When Rosie and I were in Jordan a number of years ago, we visited Petra, a stone city in the south of the country. We rode donkeys down a long trail through cliffs until we came to the carved tombs where the Nabataen pirates buried their dead. Legend has it that these cliffs were the place where Moses struck the rock to provide water for the tribe of Hebrews who were on their way to the promised land who were both hungry and thirsty and who were blaming Moses for bringing them out of Egypt simply to perish in the desert.
Legend is a chancy thing; who knows if this story is true as it stands, or if Petra was even the place where it all happened, but it was wonderful for us to be there and to think of the Hebrews preceding us there.
There is a lot of experience in our collective past, experience that speaks of a closeness with God. A closeness that we don't notice so often today. We have become much more self sufficient and need God's help in less critical ways.
Those who sleep in doorways or under our bridges who are without homes and jobs are still hungry and thirsty and need God's help in very specific ways. They pray that their primary needs will be filled. I think that is our task and our ministry in this terribly broken world. To touch the poor and the outcast with the healing touch of God is the highest calling to which we can aspire.
Often it is the outreach portion of the parish budget that feels the ax most quickly when we need to find balance. We only have so much resource, we say and the electric bills are so high and we have all of this real estate that we have acquired, and outreach after all is discretionary spending, isn't it?
That is certainly true as far as it goes, but the problem is that the outreach is the reason that we are here. It is the reason for the electric bill and the real estate and indeed all that we have. We are here to make a difference in God's world for God's people. It is certainly clear enough in all of our scripture that the poor and the outcast are the primary object of God's concern. Jesus held them up constantly as those whom he favored. He chose his disciples from among the common people. Some of them were fishermen, one at least a tax-collector, and all of them were simply people looking for something beyond themselves. Jesus pointed to the needy as the object of his ministry and instructed all of us to pay attention to them.
He healed, he taught and constantly urged his followers to pay attention to the people around them who were in need. Like the Hebrews who were hungry and thirsty in the desert, Jesus' stories are instructive to us. There is the one about the widow who puts her "mite" in the box while the religious leaders put in much more of their wealth. He says that she has given all that she has, while the others put in a pittance.
In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats. The sheep are the ones who feed and clothe him when he needs it and care for him when he is sick or in prison. The goats simply pass him by. It is honestly very hard to understand why Christianity hasn't gotten the message in all of its more than two thousand years.
When we were in England, we visited many, many cathedrals. These were beautiful buildings that had the effect of increasing my faith. The dedication of the workers at Salisbury in the eleventh century is astounding. They built that place as an offering to God. In Yorkshire, there is a place called Fountains Abbey, a place that was built about the same time by a group of monks who were caring for the poor in that area. Eventually, the abbey fell to ruin, but it remains one of the most spiritual places that we visited on our trip.
Down the road about two miles is Ripon Cathedral, a modern church trying to be a Christian center in a time when Christianity is becoming increasingly out of favor. It occurred to me that the only difference between Ripon Cathedral and Fountains Abbey is that both are ruins, but one doesn't know it yet.
In the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, the Pharisees ask Jesus by what authority he does his work. Jesus asks them in turn if the baptism of John was inspired by heaven, or if it was of human origin. Sensing a trap, the Pharisees tell Jesus that they don't know. Jesus then tells them the story of the man who had two sons. He told the first to go to work in the vineyard. The son said that he wouldn't, but later changed his mind and went and worked. The second son told him that we would go and work, but didn't do anything at all. "Which of these did the will of the father", Jesus asked. "The first", replied the Pharisees.
That mission hasn't changed one bit in all of the years since. We are still called to be the visible face of God in this world. That mission involves not only our real estate and our electric bill, but primarily our outreach. And God will bless richly what we do.
Legend is a chancy thing; who knows if this story is true as it stands, or if Petra was even the place where it all happened, but it was wonderful for us to be there and to think of the Hebrews preceding us there.
There is a lot of experience in our collective past, experience that speaks of a closeness with God. A closeness that we don't notice so often today. We have become much more self sufficient and need God's help in less critical ways.
Those who sleep in doorways or under our bridges who are without homes and jobs are still hungry and thirsty and need God's help in very specific ways. They pray that their primary needs will be filled. I think that is our task and our ministry in this terribly broken world. To touch the poor and the outcast with the healing touch of God is the highest calling to which we can aspire.
Often it is the outreach portion of the parish budget that feels the ax most quickly when we need to find balance. We only have so much resource, we say and the electric bills are so high and we have all of this real estate that we have acquired, and outreach after all is discretionary spending, isn't it?
That is certainly true as far as it goes, but the problem is that the outreach is the reason that we are here. It is the reason for the electric bill and the real estate and indeed all that we have. We are here to make a difference in God's world for God's people. It is certainly clear enough in all of our scripture that the poor and the outcast are the primary object of God's concern. Jesus held them up constantly as those whom he favored. He chose his disciples from among the common people. Some of them were fishermen, one at least a tax-collector, and all of them were simply people looking for something beyond themselves. Jesus pointed to the needy as the object of his ministry and instructed all of us to pay attention to them.
He healed, he taught and constantly urged his followers to pay attention to the people around them who were in need. Like the Hebrews who were hungry and thirsty in the desert, Jesus' stories are instructive to us. There is the one about the widow who puts her "mite" in the box while the religious leaders put in much more of their wealth. He says that she has given all that she has, while the others put in a pittance.
In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats. The sheep are the ones who feed and clothe him when he needs it and care for him when he is sick or in prison. The goats simply pass him by. It is honestly very hard to understand why Christianity hasn't gotten the message in all of its more than two thousand years.
When we were in England, we visited many, many cathedrals. These were beautiful buildings that had the effect of increasing my faith. The dedication of the workers at Salisbury in the eleventh century is astounding. They built that place as an offering to God. In Yorkshire, there is a place called Fountains Abbey, a place that was built about the same time by a group of monks who were caring for the poor in that area. Eventually, the abbey fell to ruin, but it remains one of the most spiritual places that we visited on our trip.
Down the road about two miles is Ripon Cathedral, a modern church trying to be a Christian center in a time when Christianity is becoming increasingly out of favor. It occurred to me that the only difference between Ripon Cathedral and Fountains Abbey is that both are ruins, but one doesn't know it yet.
In the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, the Pharisees ask Jesus by what authority he does his work. Jesus asks them in turn if the baptism of John was inspired by heaven, or if it was of human origin. Sensing a trap, the Pharisees tell Jesus that they don't know. Jesus then tells them the story of the man who had two sons. He told the first to go to work in the vineyard. The son said that he wouldn't, but later changed his mind and went and worked. The second son told him that we would go and work, but didn't do anything at all. "Which of these did the will of the father", Jesus asked. "The first", replied the Pharisees.
That mission hasn't changed one bit in all of the years since. We are still called to be the visible face of God in this world. That mission involves not only our real estate and our electric bill, but primarily our outreach. And God will bless richly what we do.
Your post this week captures so well the challenges of tending to the daily pressures (paying the bills, keeping the doors open) while remembering why the doors need to be open in the first place. This is useful guidance not only for churches and their missions, but also for us as individuals. In the press of endless daily tasks to complete, it's easy for me to lose sight of larger meaning and purpose. Thanks for the reminder, Dad!
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