"Christmas Backdrop II: Defending the Poor & Needy"
Dec.12/04 Relief & Development Sunday -- Isaiah 11:1-10
Not News: the Rich are Richer, and the Poor...
Well, it's official, the news we've all been waiting for: this past Monday it was reported by Canadian Business magazine that the richest people in Canada are now richer than before. About 7% or $9.5 billion richer than last year. Heading the list is Kenneth Thomson's information-based family. Also near the top are the founder of eBay, Galen Weston of the Loblaws chain, and New Brunswick's Irving brothers. A senior writer at the magazine summed it up saying, "It was a banner year for Canada's uber-rich."
Although I'm sure we all slept easier at night knowing our wealthiest citizens were all that much better equipped to pay their share of the taxes, a few days later some more disconcerting 1news came out. This time it was the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization that issued a report, not about the rich, but the poor; more specifically, the world's most hungry people. It said there are now 800 million people in the world who suffer from chronic malnutrition. That's about 12% of the world's population, 1 in every 8 has a gaunt and hungry look. In the developing world, one child dies due to hunger-related causes about every 5 seconds. The report says hunger is on the rise in Africa, Asia, and the Far East - especially India and China. The connection is also made between hunger and war: where there's conflict, there's famine.
As Christians and Canadians, what do we do with these contrasting bits of news? As we continue in the season of Advent, God's Word through the prophet Isaiah shows us the Messiah is very concerned about the poor. When we fear God, His Spirit moves us to show Christ's care for those in need.
"Social Justice" or "Spirituality"?
There's often a contrast drawn between so-called "social gospel" churches or denominations, and those that emphasize "faith" and evangelism or a more "spiritual" approach to religion. Some churches pride themselves on their social activism, but become more politically than worshipfully active. Other churches, seeing this, leave social policy to the government and relief agencies, choosing to restrict their focus to purely religious matters and the spiritual growth of their members. Neither approach by itself reflects Jesus' idea of mission.
In His teaching on the Greatest Commandment, Jesus linked love for God with love for our neighbour as ourself (Mt.22:37ff). The apostle John put it this way: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?...Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1 John 3:17; 4:20)
It is sin that tempts us to harden our heart, first toward God, but also toward our fellow man. It was the murderer Cain who, when asked by God where his brother Abel was, whom he'd just killed, retorted: "I don't know; am I my brother's keeper?" Cain would prefer to believe Abel's blood wasn't crying out to God from the ground(Gen.4:9f). But John notes, "He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1Jn.4:21)
Isaiah foretold the coming of the Messiah, the leader appointed to save God's people, anointed or smeared with the sign of God's mighty Spirit upon Him. There's no dichotomy or division between "spiritual" work and "social" work. In Isaiah 11:2 God's Spirit rests on Christ - the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. But this anointing and empowering doesn't restrict itself to the religious realm. It causes Him (v3) to "delight in the fear of the Lord" and from that to move on into v4 - judging the needy, giving decisions for the poor of the earth. True spirituality flows out into generous philanthropy.
On p3 of our "Relief & Development" booklets, Paul Brander quotes Menno Simons from 1559 (founder of the Mennonites) who said: "True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant; it clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people."
Delight in the Divine, not Divas
When Yvonne was having her most recent MRI, I was held captive in a nearly-vacant waiting room at Westminster Hospital by one of those tyrannical TVs set just high enough to be out of reach of the general public. The program that day happened to be about Celine Dion's rise to fame; how she'd gone through a variety of different "looks" and records until one night she was singing on a stage with half a dozen other 'divas'. The climax was a duet with the queen of soul, Aretha Franklin.
We worship human 'gods' and 'goddesses' or divas of Hollywood, the stars of stage and screen. Beauty salons feature magazines with the current popular models so those waiting for a haircut can choose the "look" they want. Incidentally, Celine Dion was on the former list of Canada's wealthiest, but was knocked off this time; however actor Keanu Reeves made it on, #100 at $336 million. We value our entertainers, those who look "cool". The tabloids at the supermarket check-out trumpet who's making the gossip column headlines, who's got the right "look" this week - not that we mere mortals will ever match up to those air-brushed standards. Cotton candy calories for the discontent.
By contrast, Isaiah portrays the Messiah as someone who's not all that much to look at, or at least down-plays the supposed importance of appearance. Is.53:2 says, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2) Not that Jesus was messy or unkempt; it just never seemed that important to the gospel writers or portrait-painters of His day to go into detail about what he looked like. The founder of our order, yet we don't have a single description! Those things just weren't important to Him or the apostles.
V3 of our text says "He will delight in the fear of the Lord.He will not judge by what he sees with His eyes, or decide by what He hears with His ears." Stop looking at things on just the surface. Don't be wowed by what's visible. Jesus looked on the inside, "He knew what was in a man" (Jn.2:25). The Holy Spirit gave Him a sixth-sense about what wasn't seen in a person. In John 7(24) He told the people in Jerusalem, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment."”
What do you spend your time watching? Do the things you look at feed your spirit, or eat away at your wholeness? If we really want to experience God's blessings in our life, His Spirit's wisdom and counsel and power and so forth (from v2), we must be prepared and willing to re-direct our attention from what the world flashes before us - to "delight in" the fear of the Lord instead (v3); not divas, but the Divine.
Responsibility of Royalty
Isaiah foretold the Messiah would be born of a kingly line. This came true in that Jesus' father according to legal reckoning, Joseph, was a descendant of King David, hence of the royal lineage. Is.11:1 predicts, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Rev.5(5) describes Jesus as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David." So Jesus as Messiah has kingly responsibilities to fulfill - not the perks so much as the priorities.
V4 in our text says, "With righteousness He will judge the needy, with justice He will give decisions for the poor of the earth...with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked." This judging and defending and governing activity is all part of His role as God's appointed King.
It the responsibility of those at the top in God's Kingdom to look out for the lowly; not a "look at me" role, but "how can I serve those in need?" Psalm 72, the Royal Psalm, spells out expectations for those who would be godly rulers. It says (Ps.72:4,12-14), "“He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death.He will rescue them from oppression and violence, [and why does the godly ruler do all this?] for precious is their blood in his sight.” In God's order of things, power and privilege are conferred not so you can simply "have a whee of a good time", but to serve those who need help. "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant...for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve..." (Mk.10:43,45)
Now, given the distribution of wealth in the world today, where does this put us? Us Canadians, who enjoy the highest standard of living in any country? Our Master said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48) Those announcing the findings of the Food and Agriculture Organization noted that the 800 million chronically hungry people in the world outnumber the combined populations of the top 7 industrialized nations. With privilege comes responsibility. Or we can choose to hoard it all until rogue states develop their own missile systems. Actually, the report pointed out that there are economic paybacks to being charitable. It "maintains that every dollar invested against hunger provides five to 20 times as much in return." The assistant general director of the FAO's economic & social department, Hartwig De Haen, told a news conference, "It is possible that the international community has not fully grasped the economic bounce that would be possible from investments in hunger reduction." Not just survival for the poor, but "bounce" or benefit for investors. Sounds like the Biblical advice from Eccles.11(1), “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”
Knowing God makes Change Possible
Verses 6-8 of Is.11 paint an idyllic picture of the harmony God is planning to one day restore to earth's creatures. Carnivores and predators such as wolves, leopards, lions, bears, and poisonous snakes will lie down with and graze alongside common farmyard livestock. A little child will be able to lead these formerly vicious beasts, and to put their hand "into the viper's nest". What has changed to make possible this peaceful paradise? Look closely at v9: "They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
We think we're pretty hot stuff because we've just managed to determine the sequence of the billion or so DNA letters in the chicken genome. But in one instant, at the end of time, God will reverse all the dangerous carnivorous instincts and dread of man that God allowed to come upon creatures after the flood (Gen.9:2f). Any harmfulness will be eliminated.
Knowing God is what makes such dramatic change possible. Intimacy with Him drains away our desire to harm or destroy, and protects us from developing 'compassion fatigue'. Look at the difference in the life of the apostle Paul, since he was the zealous Pharisee, Saul. Acts 9(1) begins with him "still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples", obtaining letters to arrest and imprison them. But on the road to Damascus he meets Jesus. His attitude is radically changed, overnight - from beastly to a brother. And what strength and mercy the Lord must have put into the hearts of Ananias and Barnabas to dare to minister to this man who formerly was a threat to their very lives. 9:26 records, “When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles..." Likewise in our day, Jesus still calls us to reach out to those we fear, and discover that He's already at work in their lives. They become means of witnessing His miraculous power.
We are not responsible for feeding the hundreds of millions of hungry people in the world. That's beyond our scope. We're just responsible to show mercy with the finite means God has put within our hands. Once the miracle of a repentant heart takes place in us, and we respond by demonstrating His grace with what's within our grasp, He'll look after the rest. The change starts with knowing Him; a change in US. Paul described it this way: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God..." (2Cor.5:17) It's a beautiful mystery, made possible by entrusting our whole life to Jesus. Col.3(3) says, "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." That's radical, soul-shuddering change!
Good News for the Needy Near
Menno Simons was right: "True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant; it clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry..." (and so forth) To proclaim the Messiah, our denomination's Relief & Development projects are one way to serve the world's needy. These practical projects put our aspirations into action.
There are needy people on this continent as well, whom the Lord is interested in helping. The CBC news this week also reminded us that Rosa Parks in 1955 "was a 42-year-old seamstress who refused to surrender her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white man.The law at the time required the African-American woman to do so, so she was arrested and fined.Rev.Martin Luther King roused the local black community to boycott the bus service for more than a year to protest her arrest and change the law."
You may not have heard that a couple of years ago Miss Parks was threatened with eviction from her Detroit apartment because her caretakers hadn't been paying her rent. (She's now 91 and suffers from dementia.) A local Baptist church stepped in to cover the payments for her, so she wouldn't have to be evicted. This past Monday her landlord announced they're going to allow her to stay in her apartment rent-free for life. Now that's decent! A representative said, "I thought it was the right thing to do...This woman is an icon. She deserves an enormous amount of respect."
What was that about Messiah? "With righteousness he will judge the needy." The right thing to do.
Not all the hungry are found on foreign soil. Since 1988, the Mustard Seed Street Church in Edmonton has been providing residents with hot soup for lunch. But in October they started serving a full evening meal program seven days a week. They expected about 200 people for the first dinner; but when over 470 showed up, they had to think fast. Fortunately, plenty of canned chili was readily available. Last year, the church showed movies after Friday night meals, and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays.
One man who's been a client for over 3 years remarked to LivingLightNews, "Without [the church], things would be so much harder.The Mustard Seed has also helped me spiritually, which is more important than anything else." Les Westwood, director of operations, remembers moments "When a guy who I don't even know comes up to me and presses $20 or $50 into my hand and tells me that he wanted to give this to The Mustard Seed, because a little while ago he was in real trouble and we helped him." (There's that 'bounce' again!) A volunteer says, "It has changed my perspective so much in terms of what one needs to value in life - what's important and how God works.Down here you see the capacity for human suffering in a way that you don't...see in other places. And God does come and He can heal and He can walk with us, even in the deepest and darkest of places."
As Isaiah prophesied: With justice, Christ still gives "decisions for the poor of the earth"!
[close: EMCC video - making a difference; prayer]