Fear is a Good Thing

Something in me wasn’t settled. Not indigestion, but something that still made my stomach a bit weary.

I first heard about this peacemaking mission to the Middle East over a year ago and have been sensing a calling to be part of it from the beginning.  With deadlines coming down to the wire, I was feeling unsettled…maybe it was fear? Maybe it was a premonition that needed to be listened to?

I feel distinctly called to be an advocate for peace in places of conflict and within oppressed populations.  Further, I feel that God has called me to identify and faithfully tell the stories (primarily through writing) of those that otherwise wouldn’t have a voice. In telling these stories, I hope to expose and ignite the imagination of those of us in the West that are so often insulated from the realities of contexts outside of our own.

Despite this deep sense of calling and conviction, I was second-guessing my participation in this mission. It is going to take great sacrifice for my family and me.  Was it the finances?  The idea of exposing myself to the political and violent turmoil that is currently littering the Middle East?  Was it the fear of being away from my family for two weeks?  Would Ruby forget who I was by the time I got back?

Real questions.  Hard questions.  Fear.

I asked for prayer.

Two guys that I serve alongside in our missional community sat with me and listened for the Spirit’s guidance.  About 30 minutes into our time, one of them said, “Jesus doesn’t want us to live in fear.  Being faithful to God’s Mission isn’t comfortable, so if you are uncomfortable or fearful but know this is what God is calling you towards, you need to faithfully step into it.”

In other words, fear doesn’t mean no…it means go.

I think Jesus experienced this before being betrayed by one of his own and taken by the Roman authorities.  As did Moses when YHWH told him to go before Pharaoh as an advocate for the oppressed people of God.

When we are faithful to walk to the edge of our comfort zone (or right past it!), we are able to get a more full understanding of God’s vocation for each of our lives. It is an understanding that we may never know if we remain in comfortable complacency.

Complacency has no place in God’s Kingdom. As followers of Jesus, we must continually and actively step into the radical call of discipleship.

I am finding this easy to say, but much harder to do.

 

Travel as Pilgrimage #4: Pavlov, Minus His Dog…

Greek Man sitting at table

The sun was starting to set as we wandered around the streets of Aegina, an island off of Greece.  We weren’t planning on spending the night on the island, but the little town was beautiful and a late night adventure back to the mainland didn’t sound appealing.  Hoping to find a comfortable, inexpensive and safe place to crash for the night, we ran into an old gentleman smoking his pipe on a narrow street a few blocks from the center of town.  As we walked up, his face immediately lit up and he greeted us with a toothless smile.

We were thousands of miles away from home, yet this little old man (he couldn’t have been over 5 feet tall) welcomed us as if we his is long lost children.

After offering us some café (coffee) in his thick Greek accent, we realized he had been sitting outside of his home/business.  He and his wife owned a little hotel that might have even been older than he was.  We asked him his name and he invited us to check out the hotel while again offering café.

Pavlov wasn’t much of a businessman.  We really needed a place to stay and his place looked like a good fit for the evening.  By the time we walked up the stairs and back to the front desk, he had cut the price of the room in half and offered us another cup of café.  I don’t think he was desperate for customers and his insistence wasn’t creepy.  I think Pavlov genuinely wanted us to feel at home in his home. And, I think he really wanted some conversation partners for his next cup of café.

We dropped our stuff off in our tiny room and as we headed out for dinner on the town, Pavlov smiled from ear to ear and said, “Go have fun and let me know when you get back so we can sit have a cup of café and conversation.”

As we walked away from Pavlov, it felt as though we were walking away from home.

Hospitality is a spiritual discipline. It is central to the story of the Hebrew Scriptures (not only for their own, but for aliens and strangers) and the context that allowed Jesus and his early followers to share the Good News all over the region.

Hospitality isn’t valued as highly in Western culture as it is in many other parts of the world. After sharing a meal in the home of Palestinian friends in the West Bank, they said the act of sitting at their table made me their brother.  For them, you never deny someone a place your table…even if they are your enemy.  It would be a greater sin to turn someone away than it would to dine with an enemy.

Understanding hospitality as a spiritual discipline creates all sorts of challenges for Christians in the West. It is a new paradigm in our understanding of national borders being extended to aliens or strangers and adds significance to the simple act of opening our door to someone in need (physical or emotional).

We slept terrible that night in Pavlov’s hotel.  I might as well have been sleeping on a slab of concrete with a placemat as a pillow.  But we were home.

 

“By The Way, She and Her Son Have Aids.”

(My Monday “Travel as Pilgrimage” post will have to wait until Wednesday this week)

Teaching to my homeless friends

There is a soup kitchen a few blocks from our house that provides two warm meals for local homeless each day near downtown San Diego. They are the longest standing soup kitchen in SD and one of the only ones still open. Before each meal is served, there is a 30-minute service led by a variety of local pastors. I was asked to speak before this morning’s meal.

I thought, “these people have to hear 14 messages a week?! What else could they possibly need to hear? Would some simple human interaction go farther than another ‘sermon’ being preached at them? After all, I can’t pretend to have any idea what it feels like to live a day in their shoes.”

Adjusting my attitude and perspective (and knowing I wasn’t the guy to change how things had been done for the past few decades), I began to prepare by exploring what it could look like to share the tangible Good News of a Kingdom where the first will be last and the last will be first. A Kingdom where the hungry are fed, the suffering find peace and the hopeless offered new life. A Kingdom where Jesus is most evident within the suffering. A Kingdom that isn’t only a future reality, but something to be experienced in the here and now.

Walking through the doors, I was able to look into the eyes of God’s Kingdom inhabitants.

I’m always convicted walking into such places, as it is so easy to talk about injustice, but all to rare to actively step into the lives of those being impacted by injustice. Far stronger than the guilty conviction was the sense of God’s Spirit resting on his beautiful children. Most stared numbly at the ceiling or slept with their head resting on the table. They had all been let down at some point in their lives. Whether through abandonment, loss or suffering, each had an earlier chapter in their story that led to their current chapter. I recently heard that 90% of homeless sincerely desire to get off the streets. They don’t want to be there, but they are held captive. While society has in large part turned a blind eye to their suffering, Jesus announced that they are the center of his attention.

Upside-down Kingdom

I told the story of the pain, suffering and depression that surrounded the loss of our first child (Read More Here). We had so much hope in the life of that baby and it was instantly taken from us. I shared Jesus’ words that announce the poor, hungry and weeping as the inhabitants of God’s Kingdom (Luke 6). We read Luke 13 where Jesus describes the great Kingdom feast where the first will be last and the last first. I concluded with Jesus’ announcement that the Kingdom is at hand (Mark 1) and that in the midst of the suffering, pain, disappointment and abandonment, the hope of God’s Kingdom is now. It is in Jesus resurrection that we can trust the Story of God as being good and leading to life…not just in the future, but today. Finally, I shared the news of my daughter Ruby’s birth just 7 months ago and the hope that her life embodies everyday.

When I finished, a young woman (I’ll call her Gloria) with a baby son came up to me. I saw them as soon as I walked in the door this morning, but hadn’t been able to connect with them. She put her son in my arms and shared how much she loved him, but was sad that his development was stunted. He was 10 months old, had already had one surgery and was scheduled for another this week. I could sense that she felt alone and even guilty for his condition as she didn’t know she was pregnant until nearly 5 months along. He put his hands on my face and smiled. I wondered if he had ever experienced the love of a father.

About 20 minutes later a women came up to me and said, “I know you’re close to that God of yours and thought you should know that both Gloria and her son have aids. She might have to give him up in the next year. Maybe you could pray for them?”

My heart broke.

As is often the case, I went in to a situation seeking to initiate transformation…but in the end, I was the one transformed. My prayer is that we both were.

I also pray that we will all choose to step into the stories of those forgotten by society and affirm the reality of God’s Kingdom come in both word and deed.

What faces do you see everyday that you sense God calling you towards?  What can you learn about their story?  How can you point them to the hope of God’s Kingdom through your words and deeds?

Why God Calls Us To Be Traders

As followers of Jesus, we are called to participate and extend God’s mission in the world. In short, all Christians are called to be missionaries. Maybe not in the traditional “missionary” sense, but we are to be on mission in our workplace, homes, neighborhoods, etc. And, if we are to fully align with God’s mission, we have to call into question other “missions” — reputation, wealth, consumption, corporate ladders, church politics — that may be fighting for our time, energy and allegiance…we have to trade one mission for the mission of God. We are called to be traders.

I struggle with this everyday. Please, enter the struggle with me. When we stop struggling, we have probably agreed to live on a mission counter to God’s.

This video (produced by RightNow.org)  is a brilliant and artful piece that invites us all to become traders.  Check it out…

Travel as Pilgrimage #3: “Are You Another Mean American?”

Sitting at Cafe in Barcelona

It was New Year’s day and the streets of Barcelona, Spain were full of white lights and endless energy. Jan and I slowly strolled down Las Rambles (Barcelona’s most popular street) and took in scene. There is something about being in a different culture that puts you on your heals a little bit. Not knowing the language or cultural norms forces us into a posture of humility and listening. This is the posture that allows us to grow and learn of the vast diversity of God’s Creation. My inherited cultural telescope is so narrow…it is only in looking through another’s that my worldview expands. See my first Travel as Pilgrimage post for more explanation.

As we sat in a street side cafe drinking some tasty Sangria, a gentleman came by our table and asked if we wanted to buy any roses. I quickly declined, as I often do when people try to sell stuff to me unsolicited. But he didn’t leave. Instead, he stood next to our table with a very friendly demeanor about him as if the conversation wasn’t over. I could tell he wasn’t trying to sell us roses anymore; he was looking for some conversation.

He smiled and asked, “Are you another mean American? Why is the world so mad at you?¨

This obviously caught our attention and I stumbled through some kind of response like, “Well, I’d like to think we aren’t mean.” All the while I knew I had just tried to shoe him away by quickly declining his roses and had barely looked him in the eye. Maybe I was a mean American.

We invited him to sit down with us and offered him a glass of Sangria. With a smile, he declined the Sangria, but accepted the seat. After asking him his story, he told us that he was from Pakistan and had just arrived in Barcelona three weeks earlier. He loved his family and his homeland, but had been forced to escape some violent turmoil and was now trying to make a living selling flowers on the streets of a foreign land.

After asking him why he asked if we were “mean Americans,” he explained the demeaning way he had been treated by other American tourists. I’m sure some of it was cultural misunderstanding and some due to the prejudice we can often adopt against the Middle East. In any case, I hope our new friend experienced something different of Americans that night. After all, our primary role wasn’t to represent America, but God’s Kingdom.

He was a very humble and understanding man with a very different story than our own. Hard to imagine all he has been through. Maybe a bit of irony, but his name was Justice.

Have you had any interactions that called into question your inherited worldview?  Experiences that forced you to realize you may engage others in a way counter to our primary calling as representative of God’s Kingdom?