Yesterday began a three week emphasis on missions. We had a guest speaker who has planted a church in downtown Lubbock TX to minister to the homeless. What a work of pure love (James 1). I know from our own experiences with addiction that it's a hard, grueling journey. If you feel called to work with those whose appetites of one sort or another have derailed them from the mainstream you have got to know you are entering a work where the successes are few and far between. It's a one step forward, three steps backward affair. It's rewarding, it's filled with unique joys and it's hard. He didn't talk about his ministry at all -- these were just thoughts that were going through my head as I prepared to listen to him. Because a very unwelcome thought came to my mind and I spent the next however many hours trying vainly to squash it right down into the black hole of my memory.
I don't want to be called to a hard ministry. I want to take a cake to my neighbors. I want to invite my children's friends to Vacation Bible School. I want to donate money so someone else can go. I want to donate some more money. What I don't want is to get down in the trenches. I am ashamed of that. But I'm not sure I'm ashamed enough. I've been down in the trenches before. I know what it's like. What is it in me that has allowed me to think I've done my time and I don't want to do it anymore? Where did I see an example of that in Jesus' life?
The minister spoke on John 4 and the Samaritan woman. He said something that opened my eyes to something I'd not noticed before. You know the story -- the disciples go to town to buy food, Jesus stays behind, the woman comes out to draw water and Jesus engages her in a conversation. At one point she says (paraphrase) "I know that the Messiah is coming and he will explain all this religion stuff." and Jesus says "It's me. I'm the One." I missed it all these times of reading. This is the first time that Jesus publicly declares He is the One and he does so not in fanfare, not in a huge crowd and not even to his friends. He does it to a woman that no one wanted to be seen with. Likely a prostitute. Certainly a "bad woman". She turned around and became the first missionary because she brought the town out to see what she had discovered. Jesus entrusted his identity and his mission to someone I, in my middle class, white, suburb spend my days trying to avoid. I think singing "O To Be Like Thee" would be a bit blasphemous right about now.
I'm pretty sure that's not the right response.
1 comment:
I appreciate your honesty, and I share your hesitation, although not with the same informed attitude. I've honestly never really been in the trenches, not the deep ones. I dug some of my own when I was younger, but thankfully our Savior reached down and helped me out of 'em. I know I need to buckle down and sacrifice myself more, my time more, and yet I cling to those things; instead, I find myself taking the high (shallow) road of singing in choir, taking meals to hurting people, praying for folks. Every time a serious missionary speaks at our church, I am astounded by his/her selflessness--and terrified I, too, will be called. I suppose if that happens, then I should move forward knowing that God has my best interest in mind. But yikes... Yikes. : )
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