Monthly Archive for May, 2007

It would be great if Jesus found faith on earth

Published
by
Rod White
on May 30, 2007
in Action, Community, Dialogue and Family
. 1 Comment

I guess I like my justice, too. I don’t feel so great when things aren’t working the way they ought to – according to the principles I prefer or the feelings I’m harboring. But I aspire to faith in Jesus. So I keep going back to this place in Luke 18 where Jesus is telling a story about a widow demanding justice from a judge who is not too inclined to give it.

The judge “finally…said to himself, `Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!”

This is pretty much true everywhere. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. (But it does not always work if you are dealing with a collection agency. The people on the other end of the phone line are paid to demand that money you owe until they get it — and talking back probably won’t help.) The loudest people getting what they want does not always seem just — what about the worthier non-squeakers?!

Be that as it may, does persistently coming to God really “work?”

The Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?”

This is kind of troubling. I have been talking to God about a lot of unjust situations for a long time. I admit to feeling “put off” at times. Mean people I know keep getting away with being mean. The Congo. The squirrels eat my tomatoes (I admit, I did pray for the death of a squirrel, once). I doubt that I haven’t “cried out day and night” enough – although maybe there is a tipping point for prayer after which you don’t get put off! The logic should be: persistent widow gets unjust judge to act; therefore believing pray-er should get God to act with ease. It is not happening like this:

I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.

I decided some time ago that my idea of “quickly” might not match God’s. My idea of “justice“ may not be all that complete, either. I don’t think it is just that my friends die too quickly from their diseases. But then God has provided himself as recipient of all the wrath that would come upon the death and destruction in us at the end. So what is really “quickly,” when you are living forever? What is really “unjust” when you’ve already been freed from the consequences of injustice?

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This is the question that keeps me scratching my head. We’re so prone to getting caught up with how unjust everything is – “They didn’t understand me and now they are mad at me; plus they told my friends what they thought I said, which I didn’t, and now they are suspicious of me and didn’t invite me out tonight.” Will Jesus find faith in us or will it just be the same old damned stuff played out in an endless loop? Is it possible that Jesus is saying, “Get serious people! Any faith out there? How self-absorbed are you really?”

Maybe he is saying that.

Like, when we pray, do we have faith that God listens — or should we have prayed righter or longer? When we are seeking God’s involvement, do we believe we are chosen — or is that always up for discussion? When we see how messed up the world is, do we doubt God’s interest — or do we trust his timing? Do we even consider that Jesus might be returning tonight — or is that something Christians used to believe before they started to go Hindu or secular or whatever believes that everything is endless? If Jesus were looking for faith partners with whom to connect (and he is), would he find us?

I wonder. I wish I could say he would find faith on earth by dropping by Circle of Hope. But along with the many faithful, I think he might also find a few of us who still think we have to have it all put together and under control – and who think we have the time and ability, or at least the obligation, to do that. Some of us may have given up on Jesus long ago, in fact, if not in theory – now we’re doing it on our own. And we’re mad about how unjust that is.

Pray With Me

Published
by
sweetjane
on May 25, 2007
in Action, Community and Dialogue
. 2 Comments

This season leading up to Pentecost has been rich with anticipation of the holy spirit coming down as fire. At B&W we’ve had visual reminders of the spirit raining on us with colorful spinners dancing around. Prayer has been a big focus, with prayer meetings during the week and 24 hours of prayer on the weekend.

 In the middle of all that, I met a pastoring couple in Port Richmond. They shared with me some of the miracles that they have prayed for – biblical tales of healing the deaf, mute, and lame, and conquering tumors, infection, cancer, asthma, and even death.

 Hmmm… Is this all for real? That’s what I thought as I smiled and nodded at these people. Do I believe that this healing, this complete transformation, has happened because of prayer?

And I knew that if I didn’t believe it, I had lost all hope. I did believe that they experienced this healing, but I doubted that I could experience the same kind of thing. But then I thought, Why CAN’T I experience it.? I believe the healing stories in the Bible. Why not believe and accept and even EXPECT the same for myself and my world?

 I decided that I need to change how I pray. I need to pray expecting things to change.  I give God a lot of room to do things the way he has planned it. I’m not one for trying to convince anyone of anything, let alone telling God what I think he should do. So my prayers are often along the lines of… Dear God, here’s what I think I want, but you know best. Not real clear requests. What’s he supposed to do with that??

I asked the couple in Port Richmond when they pray. “Always and everywhere,” was the answer. Neighbors come into the church for prayer all day. People call for prayer in the middle of the night. When they are not with the people they are praying for, they still pray about their mission, their needs, their neighbors.

 Do you get tired of what you’re doing? I asked. “Never, because God called us and He never gets tired. We need to follow him. We need to love like him to save people.” The constant connection to God through prayer gives them the energy to do the amazing work they’re doing in their community.

Their bold demands and simple expectations for healing and for meeting basic needs were such a good example for me about the power that I have access to through prayer. They showed me I shouldn’t be shy about praying—why not just put it all out there and ask for what I want?

I mulled over this info while I was in the prayer room on Sunday. I focused on claiming the hope that I have in Jesus and asking for things like getting the 12 for the next 100 team going to help us meet new folks, resolving building issues, conquering cancer, repairing broken hearts, renewing the basic love of God. It was a fresh start.

I shared my thoughts about this bold way of praying with my cell when we were talking about disciplines for staying connected to God. We all got pretty excited about it. We are going to do this together and see what changes happen. I’m using the goals from the map as a good starting place for what to pray about. I believe God’s going to honor us as we pray like we mean it, like we believe he is all powerful, like we know that the Holy Spirit will share her fire with us.

What Can We Do?

Published
by
admin
on May 22, 2007
in Action, Circle Venture, Community, Dialogue, Family, Partnerships and Peace
. 1 Comment

By Brian Baughan

Unless my memory fails me, Ghazwa al-Doori is the first Iraqi I have ever met. We introduced ourselves at the end of one of the workshops held at the AFSC Symposium on Iraqi Refugees this past Saturday. A thirty-something woman dressed in a traditional headscarf, she had shown up to the conference with her sister, with whom she lives in New Jersey.

Ghazwa and her sister were born in the United States during a time when their father was receiving a college degree. Needless to say, they are luckier than the majority of Iraqis. I had gathered that although they had spent most of their lives in Iraq, they were able to resettle here long before things really turned for the worse back home. The story is much different for their brother and other sister, who are refugees in Jordan and face an imminent deadline on their visas. Ghazwa told me that when she talks to them on the phone, she is overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. If only they could make it over here from Jordan, they could all cram into Ghazwa’s small apartment. But she knows that’s not in the cards. “They’re alone. We’re alone. What can we do?” she said.

Ghazwa’s story was one of several heartbreaking accounts I heard Saturday. The stats were very hard to hear, too: 750,000 Iraqi refugees are now in Jordan, 1 million in Syria, and thousands others scattered throughout the Middle East and other countries. In Iraq, there are another 2 million internally displaced people. It’s the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world, and some are even calling it the worst mass displacement in the Middle East since the exodus following the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Making this worse is the fact that the U.S. occupation, along with sectarian violence in Iraq, is directly responsible for the tragedy.

We all have an endless number of distractions—both pointless and worthy—that divert our attention from the human cost of the war in Iraq. As Peter Lems, head of the AFSC’s Iraq Program has observed, even the peace movement has turned blinders toward the domestic situation, as protesters have lambasted the Bush administration and bickered with others over supplemental spending bills.

It’s hard to do anything when the quagmire seems unsolvable, or the legislative measures are just too confusing. But is forgetting the plight of U.S. troops an option? Or, for that matter, the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died, the hundreds of thousands who are no longer safe in their homeland?

The finger-pointing that accompanied the recent supplemental bill debate reminded me of Jesus’ stern words about the infighting among his own community: “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’” (Luke 7:31–32)

Peace-loving people can easily assume an air of righteousness, yet all the while sound like screechy, bratty kids in the marketplace. This symposium was different. I felt fortunate to be able to hear out a bunch of thoughtful, caring analysts and service workers who did not sound bratty, whose stubborn devotion remains with the least of these. It also felt good, in an ironic sense, to have my heart broken by those sad stories. I guess it was clear that this was the beginning of an appropriate response to dirges that had not evoked tears for years.*

We’re left with Ghazwa’s question, “What can we do?” One of the workshop leaders stated plainly what is perhaps the most appropriate answer, which is we do what we can. It is an approach that Circle of Hope’s close partner, the Mennonite Central Committee, has taken for years through its international relief and advocacy work, and what our congregations and Circle Thrifts are trying by providing funds to support MCC. Let’s keep moving.

Doing what we can will also be on the minds of the residents of Shalom House, a new Circle Venture mission team and peacemaking community, as we prepare to move into our new home in Germantown this July. A central piece of our mission will be to include Circle of Hope in its peacemaking work, so now is a good a time as any to share your ideas here about what’s in our power to help and advocate for the Iraqi refugees.

*Below are two interesting links that help paint a revealing picture of Iraqis who have remained in their country in spite of the chaos that has enveloped them. (Iraqis, it seems, also like to blog and post videos on youtube. Go figure.)

www.bl.uk/iraqdiary04.html
Published through the British Library, Saad Eskander, the director of the Iraq National Library and Archive, has documented his struggles holding down his post in the midst of dwindling funds and car bombs in his neighborhood.

http://hometownbaghdad.com/2007/05/17/episode-29-nothing-but-guitar/
Hometown Baghdad is more real than any “reality” show I’ve seen. Rather than dealing with cheesy competitions and drunken hookups, this series of videos records well-to-do 20-somethings as they slowly disperse, forced to leave behind the homes they love for a more stable life elsewhere.

One Body, Many Parts

Published
by
Kristen
on May 18, 2007
in Community, Dialogue, Family and Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

I’ve been trying to work through living intentionally in relationship
and community with other people and with God. The idea that we are all
different parts of a body with various gifts and talents made whole in
Christ, is beautiful, humbling, and it also takes the pressure off of
feeling like I alone have to do and be everything.

Yet something about this can cause a flight reflex, especially as the
introvert and very independent person that I am. There is the desire,
at times, to not have to interact. There can also be this resistance
to taking ownership of the whole body and to being just one small part
of a larger picture. The dangers of not feeling valuable or of seeing
other parts of the body as not so valuable are there as well.

But a real body needs all of it’s parts to be whole and healthy. And
the perspective that I want to have is one that embraces being part of
one body. I’ve been feeling encouraged and comforted by the fact that
the parts of the body do not function at all on their own, but that
together, with each other’s support, there is life!

One image that’s been in my mind for the last couple of days is of a
bird’s nest being built out of broken twigs, on a branch of the tree
that the twigs came from. I imagine the branch saying to the twigs,
“Welcome back. You belong to me. We are still one tree.”

And I’ve also been picturing a boat setting sail in search of
something more or running from something that’s hard to face. Upon
departure, I can just hear the water saying “Remember, wherever you
go, you’ll need me to keep afloat.”

It reminds me of how the prodigal son did not forfeit being his
father’s son by leaving his family and squandering their money, then
returning in hopes of being given a servant’s job. Instead, his father
let him go and make his own decisions, then welcomed him back with
open arms as if saying, “No matter what you do, I love you, and your
place in this family will not change.”

The concept of being one part out of many in one body can be
overwhelming sometimes. But I imagine God, the father, allowing me,
the child, the room to make mistakes, and all the time accepting me
and welcoming me back with open arms, saying, “No matter what - if
you are broken, or if you try to run away, I love you and I will offer
you support. You are a part of the body of Christ, and that will not
change.”

Can we, in our family/neighborhood/work/friend/cell/church/house
communities offer this same spirit of belonging, support, love, and
grace to each other?

Let’s try.

Going “yard”

Published
by
Joshua
on May 14, 2007
in Community, Family and Uncategorized
. 4 Comments

In the last two days I’ve developed a new passion for landscaping my backyard.  This is the first time in ten years that I haven’t had a small concrete box for a yard, so I’m getting used to the newness.  In Philadelphia-especially in Kensington, grassy yards are a rare commodity.  Last summer, while our house was being rehabbed-the yard was full of construction debris and refuse.  A layer of topsoil was added on top of the rubbish, and a few clumps of “grass” have been kind of growing.

Last week, Martha and I decided that the children had pulled up enough nails and glass out of the dirt while they played, and we were going to lay down sod.  I wish that all of life could be so simple: stop accepting the illusion that there is not garbage under the surface, clean it out, and then put something new in its place.

What a metaphor!  We are all a mess on the inside, and much of the time we even would try and conceal all the brokenness and bottle caps with topsoil that looked good to most people.  Why?  We like to save face and we think that people will like us better if we don’t look broken.  That’s understandable.  Even some construction companies apparently think that just using some kind of cover-up is a good, cheap option to restoration.

I think that Jesus is actually interested in those plastic bottles that are six inches beneath the surface-too deep for most people to even look.  I think Jesus loves us even through the numerous bricks that are stashed away.  I tend to respect my own bricks, my own debris.  I too often treat them like part of my identity and just the way that I am.  I don’t’ think that Jesus has the same respect for hidden garbage in me.  He wants to clean it up-not because he is some anal retentive neat freak of a LORD, but because he loves me and sees what I don’t always see-a beautifully healthy yard that has no need for secrets, the yard is a place that reeks of restoration and redemption!

So I’m feeling kind of sore this morning after moving a couple hundred pounds of smelly chunks of sod into my van and through my house, into a pile and onto the top up the earth that I tore up.  This morning after I sprayed a small lake’s worth of water on the sod then I sat there and felt a new kind of peace and accomplishment.  This is headed in a great direction.  I wasn’t ignoring the final third of the yard that we didn’t do yet, I was appreciating what God has done!  I think that God even looks at us kind of like that-seeing the good, the potential, and the yet unfinished.  I think we’ve been taught to see our uncompleted thirds (I actually do this quite well), it’s time that we see the good work that God has been doing.  How great must God feel that we would even be going towards redemption!  Too often we seem to drift towards either neglect and collect garbage or towards cheap concealment of the ugliness.  Letting the Great Gardener in is such a good move.  I want to be the new yard.