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Things that don’t bother me enough…but they should.

As a Christian & a human being, I am growing in my concern for justice issues throughout the world. I feel that most of my life, I have been oblivious to the needs of others, who lack some of the most simple things in life which I largely take for granted.

While this has escaped my concern for so long, I am actually grateful for some of the advances in technology & art. Example: I can no longer plead ignorance to the fact that right now there are around 300,000 children being coerced, forced or kidnapped to participate in armed conflicts throughout the world as child soldiers, most of them in Africa alone, since I went & saw Blood Diamond. I can’t say that I have no awareness that entire people group’s are having their simple rights as human beings trampled upon, because I spent over $150 to go see U2 in concert. The technology & art of today has made social concern and awareness an inescapable reality.

But what do I do about it?

Well, Jesus answered this question nearly 2,000 years ago. Jesus taught a parable called “The Good Samaritan.” Perhaps you’ve grown up with this story being told to you by well-intentioned parents & teachers as a “why-you-should-be-nice-to-people” story meets lecture. But, that is a sanitized understanding of what Jesus was communicating.

You see, in this Parable, there is a man who has been robbed, beaten & abandoned along a very dangerous road, miles away from any form of help. He was deprived of his material possessions, depleted of his physical strength & means to fend for himself, left alone in a hostile & distant environment.

Now along this road, three different men pass by him. The first two we are told are Jewish - one a priest, the other an assistant to the priests. Both of these men went out of their way to avoid him who had been left for dead.

The next person to come along is a Samaritan man, who attended to the fallen man. Jesus tells us that he not only “came to where he was,” but bandaged his wounds, put him on his donkey, took him to a hotel & took care of him by paying for his stay & any other needs he would have.

Jesus looks at the crowd around him and asks, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell?” In Jesus’ day, Jews and Samaritans were as close to each other as oil & water - it didn’t happen. Their attitude toward each other was one of animosity, not neighborliness.

So what Jesus is communicating through this parable is really worldview shattering.

It isn’t enough to be a nice, good person. This is not what Jesus, or Christianity is supposed to be about. All who would take up the name “Christian” are to be about embracing the “other” in their plight, situation, station in life, in order to bring them into the pathway of God’s grace & redemption in the person & work of Jesus Christ.

To you Christians out there reading this & are starting to get fidgety, this is not a reworking of the “social gospel”; its just an articulation of what Jesus does for all who would trust in Him.

He is the one who takes on the plight, situation, & station of those who were His enemies (Colossians 1:21-23). He is the one who pursues & redeems them through his own self-sacrifice & condescension. He is the one who ultimately inconvenienced himself in order to bring his people into a renewed relationship with God.

I’m sure the two priests who left the Samaritan had good reasons to do so, even if it was self-preservation. But according to Jesus, being a true neighbor to those around you means you take on their concerns at your own expense. It isn’t enough to go about your day when you see the plight of your fellow man around you. What’s even more staggering is that Jesus says that this the key to the fulfilling what God wants of his people - both new & old. The summation of God’s “law” is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind & strength and to love your neighbor as yourself,” (Matthew 22:34-40).

If this is true, and I believe it to be, then how will you & I respond to our “neighbor” in this new Global Village we live in?

It isn’t a matter of should we, but are we, and how?

NEW COAS SITE!!!

Ladies and Gents,

Confessions of a Seminarian has officially moved.  In an effort to continually develop this forum and provide the best service we can, Jared Lee has put his mad skillz to work and created us a brand new website.  And let me tell you, he has one an AMAZING job.  Come check it out!

Please take note that this address (bradedwards.wordpress.com) will no longer be used.  Please adjust your links to the new domain at http://seminarianblog.com. The RSS feeds have also changed and you can find them at the top of the new blog’s page.

Confessions of a Hard Heart

This week I was sitting with some people telling “inspiring stories” in their Christian lives.  Many of the people around in the room were edified as a woman explained her most intimate moment with God, or as a young man told a story of how God provided for him after he prayed.  Typically, I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut.

 

Then I realized, theses people do not have a problem, I do.  These people’s faith was not naïve, nor were their stories unbiblical.  The problem was that I was unwilling to hear them.  It was not that their stories were not powerful, but that my heart was (and likely still is) hard.  Here was a real moment to find fellowship with other Christians, and I blew it.