Sheep or Goat

Rob Bell in his book, "What We Talk About When We Talk About God"

“Jesus told a story about a king who was making decisions about his subjects, separating people "as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." The sheep, we learn, are the ones who brought the king food when he was hungry and water when he was thirsty and clothes when he was naked and looked after him when he was sick and visited him when he was in prison.

The sheep are confused when they learn of their good standing with the king.

"Uhhhhhhh, king?" they protest. "When were you hungry or thirsty or naked or lonely or sick? We've never seen that!" They ask because of course they understand the king to be quite wealthy, not lacking in basic necessities like food, clothing, and friends.

He responds, "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

The king here makes the astounding claim that he is somehow present with and standing in solidarity with all of them, and that love and care and compassion shown to others is love for him.

Jesus tells stories like this one often, stories that speak to the divine presence in every single one of our interactions—a unity, power, and love present in all things, hidden right here in plain sight.

This story Jesus told raises the haunting question: What are we missing? Is there an entire world, right here within this one, as close as our breath, but we aren't seeing it because we're moving too fast, we're separated from the source, cut off from the depths, our eyes not as open as they could be?

Jesus comes to help us see things as they truly are, moving forward, with greater and greater connectivity, higher and higher levels of hierarchy leading to holism beyond even us as all matter is permeated by the redeeming energy and power of God.

The first Christians had a way of talking about this massive movement, bigger than any one of us, that's sweeping across human history: they wrote that God is in the process of moving everything forward so that God will be over all and through all and in all, and in another passage in the Bible it's written that God does what God does so that God may be all in all.

We’ve got to go where he goes

From William Willimon:

One reason that Christians tend to move toward those on the boundaries, tend to feel responsibility for the hungry and the dispossessed is because we worship the sort of God who has moved toward us while we were famished and out on the boundaries. God looks upon us all, even us fortunate ones, as the hungry and dispossessed who need saving. 

This is just the sort of God who commands, “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed” (Luke 14:13-14). Here is a God who, for some reason known only to the Trinity, loves to work the margins inhabited by the poor, the orphaned, and the widowed; the alien and sojourner; the dead and the good as dead in the ditch. It is of the nature of this God not only to invite the poor and dispossessed but also to be poor and dispossessed, to come to the margins, thus making the marginalized the center of his realm. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it unto the least of these . . . you did it unto me” (Matt 25:40).

The story “I once was lost but now am found” is the narrative that gives us a peculiar account of lost and found, a special responsibility to seek and to save the lost. If we want to be close to Jesus—and that’s a good definition of a Christian, someone who wants to go where Jesus is—then we’ve got to go where he goes. Christians go to church in order never to forget that we were strangers and aliens out on the margins (Eph 2:19).

“You know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exod 23:9). We were lost and then found. That continuing memory of the dynamic of our salvation—lost then found—gives us a special relationship to the lost, the poor, and anybody who does not know the story of a God who, at great cost, reaches far out in order to bring to close embrace.

Underdog.

From Philip Yancey:

Underdog.

I wince even as I write the word, especially in connection with Jesus. It’s a crude word, probably derived from dogfighting and applied over time to predictable losers and victims of injustice.

Yet as I read the birth stories about Jesus, I cannot help but conclude that though the world may be tilted toward the rich and the powerful, God is tilted toward the underdog.

“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty,” said Mary in her Magnificat hymn.

Is Hell for the Rich?

From Shawn at Red Letter Christians:

Jesus shared a parable that seriously calls everything we think about hell into question. It’s the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Frankly, I think any discussion of hell in America should include this parable.
 
You might be familiar with this story. There’s a rich man who is living well by the same standards we like to measure success. He has a lucrative lifestyle, nice house, fine clothes, good food, and lots of friends. Then there’s Lazarus, a poor beggar who is covered with disgusting sores that the stray dogs can’t keep from licking. Well, they both die and Lazarus is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham while the rich man ends up alone in hades in a place of torment.

Now, this passage makes me very uncomfortable because if I’m honest I have much more in common with the rich man in this story than Lazarus. I think most of our churches resemble the rich man more than Lazarus too. If you disagree just try to find a seat at Panera on a Sunday morning!

This begs the question, is Jesus saying all rich people are going to hell and all poor people going to heaven? This wouldn’t be the first time Jesus gave this impression. Earlier in Luke, Jesus says “blessed are the poor” and “woe to those who are rich.” In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus draws the eternal lines of judgment between those that show compassion to the poor (incarcerated, immigrant, uninsured, and unemployed) and those that don’t. As I heard one pastor say, no one gets into heaven without letters of recommendation from the poor.

So is hell for the rich?

Well, that’s not exactly what Jesus is saying. Think about this: King David was rich and Scripture says he was a man after God’s own heart. His riches did not make him so proud that he couldn’t cry out to God, “I am poor and needy” in the Psalms. And Barnabas was rich but he was willing to sell his property and give it to the apostles to be distributed to those in need. Being rich, in and of itself, is not the defining issue.

It’s the rich man’s apathy toward an impoverished Lazarus. He passed him daily on the street and offered no relief or compassion. He was indifferent, unconcerned, and unresponsive. Perhaps the rich man didn’t even see him. Arloa Sutter, Executive Director of Breakthrough Urban Ministries in Chicago, writes in her book, The Invisible, that the poor and homeless are largely invisible in our society. Whether it was willful neglect or an obliviousness to the plight of others---the rich man does nothing.

And so, in an ironic twist, the rich man who neglects the beggar ends up begging Father Abraham to send Lazarus to come quench his thirst in hell.

The rich man refers to Abraham as Father which reveals he is a religious Jew. He probably went to synagogue every week. He may have prayed, fasted, and even given significantly to the building fund. But his relationship with God did not carry over into his relationship with the man who suffered at his gate. He knew Abraham as his father, but he did not recognize Lazarus as his brother. This failure to recognize the brotherhood of humanity created a chasm between him and Lazarus in this life that carried over into the next life.
In this context, hell is not meant to create dividing lines between Christians and non-Christians, but to draw our attention to the chasms we create between ourselves and others, especially the invisible and ignored. Hell is not meant as a religious weapon we use to threaten others that have different religious beliefs as we do, but as a warning for us not to ignore the poor and suffering in our own backyard.

I have friends who are turned off to Christians because they’ve been told they are going to hell if they don’t believe. Being a Christian has always been more than just believing the right things. It was about following a revolutionary Jesus who keeps overturning our social and economic assumptions and systems in order to make more room for the very ones we (religious and non-religious) try to distance ourselves from.

If we continue to distance ourselves from the ones Jesus says are blessed then we will be distanced from God’s Kingdom because the kingdom is theirs.

What’s so striking about this story of the afterlife is that it brings our attention to right here, right now. There’s urgency in the parable. It forces us to examine the chasms between ourselves and the poor (the chasms between us citizens and those without documents, the chasms between us who are free and those who are locked up, the chasms between us who live in safe neighborhoods and those who live in fear of violence, the chasms between us who eat well and often and those that don’t).

It challenges us to narrow the chasms between us NOW!

Jesus came to bring good news to the poor–which means all of us. The poor are those that know we’re all beggars in need of grace. The damned are those whose riches (and pride) blind them to their own poverty and the poverty of others. Hell is the warning against building chasms between ourselves and others, and thus ignoring the dignity and needs of our brothers and sisters.

He built their coffins and dug their graves.

Father Damien was born Josef de Veuster in 1840 in Belgium.   In 1864, Damien arrived in Honolulu as a missionary and was ordained to the priesthood.  Fr. Damien became aware of thousands dying from leprosy. Hawaiian  As their limbs wasted away they were often shunned and left untreated by their families and society at large. The only solution the government could find to stop the spread of the leprosy epidemic was to forcibly remove everyone who contracted the disease and then confine them to a remote peninsula where they could not escape. King Kamehameha segregated the lepers by creating a colony, moving them to an isolated settlement on the island of Molokai. They were not only cut off from any contact with their families and friends, but were left defenseless in a situation where lawlessness reigned and unrestrained abuses became rampant. Many sought escape from their  misery and hopelessness through getting high on opium and alcohol. Those too weak to care for themselves, and the dying, were left alone to fend for themselves.

Damien was concerned about the care of their souls if they were to be sent to this desolate area.  He believed that the lepers should at least have a priest to tend to their spiritual needs so he volunteered knowing it was a definite death sentence, so he asked his bishop to be sent to Molokai.

Damien arrived at the isolated settlement and his Bishop presented Damien to the 600 lepers as "one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you." Damien was sent to a morally deprived, lawless colony of death where people fought each other to survive. His first project was to build a church so the people might learn the faith and have a place to worship.

Damien described the conditions when he arrived: 

“Many…make their small shelters, covering them with sugar cane and ki leaves, or at best with pili grass…Under such primitive roofs these wretches, banished from society, live together, without any distinction being made regarding age or gender, and without anyone being classified according to whether their illness is advance or in its early stages, and all of them, more or less, unknown to each other. They pass all their time playing cards, drinking some kind of rice beer and giving themselves over to various excesses…In this place there is no law!” 

“At that time, the development of the illness was horrible and the number of deaths quite considerable. The miserable condition of the lepers was so terrible that the colony well deserved the name given to it: ‘a living cemetery’” (letter dated November 25, 1873).

The King didn't plan the settlement to be in chaos but he neglected to provide desperately needed resources, which contributed to the confusion and disorganization in the colony.  Damien changed an impossible situation into a colony of life by teaching, painting grass shacks into painted houses, organizing farms and constructing buildings, chapels and roads. He restored faith in his battered and neglected flock. He showed them that despite what the outside world told them, they were precious in the eyes of God. He taught them to believe in God and showed them that by his genuine acts of charity that what there was purpose in their lives. He restored personal pride and dignity among so many who had given up hope. He organized a band, horse riding and choir.



Damien’s superiors had given him strict advice: “Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them.” At the time it was seen as the right hygienic thing to do, but Father Damian knew that would be impossible. How could he not bless the dying, embrace the sick, bandage the wounded, and console the grieving? After all, that is what Jesus did. Jesus was physically present to those in need. He came to their homes, sat and ate with them, listened to their needs and concerns, and prayed with them as well. He blessed, touched, embraced, healed, and consoled those who were troubled in mind, body, and soul. Even lepers approached Jesus with confident trust that he would receive them and show them mercy. 

“As for me, I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all for Christ. Because of this, when I preach I normally say, ‘We lepers’…When I go into a hut, I always begin by offering to hear their confession. Those who refuse this spiritual help are not deprived of corporal assistance, which is given to all without distinction. Consequently, everyone, with the exception of a few obstinate heretics, look on me as a father” (letter dated November 25, 1873).

Damien made it a habit to personally visit ever leper and to inquire of their needs. He not only made them his friends, he ate with them from the same pot. He even shared his own pipe with them. He nursed the sick, cleansed and bandaged their wounds, and prayed with them as well. He incessantly wrote letters demanding that the best medicines and supplies be sent right away for the care of his lepers.   

Damien worked providing comfort for the people of Kalaupapa for sixteen years. He was not just their priest, but a builder of homes and their doctor, too. He dressed their ulcers, and tended the sick and dying at their bedsides, bringing them meager portions of taro, fish and water and tried to cheer the despairing with sweets. He built their coffins and dug their graves. He liked praying at the cemetary, “My greatest pleasure is to go there [the cemetery] to say my beads, and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are already enjoying.” Damien grew to love his parishioners as his own children, caring for lepers of all ages, especially for the children segregated in the colony for whom he created an orphanage.

"Without the constant presence of our Divine Master upon the altar in my poor chapels, I never could have persevered casting my lot with the afflicted of Molokai; the foreseen consequence of which begins now to appear on my skin and is felt throughout the body."

In 1885, he announced, "I am one of you;" he was a leper yet he continued to build hospitals, clinics, and churches, and some six hundred coffins. 

In his last letter to his brother, he confided:

“Dear brother, I continue happy and content and even though I am very sick, I only want to fulfill the will of the Good God….I am still able, though not without some difficulty, to stand every day at the altar where I never forget any of you: Please, in return, pray and get prayers for me as I am gently drawn towards my grave. May God strengthen me and give me the grace of perseverance and a good death” (letter dated February 12, 1889).

On March 28, 1889 Damien became bedridden. Even though he knew that his death was imminent, he did not stop taking thought for his lepers.

On Monday, April 15, 1889, the first day of Holy Week, Damien knew his hour had come.  He said, “The Lord is calling me to celebrate Easter with him.” He died in the arms of his two missionary companions, Father Conrardy and Brother Sinnett. Sinnett wrote, “I have never seen a happier death. He constantly was one with God through his prayer and suffering.” 

Father Joseph Damien de Veuster was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 4, 1995, and the state of Hawaii has honored him with a statue which stands in Statuary Hall in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol building. On October 11, 2009 he was declared a canonized saint by Pope Benedict XVI.

Marcella of Rome

I am reading Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne and others.  It is an amazing daily prayer book that will change the way you start your day.  You can buy it here or read it online here.

This is part of the January 31 reading.  (I am a little behind.....)

Marcella of Rome (325 – 410) had an enviable life as the daughter of a prominent Roman family who married a wealthy man. But less than a year after her wedding, her husband died. She was given a chance to continue living in wealth when she was proposed to by the wealthy consul Cerealis. She chose instead to convert her mansion into one of the earliest communities of women, where she and other noblewomen used their riches to help the poor. Marcella said she preferred to “store her money in the stomachs of the needy than hide it in a purse.” In 410, when the Goths invaded Rome, they broke into Marcella’s home. When they demanded money, she calmly responded that she had no riches because she had given all to the poor. Though she was an elderly woman, they beat and tortured her mercilessly. Her attackers were eventually shamed by her piety and she was released, but she died within a short time.

Marcella of Rome wrote, “By heaven’s grace, captivity has found me a poor woman, not made me one. Now I shall go in want of daily bread, but I shall not feel hunger since I am full of Christ.”

The prayer book offer this prayer in response:

"Lord, some of us have found wealth in this world, while others of us are left wanting. But as we stand before you, we are all paupers save for your grace and love. Remind us that our true wealth is your gift of a sustainable way of life for all. Amen."