from wanting to stone you, you are going to need to run!”  Anyway, after writing in the dirt, Jesus casually states, “Hey, if any of you is without sin feel free to cast the first stone.”  Verse 51 however states that “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” He was a man on a mission, knew where he needed to get to and was focused on getting there.

This passage also mentions that Jesus was approaching a Samaritan village where he was hoping to spend the evening.  However, when the folks from this village find out that Jesus is heading to Jerusalem he is turned away.  Wow!  This certainly gives credence regarding Samaritans and Jews not being the best of friends.  When they are turned away the story starts to take twists and turns.  I have to think that Jesus had to be somewhat miffed that they would not let him stay the night.  James and John however, remove all doubt as to whether they are offended or not; “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?’” Actually, offended is much too soft of word to describe the thoughts and feelings of James and John—they are really, really pissed off.  So Jesus is sort of put on the spot here—seems to be the life story of Jesus—constantly being put on the spot and from all sides of society.  So how will Jesus respond to James and John’s question?  Perhaps, “You know what, I am the Son of God and those sons-of-bitches actually turned me away from their town…Yes, absolutely you are right let’s call down some holy fire from heaven and destroy them!”  If I were Jesus that would have probably been my response, but his was just the opposite; Jesus turns to James and John and actually rebukes them for their comment!  The story ends with the three of them moving onto a different town for the night.  However, the story does not end there far from it!

If we look to the next chapter, which likely takes the place the day after Jesus, James and John are turned away from the Samaritan village, Jesus will exact his revenge on this Samaritan village. An expert in the law will ask Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”  And Jesus knowing that the night before that he had to walk a few extra miles before he could take a load off because of being turned away by the Samaritans will turn the tables on them and make the actions of a Samaritan the apogee of what it means to be a neighbor.  I would almost be willing to bet that there was someone from the Samaritan village that had heard about this Jesus guy and wanted to know more.  I bet he or she felt bad that his village had turned Jesus away, but was too afraid to take a stand. So taken was this person with the likes of this Jewish-Carpenter-Teacher he decides to follow him.  After hearing Jesus’ story the next day I am betting that he or she went back to the Samaritan village to share Jesus brilliant, just, restorative story that we know as the Good Samaritan!  I am also betting those Samaritans offered hospitality to the next Jew that graced their village.

⁵¹ As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. ⁵² And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; ⁵³ but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” ⁵⁵ But Jesus turned and rebuked them. ⁵⁶ Then he and his disciples went to another village.