After a holiday hiatus, it is time to post again. I haven't been teaching for most of a month and study on my thesis continues to drag on, so finding things to write about has been a bit of a challenge for me. I will say that it was so good having family around for several days between Christmas and New Year's and I'm thankful that we got a chance to see each of them and get to know some of the nieces and nephews that we don't see often. Thanks for coming everyone!
Went to a monthly lunch meeting today with a group of people who have interest and passion in seeing reconciliation happen. We start with about 30 minutes of prayer together each time we meet. It was the prayer time that has me thinking today; specifically, the prayers of a couple of people, neither of whom I know very well. So, let me put in the disclaimer that I am only evaluating words and making no statement about the heart or motive of these two gentlemen. The fact that they want to be part of this group and make a difference in North Minneapolis is commendable.
The first guy kept praying that we would be ready when Jesus comes to North Minneapolis, as if he is in some way absent right now: "Jesus is coming and we need to be ready to assist him when he gets here." After more than three years of working with ministry types on the northside, I can testify that Jesus is alive and well in North Minneapolis. There are Christ-following men and women who are giving their lives, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, to be his hands and feet in a community that is hurting. This kind of statement exposes our biases about urban centers. There is a common misconception that inner-cities, perhaps because we read of violence in these areas so often, are more sinful and lacking hope or light. However, having lived in suburban and rural communities all my life, I believe that there may be more hope for our cities than there are for some other parts of our country.
I would invite you to spend some time in a small town in a rural area. Pay attention to how many problems there are with drugs (especially methamphetine) and alcohol, the amount of domestic violence and abuse, the number of teenaged girls that are pregnant, and then see if the view remains the same. Add to that the tendency of small towns to deny or hide their troubles, the prevalence of empty religion and moralism, and a general sense of boredom and you can see that Jesus faces some sizable obstacles in these areas too.
Perhaps the journey could then lead you to the suburbs, land of excess and affluence, McMansions and malaise. The lack of contact with reality has a numbing effect on people in these communities. Until the past several months, the financial hardships that define our urban core have had very little bearing on the suburbs. So the security net of comfort, the accumulation of and addiction to stuff, the need for bigger houses and newer SUV's create a shell around the suburbanite that rejects the calling of the quiet voice of God. Maybe, and only maybe, those outside the city limits have fewer obvious problems (teen pregnancy, violence, drugs, etc.) but they share the same aversion to God that those in other communities do.
North Minneapolis needs people to be committed to living out Christ's kingdom on the ground, but so do every small town and every suburb in our world. Jesus isn't "coming," Jesus is present and he is working in big ways and small to restore each of these communities and bring them to relationship with him.
The other troubling prayer was one which kept emphasizing "excellence." Somehow excellence is the key to effective ministry for Jesus, and if we don't pursue excellence, we aren't following Jesus. Not sure where we fell into this flawed way of thinking, but it is so pervasive in evangelical circles and on the shelves of Christian bookstores as to be troubling.
I won't go into a huge amount of detail, but if one just begins with Matthew 1, I think the excellence ideal is blown away. When we consider the bloodline of Jesus, it is a tribute to messiness, to a lack of excellence. Abraham? Mess. Jacob? Mess. Rahab? Mess. David? Mess. Israel in general? Mess. Yet from this flawed stream of contributors, God presented the world with Messiah. Jesus had three years of public ministry which would probably not rate high on the excellence scale of today. He hung out with those whom society would encourage avoiding: tax-collectors, prostitutes, unstable fishermen--you name it, they were a part of his entourage. He built no buildings and had no viable programs for soul-winning. He drifted around from small town to small town, stirring things up as he went but often leaving no tangible evidence that he had been there. Executed as a criminal, abandoned and betrayed by those he considered his closest friends, and buried in a borrowed tomb...wow, what a portrait of non-excellence. No, I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming: Jesus was messy and his was not a model of ministry excellence by human standards.
I think we should do our best, give great effort when we put ourselves into places where we can be of use in ministry to people for the kingdom of God. That said, there may be more genuine affect in real human lives by messy ministry than by professional excellence. I don't want to plan to fail, but I don't want the success of Jesus to hinge on my excellence.
Just a couple of thoughts.
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2 comments:
Don't you think its our pursuit of excellence that turns so many away from Christ? I must admit I wanted to be a perfect instrument of Christ. Noble goal but not realistic. Even when I had attained what I thought was perfection, I was proud. Seems backwards.
Joe - deep insights - thanks for laying this out - and thanks for your faithfulness!
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