A Hole In Our Gospel: Chapters 9 & 10 (2 of many)

Imagine (this shouldn't be too hard for any of you) the media and government frenzy resulting from the crash of a passenger jet in the United States, killing all 220 aboard. You've likely been through the experience of observing that situation from afar at least once in your life.

Now imagine a day in which 100 airliners crash, killing 22,000 passengers in a single day. That's a big leap, but not quite out of the realm of imagination. It's the stuff that apocalyptic movies make their money on - the unreal experience of widespread death, destruction and chaos that lies just at the edge of the imaginable.

Finally imagine this catastrophe occurring every single day, each year. This is not the product of some sadistic crack-pot novelist. This is real life - yesterday, today, and tomorrow - for children living in poverty. This is tragedy in its most epic proportions.

That's my synopsis of Richard Stearn's illustration in Chapter 9. The depth of the tragedy is literally incomprehensible. Stearns aptly quotes Flannery O'Connor saying "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." And he also quotes Bono who says (his emphasis): "Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria... This is Africa's crisis. That it's not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency - that's our crisis."

Stearns goes on to ask: "So why does the crash of a single plane dominate the front pages of newspapers across the world while the equivalent of 100 planes filled with children crashing daily never reaches our ears? Perhaps one reason is that these kids who are dying are not our kids; they're somebody else's."

He doesn't point an accusatory finger, in fact he owns up to his own inability to cope with the overwhelming statistics, admitting that it takes only a few weeks for himself to become numb to the problem after returning from the depths of poverty in Africa. In Chapter 10 he explains the difficulty of these overwhelming statistics:

... that very statistic, so critical to our understanding of the extent and urgency fo the plight of the world's children, also begins to obscure the humanity, the dignity, and the worth of each of those children. It takes away their names, and their stories, homogenizes their personalities, and cheapens the value of each individual child, created in the very image of God. Statistics can become... just one more way to walk by on the other side of the road.

Stearns references a university study which performed behavioral experiments showing that the story of one child was more compelling than the suffering of millions, asking "Was it not this flaw in our human character that allowed the holocaust and the Rwanda genocide to occur?"

I too feel deeply flawed in my inability to care for the nameless millions suffering on this earth. I may not be able to accomplish much on my own, but I will accomplish absolutely nothing if I don't let this truth form my beliefs and behaviors.

We are ALL Needy, WIL 16

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer" (2 Cor. 5:14-16).

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend my Saturday evening cooking, serving, cleaning up a meal for Seattle's Central District's People in Need. In about an hour, we fed 125 people, some of them twice and thrice. My guard was halfway up, heightening my senses and reactions. I haven't served at this location before. You never know exactly what you'll encounter.

Programs specializing in People in Need must have strict rules of conduct, to keep the peace. I was very impressed with this Operation; how orderly the clients were - they knew the drill, they complied in exchange for Needs Met.

Cooking and cleaning is something I can do. It's easier than having a conversation, searching for things in common with someone who lives a very different life. Practical service necessary - and safer. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs clearly states that Basic needs must be filled in order to begin addressing higher needs, including Spiritual ones. (This is one reason I struggle with ministries that require attending a Gospel service before the meal. But that is a different post.) However, Practical service is a contact point, an in to some relationship.

Because I am Needy and still invited into wholeness in Christ, His friendship compels me to open myself to others in Need - Everyone. If I truly believe He died for ALL, I should see them as Deeply Loved, just as I see myself. I can look at them through Christ's Eyes, have compassion on them, identify with them.

"17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:17-20a).

Although I cannot vouch for their Belief, I can testify to my transformation, my responsibility to accept others because I am accepted. I am Being Made New every morning because of His faithfulness and love (Lam. 3:22-23). As a recipient of His grace, a Being changed from glory to increased glory (2 Cor. 3:18), He asked me - sometimes commands me - to do what I can, where I am to bring others into His Love.

Miraculously, I was able to see each man as an individual, see past their shabby exterior, see their humanness in the midst of their struggle to survive. Many would not meet my eyes; some would only mumble that they wanted everything available on their taco. They seemed crushed under the weight of Deep Need.

Some may call what I felt Pity, but I placed myself in their shoes. I pray they felt more than Pity, that they felt Compassion - Compassion beyond me, from the very heart of God.