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I've been wrestling with responsibility in recent days. What is our response when someone asks us for money to buy food, and if we can't come up with the resources, others may suffer, possibly starve, potentially worse?
The Believers Share Their Possessions
"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need." (Acts 4:32-35)
Creative Christian Solutions (adapted from Culture Making):
"In feature after feature of Roman culture, Christians, animated by a powerfully different story from their pagan neighbors, were boldly creative. Their lives simply did not look like their neighbors'. But they were not cut off from their neighbors--the culture they created was public and accessible to all. ...
At least two major epidemics claimed up to a third of the population of the Roman Empire in the first centuries of the Christian era. In the face of terrible conditions, pagan elites and priests simply fled the cities. The only functioning social network left behind was the church, which provided basic nursing care to Christians and non-Christians alike, along with a hope that transcended death. 'Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead,' the bishop Dionysius wrote. ...
The church had no magic or medicine to cure the plague, but it turns out that survival even of a terrible disease has a lot to do with one's access to the most basic elements of life. Simply by providing food, water and friendship to their neighbors, Christians enabled many to remain strong enough to their own immune systems could mount an effective defense. ...
The church would grow not just because it proclaimed hope in the face of horror but because of the cultural effects of a new approach to the sick and dying, a willingness to care for the sick even at risk of death." (Culture Making by Andy Crouch)
Last night there were two political discussions happening in our city. The first was team McCain and Palin, who held a town hall meeting at GRCC.
The other was Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners magazine and prominent author, who held a different kind of town hall meeting at Calvin. We went to see Jim.
Among other points, Wallis' lecture called Christians out of partisan politics, out of one-issue voting, and pointed us toward a Kingdom perspective that is highly engaged in politics, but also activists in three areas: as individuals, as churches, and finally, through political action. The real election, he says, is on November 5, a phrase very similar to Shane Claiborne's take in Jesus for President.
He argued that historically, any significant change is rooted in movements, and these movements are driven by great spiritual awakening. Until "religion" impacts society, it's not revival. When the "winds" of public standards and morality and beliefs change around a politician, he will likely follow, to appease the masses.
He talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. and William Wilberforce, among others. He did not speak of Barack Obama or John McCain or Sarah Palin or Joe Biden. There were no endorsements to be found, only the endorsement of a King and a Kingdom.
Speaking to a majority of college students, he exhorted our generation (XY), to clear up the confusing perceptions preying on Christianity, from scammy television evangelists to highly-charged political talking heads who have confused the cross. It was cold water to hear Wallis speak of political possibility, how new issues of life and justice are emerging, why the old system may be breaking apart.
He said the church has often asked its young people (and old alike) for the "edges" of their lives, and that's what they've received in return. All the right words and motions, yet so little action.
But Wallis has also traveled the country and the world, taking the pulse of a new generation that wants to give everything to the One who calls us from the place we were, exhorting us simply, saying, "Come, follow me."
I've seen a lot of weird stuff, including an older woman screaming at Cam in foreign tongues in the middle of a crowded Prague train station. Last week, in the Keweenaw Peninsula (the northernmost tip of the Upper Peninsula), the fellas and I came across an attractive young woman at work.
She was a petite brunette dressed in brown Carhart overalls, t-shirt and rubber boots, chewing tobacco and digging in the back of a utility van, helping her partner hose off a grease bin in the parking lot of a dodgy-looking-but-surprisingly-delicious four-star restaurant at midnight.
Quite standard, really.
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