A pastor’s words for the people he serves..

I spoke on a panel discussion two weeks ago before other pastors and church leaders in my denomination. The moderator surprised me with the question, “What do you spend the most time doing that people don’t understand or know about?”

***

After the panel someone privately inquired “how do people *find* you?” He knew we don’t advertise like other ministries that serve the poor. I gave my typical answer, ‘we’re on a busy bus route, next to a Goodwill drop-off location where people rifle through donations at night, I’m known among the local Homeless, etc.’ Then I added something else…

“But I think the Lord also just sends the people He knows need to meet us. He knows we can handle their chaos in a way other churches often can’t.”

A few days later, camera alerts woke me the moment a homeless woman arrived on our church property. And oh how great was her mental chaos. She first approached our main entrance but then began walking along the side. I watched her in real-time as she passed by each of our cameras. She found cover under our gym awning and set down her belongings in the shadow. Then she stepped over into the light on our outdoor entry mat, lowered her pants, and urinated. Instead of squatting on the grass, she chose to leave a puddle of urine just feet from where she would fall asleep. All the while, she rambled on in a passionate conversation with no one. Clearly, this woman was too unstable to sleep unsupervised in our building that night. So I trusted her to God, believing He would use our bright parking lights and the surveillance camera above to keep her safe.

***

I recently re-read [technically, “listened to”] a biography on Oswald Chambers (of ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ fame). Many know his words from that famous book but few know his life. This man breathed in literature and fine art like air.

His familiarity with the great literary classics convicted me to follow his example. I made a goal to read great historic novels that highlighted the plight of society’s poor and mistreated, especially works from the Three Ds– Dumas, Dostoevksy, and Dickens. But I started with Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

Hugo’s *exhausting* novel frequently interrupts the plot to discuss issues better suited to a political science textbook. [Seriously. It’s exhausting. Almost 58 hours in unabridged audio!] One of Hugo’s many social injustice soapboxes was Public Sewage. He digressed on the topic a couple times throughout Les Mis. Paris’s underground sewer system also becomes the means by which protagonist Jean Valjean carries an unconscious and injured young revolutionary named Marius away to safety.

An 1832 Cholera outbreak killed 20,000 Parisians and over 100,000 throughout France. And, no surprise, Cholera hurt Paris’s Poor the most. Although no one yet understood Cholera was a waterborne illness, many believed it had something to do with the city’s poorly-managed sewers. The 1832 ‘June Rebellion’ (inspiration for the book) partially stemmed from the lower classes’ frustration about the sewage. And, again, it’s no surprise the worst sewers were in the poorest areas.

Hugo wrote, “The sewer is the conscience of the city” and “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.” He believed dumping human waste was a mistake, that the jobless could be hired to process the waste into fertilizer and drastically improve local crop efficiency, thereby reducing the need for expensive food imports. For Hugo, a sewer wastefully removing waste represented a black spot on a city’s conscience: it revealed the Rich’s desire to remove messy, smelly, and unsightly issues in their life without regard for how it would hurt the poor masses. As long as the rich and powerful could live in a squeaky clean world, who cared about the Poor?!

Most today view sewers differently from Hugo now that we understand waterborne illnesses like Cholera and Dysentery. And though he originally intended a different meaning, I quoted the words still fresh in my mind when I answered that moderator’s question “What do you spend the most time doing that people don’t understand or know about?” Several shared how they appreciated my response. Polite flattery?? Probably. But I still share my words below in case they may help you…

“Serving the poor, hurting, and mentally ill is messy. Victor Hugo wrote “The sewer is the conscience of the city” and “The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers.” Our church building’s main sewer line backs up when we have several large events in a month. A plumber scoped our line and found a problem spot where the pipe connects with the city’s main sewer. Yesterday I came home to find two men working around the manhole cover of that sewer connection. I walked over to ask for a second opinion. From their angle, could they verify what the plumber told me? But as I approached the two men, I noticed a third man below. He’d climbed down the manhole with a special suit and worked in there while sewage from our church sewer line continued to pour in. I believe the conscience of the Church is reflected in how well we help people, especially the Poor, deal with the spiritual filth that’s infecting their lives. Do we help them remove it? Or do we ignore them or shoo them away, allowing them to slowly die in their own spiritual filth? So what do I spend a lot of time doing??

Dealing with other people’s spiritual filth that’s poisoning their lives.”

***

The homeless woman disappeared by the time I came back from dropping off our oldest at school. But she soon returned during a complete mental breakdown. I overheard her while working inside our gym and stepped outside, still in exercise clothes from my morning walk and definitely not dressed like your average pastor during office hours. Since I’d stepped out of the building, she assumed I had something to do with the church but didn’t know who I was. She rattled on for a couple minutes before I could even respond. I made out that employees from a nearby laundromat just kicked her out for her loud disruptions. She slumped down against our sanctuary wall, right next to stained glass windows. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she screamed.

“I’M SO TIRED OF PEOPLE JUDGING ME! I’M CRAZY AND CAN’T HELP IT SOMETIMES! I’M TIRED OF PEOPLE KICKING ME OUT. I’M HIV. I JUST WANT SOMEWHERE TO REST WHERE NO ONE WILL JUDGE ME OR MAKE ME LEAVE. AND I SLEPT HERE LAST NIGHT BECAUSE I FELT SAFE HERE. AND I’M DAMN PROUD OF MYSELF FOR COMING HERE FOR HELP INSTEAD OF HOEING ON THE STREETS. AND I PEED ON THAT MAT. I’M SORRY I DID THAT. BUT I’LL CLEAN IT UP. I’M JUST SO TIRED OF PEOPLE JUDGING ME AND MAKING ME LEAVE.”

Words began to slow as her defenses lowered before me. Finally, the words stopped…

“Well, my name’s Chris. And I’m the pastor here. I don’t judge you. And I’m not going to make you leave. I already knew you slept here last night and I knew you peed on that mat. I watched you on camera when you did it. So if I was going to make you leave, I would have done it last night. Would you like to rest inside, and maybe take a shower?”

Later I learned she’d used Meth only hours before meeting me. The withdrawals further exacerbated her mental illness. I wrote about this woman last week after she’d spewed verbal filth from her sick brain for 20 minutes. I silently sat with her until she’d calmed down.

That woman slept outside our gym for 3 nights and spoke with me often during the days. Her 20 minute tirade had already made me late for a meeting. But her conscience seemed to force confessions out of her after that. People I’d never met were waiting on me to accept their donations while I listened to this woman confess her sins.

While she spoke, another scene from Les Misérables stuck firmly in my mind…

Jean Valjean has been released from prison but no one will let him dine or lodge with them once they learn of his past, even though he has money. He finally finds the local Bishop’s home. Upon meeting the old man, Valjean immediately blurted out the shameful past he’d tried to hide from others. But instead of rejection, the former convict receives Christian hospitality, delicious food, and a warm bed. Valjean’s old ways, however, suddenly overpower him in the night. He steals the fine silver and escapes. When he’s later caught by police and escorted back to the Bishop’s home, the Bishop corroborates Valjean’s lie to police: that the Bishop had given the silver as a gift. Then he chides Valjean before the officers for not also taking the silver candlesticks.

As we sat alone on the gym floor, she finally admitted stealing money from women’s purses when attending church with her parents and exclaimed, “Do you know how hard it is to admit that to a pastor?!”

I knew that was my cue. I stood up and said, “I have to leave for a while. You can turn out the lights and take a nap on this cot while I’m gone. There’s a lot of stuff in here you could steal, too. But I know you won’t. I trust you.

Sadly my new friend refused the Rehab and Mental Health treatments she most desperately needed and went back to her side of town.

Our neighborhood is quite far from her normal area, where she’s now staying again. I put $10 on her phone account before she left, but it seems that’s all been used. I know many Chronically Homeless who change their phone number as often as they change their actual phone. So I may never see or hear from this woman again. But, as much as her brain will allow, she will remember a pastor and church that wasn’t afraid of the filth her life has created. And she will remember the simple and small ways we extended cleansing help.

If you’ve read many of my posts, you might think during that panel discussion I had compared myself to the man working down in the sewer– that I’m daily ankle-deep in the world’s spiritual muck.

But I only played myself in the analogy.

No, I am not the one down in the manhole. I’m the simple pastor who’s slow to learn and constantly tempted to insulate myself in a churchy bubble. But then I find Him down in the squalor.

It is Christ, not me, who’s already been working in the sewers for hours. I only walk up in plain clothes, unprepared for the job and surprised to find him below.

It is Christ who suited up in Humanity’s garb (that of a simple servant) to address the sickening spiritual sludge Humanity creates.

And it is Christ, who can use even the very subterranean pathways of our spiritual slime to carry us into Salvation.

Yes, as the famous poem once described, Christ may carry us and leave ‘footprints in the sand.’ But just as often, I see Him carrying hurting people amidst dark tunnels filled with their own toxic lives.

What do I spend my time doing??

I am stumbling upon Christ among putrid situations, trying to keep up as He calls me to follow.

He carried his cross 2000 years ago. Now He carries the hurting to Salvation, wading through our own spiritual putrefaction to bring us Home.

Jesus is at work among the spiritual sewers around you, too. Some of us only look for Him among areas we prefer to live and frequent– squeaky clean middle-class neighborhoods, in churches with good budgets, among people just like us, where we shoo away or avoid any who disrupt our squeeky clean days. We want respectful Bible studies and manicured hair, not screaming prostitutes and disgusting floor mats.

Sure, you and I can meet Jesus in our Bible studies and prayer meetings. But I believe even *more* often we can find Him among the hidden ‘sewers’ in society. He is out of sight, leading a troubled woman to a safe place for the night and encouraging her to follow a different path forward.

Moments ago as I typed the above words, that woman finally returned my call. She’d just contacted an organization that helps treat HIV patients. They were sending an Uber to pick her up for treatment.

“Pray for me, Pastor.”

“I’d be happy to.” 😊

Dear friends,

Jesus works among our Sewers. He works in the dark, with the homeless addict easy to spot, and the hidden addict daily driving her children to school. He is with the Trafficked and those who traffic themselves. He’s next to the bitter widow and widower whom no one visits. He’s ankle-deep with the Narcissist finally receiving decades of negative consequences from selfish actions. He’s with the hardened criminal in a bare cell and the single mother crying herself to sleep.

He’s with those now spiraling after losing a loved one.

No matter where you go, He’s already been working there before you arrived. Join Him in His cleansing and healing work in this world.

***

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

““Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Isaiah 1:18

I received this text from a young mother in our church a few weeks ago. Two of her children, including one of her daughters, helped distribute Communion elements to our congregation. We end every Renovation Community worship service with Communion and I recently began asking children to serve the bread and grape juice.

The mother [who grew up in a different church background from my own] said, “Thanks for letting our kids be a part of Communion tonight. I’ve only seen grown women serve communion a handful of times and never a little girl. So that was really special.”

I choked up reading the mom’s words— tears of sadness to learn her church experience and tears of joy that our little church sets forth a different example.

***

I recently began following a ministry online that often highlights the sad forms of abuse and mistreatment women have experienced in the Church and in their Christian marriages. It’s been eye-opening and heartbreaking.

During my early and incredibly dark days as a pastor, I developed an unquenchable thirst for reading biographies of long-dead Christians who served God in spite of their own dark circumstances. I found the majority of these biographical examples in missionaries who followed the Lord into regions thousands of miles from their homeland.

As God pushed me (often against my will 😒) towards increasing levels of tangible Christian service to my hurting neighbors, I wanted to learn from Christians in difficult places who practically and tangibly met others’ physical needs just as much as their spiritual needs. This reading journey meant I eventually owned more biographies of Christian women than of their male counterparts. For generations, it seems Christian women have outpaced men in practical acts of service throughout the world.

Painting with an extremely broad brush, it would appear male missionaries sought opportunities to preach in Christ’s name. But women on the mission fields sought opportunities to feed, clothe, heal, comfort, educate, foster, and give a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name; my own sense of Calling has resonated more with their example.

These brave female missionaries often left home unmarried. Sadly, they also often left home with little support (financial, or otherwise) because male Christian leaders didn’t trust them, didn’t believe they were competent for the task without a husband by their side, and/or believed their work wasn’t as important as the more male-dominated “spiritual” work.

The world…the Church… has a long history of unkindness towards women.

But Holy Week always reminds Christians the honored role women played in Jesus’ ministry. Women followed him, financially supported him, and cared for his needs. But they also served as the Church’s first *full* Evangelists. [“Evangelism” (and all it’s similar words) come from a Greek word that basically meant “Good News.” The Gospels tell us Jesus began his ministry preaching the “Good News.” Of course, Christians believe the *fullest* version of that Good News wasn’t made clear until Jesus rose from the dead. But more on that in a bit.]

I closed our church’s Good Friday service challenging our people to “suspend reality,” to give up the knowledge we have of Christ’s Resurrection and stand in solidarity with those weeping at the foot of the cross. I reminded everyone that Jesus’ followers had mostly scattered after paralyzing fear consumed them. But not the women.

The women below Christ’s body experienced the same overwhelming grief as the other disciples. His mother, Mary, experienced far *more* grief. Yet they didn’t experience the same fear. Or perhaps they *did* experience it but refused to let it control them as it seemingly controlled most of Jesus’ male followers.

Jesus’ mother and other women stood only feet away from the Roman soldiers who drove nails into Jesus’ body. They loved this man condemned by the State and weren’t afraid to display their tears before his Executioners. Would Roman soldiers or Temple leaders try arresting (maybe also crucifying??) any of Jesus’ followers whom they found during his execution? While it wasn’t common, history shows us Rome *did* crucify women when it served their purposes for invoking fear and reasserting control in tumultuous regions.

These women didn’t care. No matter the outcome, they would publicly stand and weep for their Rabbi…and son.

How had Jesus of Nazareth attracted these women who bravely followed Him into danger and darkness??

***

British author Dorothy Sayers’ 1947 work “Are Women Human” mused:

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature.”

***

Even after His death, Jesus attracted women who noticed he was different from other men in their lives. One of ancient Christianity’s most vocal critics was a Roman man named Celsus. He noticed how women (and other demographics that didn’t fit the “free Roman male” ideal) disproportionately filled ancient Christian gatherings. His criticisms embodied the sexist and elitist Roman attitudes of his day:

“[Christians] show they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, only slaves, women, and little children”

***

Because Jesus’ corpse had been hurriedly placed in a tomb before a Sabbath, there wasn’t time to follow the typical burial customs. So we learn “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16:1-3)

But they arrive to find an empty tomb and an angel. “The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’” (Matthew 28:5-7)

These women had first-hand knowledge of Jesus’ teachings. They were eyewitnesses to His miraculous power and bodily resurrection (something the apostle Paul later used to attest to the Christian message’s trustworthiness). Yet following the logic used in many churches today, these women (despite their firsthand-knowledge of Jesus’ life, miracles, and resurrection) shouldn’t have publicly shared that knowledge when gathered with other Christian followers, especially when men were present— because “women shouldn’t teach or assume authority over a man.”

At first reading, a famous New Testament verse *seems* clear when the Apostle Paul discussed protocols for worship services and said “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” (1 Timothy 2:12). Many Christians, therefore, (thousands of whom have *far* more Biblical training than me) have prohibited women from teaching in church gatherings in a well-meaning attempt to obey Scripture.

Renovation Community is part of a global denomination, the Church of the Nazarene. [Nerdy details: In denominational nomenclature, we fall under the “Wesleyan-Arminian” group and, more specifically, within the “Holiness” movement. Some of our closest ‘kin’ are the Wesleyan and Salvation Army denominations. Yep, the Salvation Army is an actual denomination. Surprise!] In common modern American classifications, few would ever describe us as “Progressive.” Yet our denomination has practiced one so-called progressive act since our inception over 100 years ago: we’ve ordained and supported women preachers (even before U.S. women had the right to vote).

Though we love them dearly and agree with them on many other issues, we have always respectfully disagreed with our Christian brothers and sisters who decry women preachers. We have stood firm in proclaiming that ‘what *seems* clear in the Bible upon first reading, occasionally…isn’t.’

Sometimes the *clear* Biblical Truth lay obscured under millennia of cultural change, language barriers, idioms that don’t easily translate, and our lack of basic Bible history, Bible geography, Bible customs, etc. [And don’t get me started on how little the average Christian seems to under the first two-thirds of their Bible— the Old Testament!]

Ancient Jews were steeped in what’s often called “honor and shame” culture; the higher one’s honor, the greater their authority. Teachers of Jewish Scripture held honor and, thus, held authority over those they taught. Paul touches on those honor/authority issues in his 1 Timothy passage on women.

But Modern Western Americans famously put little stock in hierarchy compared to most cultures throughout history (and many global cultures today).

We also see this culturally-assumed Teacher/Student hierarchy in Luke 6:40 when Jesus says “The student is not above the teacher.”

But Paul (the supposed champion of prohibiting women preachers) practiced radical obedience, to the point of an avoidable martyrdom, in following ALL Jesus taught. Paul explicitly stated that the ENTIRETY of his faith and ministry purpose ultimately lay with Jesus’ bodily resurrection: “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

But if *everything* for Paul hinged on Christ’s resurrection, was he likely to contradict Jesus’ first post-resurrection words??

There near the Tomb, Jesus instructed brave women to do 3 things Paul *seemed* to be against: 1) Teach men Christ had risen, which [especially given that culture] 2) placed them in authority over the men who didn’t yet have knowledge of Christ’s resurrection. Of course, obeying the Risen Christ’s command also meant the women could 3) NOT remain silent once they returned to a predominantly-male gathering of apostles. Surely Jesus didn’t intend these women to silently pantomime the Resurrection News but to vocally speak it for the men to hear.

So if we interpret Paul’s 1 Timothy 2 quote as some would have us do [i.e. no women Teachers], then: 1) Jesus was out of line for instructing the women to teach men about the Resurrection and 2) the women were out of line for obeying Jesus.

As faithful Jesus-followers, do we really want to say that?!

Instead, what if we assume a different path forward? What if we assume the Apostle Paul would never teach ideas contradictory to Jesus’ teaching and actions? Or, at the very least, what if we assume that God would prevent any fallible human’s incorrect teachings from landing in His Spirit-Inspired Scriptures?

While Christians have disagreed on how to interpret Paul’s instructions for women, both sides agree on Jesus’ intentions in these post-Resurrection scenes. He intended those women to teach his male disciples the most important message the world has ever heard: Christ is Risen!

When defending Scripture, Christians sometimes say “God’s Word is true.” Yes and amen! But that does not (*should not*) automatically mean “I have truly understood God’s Word.”

Individuals, denominations, and even entire movements within Christianity must always approach Scriptural Interpretation with humility, acknowledging our imperfect understanding.

So if Paul’s confusing instructions seem to contradict Jesus’ explicitly clear instructions in the Garden that morning, perhaps we should humbly acknowledge we have misunderstood Paul. Perhaps Paul *wasn’t* saying what some *thought* he said against women Teachers.

[Evidence supporting this view comes from Paul himself. He wrote to a church in the ancient city of Corinth about how they should conduct worship services in line with commonly-understood customs and said “every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head” (1 Corinthians 11:5). Biblical prophecy wasn’t ‘future predicting’ like many today imagine; it was, in fact, “preaching to others.” Why would Paul instruct these Corinthian women to preach to others with their heads covered if he didn’t want them preaching at all?]

***

The apostles Peter and John also arrived at the empty tomb later in the morning (John 20:3-10). But neither Jesus nor angels greeted them or commissioned them in the garden to preach (that came later). In those sacred early morning hours ‘while the dew was still on the roses,’ Jesus *exclusively* met with and commissioned women to teach others the Good News. Perhaps on that first Resurrection Sunday our great Teacher of Parables enacted a living parable some of us have overlooked.

I’m proud to be part of a movement that has followed the Risen Christ’s Easter Morning example. Just as Jesus sent out women to authoritatively proclaim the Good News to all, including men, so our denomination has sent out women to preach in churches and in mission fields throughout the world. Last night I attended a service where we ordained 7 people; 6 were women. We’ve always ordained women to authoritatively proclaim the same message those brave Jewish women proclaimed nearly 2000 years ago…

“Christ is Risen!”

But what if you’re a woman in a church that doesn’t ordain women??

Dear Sisters in Christ,

May you trust that your knowledge of Jesus, not your gender, gives license to preach in His name.

Remember, Jesus reserved a special Commission for you that Resurrection Morning near the Empty Tomb.

So may you bravely follow your female forbearers’ footsteps, ‘treading among the tombs’ where men have feared to walk.

Just as those women steeled themselves that morning to face soldiers guarding Jesus’ body, may you steel yourself to face all who would attack, invalidate, and doubt your ministry to Him.

May your little girls feel welcomed to carry Christ’s body, Christ’s blood, and Christ’s message to the Nations.

May the Church follow Christ’s Resurrection Morning example— commissioning women with a message people must know.

The Apostle Paul said it well— “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith”

May we never forget the first preachers of His bodily Resurrection…the first couriers of the Faith we profess… were Society’s disregarded women.

So preach it loud, sister.

Preach to men and women, young and old, rich and poor, healthy and sick, neighbor and foreigner. Preach boldly until all the world has heard…

“CHRIST IS RISEN!”

“Wash your hands with bleach as soon as you can” he said as I knelt on the floor.

***

My wife texted during Renovation Community’s new Tuesday night GriefShare group a couple weeks ago. One of my chronically homeless friends had just stopped by the Parsonage front door looking for me. Kelly sent him over and warned me, “He looked bad.”

I met this man after a worship service summer 2013. We drove him to the hospital for a bad open wound on his ankle. That wound has never fully healed.

I’ve watched him slowly lose teeth from drugs, drinking, and poor dental hygiene. But he still looked relatively healthy until last year when he received a Congestive Heart Failure diagnosis. His body and mind now have quickly deteriorated.

As I walked out our front entrance, I saw a frail man with yellow skin. He looked much worse than when we met two weeks earlier. A hospital bracelet on his wrist confirmed his story— he’d been released from the emergency room earlier that morning.

The amazing funeral director in our building provides snacks for our weekly GriefShare group. So I brought my friend inside, filled his plate with food, and led him to our fellowship hall for his supper. The irony struck me as I walked back into the next room for our meeting– this man has eaten several meals in that empty hall over the years but never once felt comfortable to join us in there for a service. Crowds intimidate him, even our church’s small numbers.

***

Throughout the Christian Bible, we read examples of God walking among His people. In Genesis 3:8 it seems God had regularly walked with Adam and Eve ‘in the cool of the day.’ In Genesis 18 God (and two others ;)) walk up to Abraham’s tent and share a meal with him. In Exodus 13 God guides the newly-freed Israelites with a pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day. English translations say the pillars “went” before the people, but the Hebrew word there could just as easily (or *should*) be translated as “walked” before them. [Oddly, translators apparently couldn’t envision a pillar of cloud or fire “walking,” yet the Biblical book of Revelation, describes God’s legs as “fiery pillars” (Rev 10:1)]

In the book of Deuteronomy God instructs the Israelites to bury their waste outside the camp after using the bathroom and gives this rather comical explanation: “For the Lord your God moves [“walks”] about in your camp…” (Deut 23:14). Basically, clean up after yourself because God doesn’t want to step in it when He visits. 🤷🏼‍♂️

But of course the clearest example in Christian Scripture of God walking among His people is Jesus of Nazareth. The introductory verses in the Gospel of John poetically describe Jesus’ time on earth in this way: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14).

Many religions contain stories about gods walking among humans on earth. But these divine visitations often include some sort of disguise. [Fun fact: the ancient Roman poet Ovid recounts a story when Zeus and Hermes visit earth in disguise and punish an inhospitable village. Villagers in a town called Lystra believed the two deities had returned when the Apostle Paul and his companion Barnabas healed a paralyzed man. The villagers began chanting, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” (Acts 14:11).]

But the Judeo-Christian God is different. In the Old Testament and New Testament, in stories ranging from the pillars of fire and cloud to the post-Resurrection Jesus, He never attempts to disguise Himself. When people *don’t* recognize Him (and this is important) the cause lay with a proverbial veil over *their* eyes rather than some sort of mask over *God’s* face.

Other religions’ gods may disguise themselves. Perhaps even God’s *angels* may disguise themselves and visit us (Hebrews 13:2). But never God.

We love it when God flexes his miraculous power and ‘walks in our midst.’ Those times feel easy to see. And it would have been amazing to see God-in-the-flesh walking among us 2000 years ago.

But Jesus warned he could pass before our eyes thousands…millions of times without us ever noticing Him…

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:34-36

Another group in this parable is NOT welcomed into the Kingdom because they don’t serve these same people in need…

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’” Matthew 25:41-43

Every time we serve someone in a situation like that is an opportunity to interact with Jesus.

No, Jesus isn’t “in everything” like some sort of Christian Pantheism. And Jesus doesn’t shape-shift, sometimes taking the form of a thirsty, imprisoned, or naked person. Nor do His words here teach that every person experiencing such hardships automatically becomes a Christian.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ followers must take his words seriously here. He didn’t say doing these deeds is *like* doing them to him. No. In some mysterious way, Jesus explains that we do these kind acts *to* or *for* Jesus when we serve those in need.

***

I walked my frail friend over to our gym, found him a towel and soap (donated from kind people who know how we use them), and led him to the showers.

I returned after my meeting and found him barefoot and mostly-dressed in the bathroom. The large hospital bandage he wore before his shower lay on top of the trash; it covered a new ankle wound which now slowly oozed pus. His old ankle wound from 2013 still oozed from the other side of the same foot. Scabs from scrapes and bug bites covered both legs and extended to both feet, down to the yellow toenails.

I’ve previously helped this man pull a hoodie over his neck, zip up his jacket, place a warm cap on his head, and fit gloves on his hands in the winter. His slow movements and limited dexterity drastically prolong simple tasks, such as putting on shoes. So I offered to help him.

But the blunt truth is, I was only thinking of myself. It was 9:30pm. I felt frustrated he’d taken so long to shower and dress. I wanted him out the door as soon as possible so I could climb in my comfortable bed…

“Can I help you put on your shoes?”

He didn’t want to wear socks. So I crouched down to open up his grimy basketball shoes [probably picked up outside the Goodwill donation area after hours]. Then I placed his feet inside. Each foot, still wet from the shower, stuck against the shoe’s tongue and heel. So I guided his bare feet in with my hands and heard him say, “Wash your hands with bleach as soon as you can.”

Even after his shower, he knew I risked infection by touching his bare feet and dirty shoes.

I asked to pray for him as I later walked him outside. “We’ll both pray,” he replied. As soon as he left, I quickly wrote down the last part of his prayer I remembered:

“For any children around us, help us teach them the straight path…keep us from sin…help Pastor Chris and Miss Kelly…God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food…If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

This man has frustrated me and occasionally inconvenienced me for almost 9 years. When angry with me in the past, he said hateful things about me to others in the Chronically Homeless community.

I brought his heart medication prescription to the pharmacy the day after this encounter. The Pharmacy Tech grew frustrated when she tried verifying his phone number and address (which doesn’t quite work for someone who’s lived on the streets 20 years and refuses to keep a cell phone). When the woman finally understood I was a pastor buying prescriptions for my sick homeless friend, she exclaimed “I bet he really appreciates your help!”

But I replied with the first thought in my irritated head that morning, “No. He’s actually a cranky old goat no matter *what* I do. But Jesus wants me to help him anyway.”

How’s that for a cheerful giver?! 🤦🏼‍♂️

But perhaps you can relate to my raw honesty from that day at the pharmacy counter.

It often feels easier to help someone who seems completely innocent or obviously isn’t responsible for their current negative circumstances: a small child; someone sick with an illness not stemming from their unhealthy actions; someone who’s lost everything due to disaster rather than poor choices, etc. But how do we respond to people like my friend who rudely interact with those trying to help him and now suffers the consequences of his past (and current) poor choices?

Jesus didn’t bother elaborating about the conditions of those people we have opportunities to serve.

What about the person who’s thirsty or hungry because they wasted all their money??

What about the person who ISN’T imprisoned unjustly??

What about the person who’s sick because they made decades of unhealthy choices??

Jesus repeatedly avoided people’s “whataboutisms.”

Sure, those may be valid questions. But Jesus knows we can also ask valid questions for invalid reasons. [A little like asking, “Can I help you put on your shoes?” because I want someone out of my hair faster.]

Healthy boundaries matter. And we can’t help everyone. God can guide us as we make those decisions. But how many times have I missed an opportunity to serve *Jesus* by rationalizing away someone’s needs?

I don’t have easy answers for when “help” crosses over into “enabling.” But I do know my own selfishness typically tempts me to help too *little,* not too much.

***

I picked up 3 different prescriptions for my friend that following day, which helped me realize his dire physical condition. And I allowed him to stay in our gym. But he only stayed one night before moving on again.

I passed through our gym a couple days later and saw his basketball shoes lying on the floor. He’d found a better pair in our Clothing Pantry.

I’m guessing Chronically Homeless friends don’t regularly ring your doorbell like they do ours. But perhaps those in need around you look like: a neighbor or coworker struggling to pay bills, an elderly or sick loved one who needs extra care; a moody adolescent or estranged spouse who pushes away your love; or even a poor family in a developing country who needs your financial support (even though you’ll never meet).

People in need.

They walk through our lives every single day. The question is… When we see them, do we see Jesus?

I don’t know how Jesus walks through your life. But in my life, he often stands at our Parsonage front door.

And for a few days…he wore basketball shoes.

God has brought me through unimaginably dark valleys since I became a pastor 8.5 years ago. Looking back, my greatest spiritual growth occurred when I didn’t quit or retreat out of those valleys but followed Him through the valleys…walking towards greater sacrificial love and service for others even though I didn’t want to, it hurt, or I felt scared.

“Self-Care” has become an important conversation in religious and non-religious spheres of society (I dislike the bifurcation, but you get the idea).

I replied to a marketing email from a former mega-church pastor who now coaches leaders. Surprisingly, he personally responded to me. As he learned a little about Renovation Community in our email back-and-forth, this man quickly understood my difficult ministry setting and encouraged me to rest. [Thanks Shane.]

In general, this increased conversation on Self-Care is excellent. No one, including pastors, brings glory to God when we’re burned out, irritable, and walking around with cloudy judgment due to an unsustainable pace. But Humanity has the potential to twist and abuse anything good into something unhealthy.

When we hyper-focus on “Self-Care” or disguise our selfishness behind it, we miss opportunities to grow through difficult “Others-Care”: a newborn; an emotional teenager; a sick loved one; aging parents; people in crisis; your struggling marriage.

During my dark valleys, God gave me biographies to read of long-dead Christian missionaries and saints. Often God led these people to serve others in faraway lands with limited medical care where the missionary’s loved ones died from illnesses easily treatable (or entirely avoidable) back in their home country. Stories from Christian predecessors who faithfully endured hardship nourished my soul. They also began to influence my personal and ministry decisions.

In “The Hiding Place,” Corrie Ten Boom recounts living in a Nazi female-only concentration camp with her anemic and sickly sister, Betsie, after being arrested for hiding Jews in their home.

When they first entered their detestable barracks at Ravensbrück, Corrie groaned,

***

““Betsie, how can we live in such a place?”

“Show us. Show us how.” It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

“Corrie!” she said excitedly. “He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again.”

“It was in 1 Thessalonians,” I said…”Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…”

It seemed written expressly to Ravensbrück

“Go on,” said Betsie “that wasn’t all.”

“Oh yes” “…to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.”

***

Early as a pastor, I felt God pushing our church towards greater levels of sacrifice to help those who could never repay our church or (in crass Church Growth terms) provide a good “Return On Investment” for our energy. In other words, God challenged me to radically live out the 1 Thessalonians passage Corrie and Betsie read in their concentration camp.

This felt increasingly risky to our bottom-line. After all, most churches pay their bills out of church attenders’ offerings. And many financially stable families don’t want their children around smelly homeless men or unruly kids from hard places when they enter a church building.

Let’s face it, we feel most comfortable around people like us. Few of us naturally gravitate to social settings where we stand out too much. So when it comes picking a church home, wealthy people often flock to churches with other wealthy people. And poor people often flock to churches with other poor people.

My pastoral choices set Renovation Community on a trajectory that, once in motion, would be difficult to reverse. Loving people warned such a path was financially unsustainable…

‘I’d need to take another job, further reducing my time to to grow a church. The much-needed repairs throughout our massive facilities would not happen without enough middle-class attenders to pay for them. Our church’s tiny savings account would quickly disappear.’

Our time and money spent serving society’s marginalized spiked—a new Spanish-speaking church, a summer day camp and feeding program, temporary jobs for the homeless and jobless, housing the recently-evicted, investing in a new Asian-Indian ministry, providing below-market rental space for other ministries, hundreds of hours counseling struggling people, thousands and thousands of dollars given for rent and bill assistance, prescription purchases, car repairs, groceries, medical bills, etc.

Those loving people with dire warnings probably were right: a church like ours is not financially sustainable, not SELF-sustainable at least. Repair bills will never stop. Pipes, roofs, and air conditioners continue to fail. Decades-old carpet must eventually get replaced. Expensive appliances break. Utility rates climb. And if over half our church family can’t consistently pay basic bills, they aren’t likely to put large gifts in our offering boxes.

Since the Pandemic began, our Benevolence expenses have skyrocketed. More a/c units unexpectedly failed. Burst pipes flooded multiple rooms during February’s arctic blast (but our $20,000 deductible meant we repaired it all out-of pocket).

I have a private prayer journal. It’s an email account where I write my biggest prayers. I’ve recorded many in the last year about how much financial stress has overwhelmed me. “Lord, we can’t afford to pay for this building and pay for others’ needs too!”

With each new request for assistance from our community and within our church family, I’ve felt the stress rise inside me. ‘What if another a/c fails?’ ‘We need to renovate more rooms.’

But it was hard to say ‘No’ to honest eyes filled with tears.

Ravensbrück was almost exclusively a work camp that used political prisoners as slave labor. Corrie and Betsie had little risk of being executed like Jewish prisoners at extermination camps; their work was too valuable to the Nazi war machine. But the sisters endured incredibly high risks of dying from starvation, disease, or other illness related to malnutrition. In the camp’s last year of operation, around 80 sickly women died each day.

Corrie smuggled in a Bible to feed their weary souls. And she smuggled in a bottle of vitamin drops she hoped would stave off vitamin deficiencies, especially in her weak sister. But Betsie kept dispensing drops to fellow prisoners. Eventually, Corrie gave in to her sister’s generosity and shared the precious vitamins with others.

***

“Another strange thing was happening. The Davitamon bottle was continuing to produce drops. It scarcely seemed possible, so small a bottle, so many doses a day. Now, in addition to Betsie, a dozen others on our pier were taking it.

My instinct was always to hoard it-Betsie was growing so very weak! But others were ill as well. It was hard to say no to eyes that burned with fever, hands that shook with chill. I tried to save it for the very weakest-but even these soon numbered fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. . . .

And still, every time I tilted the little bottle, a drop appeared at the top of the glass stopper. It just couldn’t be! I held it up to the light, trying to see how much was left, but the dark brown glass was too thick to see through.

“There was a woman in the Bible,” Betsie said, “whose oil jar was never empty.” She turned to it in the Book of Kings, the story of the poor widow of Zarephath who gave Elijah a room in her home: “The jar of meal [flour] wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he spoke by Elijah.”

Well, but wonderful things happened all through the Bible. It was one thing to believe that such things were possible thousands of years ago, another to have it happen now, to us, this very day. And yet it happened, this day, and the next, and the next, until an awed little group of spectators stood around watching the drops fall onto the daily rations of bread.”

***

I’ve included screenshots in this post of my honest, raw, and fear-filled prayers as well as pictures of recent gifts.

Someone placed a sealed envelope containing the first check in my hand last Saturday night. Although the givers wrote it October 31, the envelope addressed to Renovation Community and me landed in a different church’s offering plate. Counters then gave it to people who knew me, who then passed it on last week. The second large check arrived in the mail this week. The others have all arrived in the mail in the last few weeks.

Dear reader,

If God had never once given our church or my family one extra dollar in a special way, His faithfulness would not be diminished. If Renovation Community closed due to lack of funds, our God’s grace is sufficient.

Our Lord Jesus’ death on the cross reminds us He has given the greatest gift we need— Salvation.

Nevertheless, He often provides much more, including our daily bread. And in our church’s case, He’s provided for our financial needs like a vitamin bottle that always seems to have more.

One day a fellow Ravensbrück prisoner smuggled vitamins to Corrie after working in the camp hospital. But Corrie opened her same trusty vitamin drop bottle that night. She planned to finish it before starting the new contraband vitamins from her friend. But she found the bottle dry and empty. God stopped the miraculous supply on the same day He provided a different supply through human means.

Perhaps God will also stop Renovation Community’s spectacular ‘financial drops’ one day. If so, I trust He will provide in some other more common way.

Until He stops, you are welcome to gather round to ‘watch the drops fall’ on our daily bread.

He is faithful.