BIGGER EYES
Hovering and Covering
What is the first thing we learn about the Spirit of God?
Visiting orphanages in Ukraine, Russia, Ghana, Uganda, El Salvador, and Honduras, I have seen emptiness. I have seen void and lack of form. It's easy to concentrate on Marvin, the 14-year old murderer and gang member who was rejected by his mother and now lives in a juvenile detention center in Honduras. It's easy to see Sergei in a poor and cold orphanage far north of Moscow. He walks around with headphones on - but there are no batteries and no tape. He's reaching for something, but coming up skeletal. It's easy to see Kaufi, an orphan who always smiles and gets along with the other children in her village of Sokode-Etoe in Ghana. But when it's time for bed at night, she is alone.
But this isn't all that our eyes should see. Above the void, the Spirit of God is hovering and covering. God speaks life and light even in these dark and lonely places. Read that familiar passage with this perspective in Genesis 1:2-3. This is the first thing we learn about the Spirit of God in Scripture. If we had bigger eyes to see that God is present - even in these places - it would compel us to action and confidence in the face of so much pain.
Yellow Roman Candles
The memories of my time with Nastya in Russia and Marilynn in El Salvador are forever burned on my memory. These teenage girls (who barely looked 13 because of lack of nourishment and affection) could not look me in the eyes. Why? Because I'm an adult. I'm a man. Something fiercely evil and horribly unjust has happened in their lives. So how did they react? They closed their eyes! They are hiding!
In Ephesians 1:18-21, St. Paul prays that the believers will have their eyes opened. The Greek word is photidzo, which is less like opened and more like blinded by a bright yellow roman candle that snaps and burns. And what are our eyes opened to? Inheritance, hope, and power. These are three things that orphans don't have. But when we have bigger eyes to see them as God's children, and when they have bigger eyes to see beyond the pain in the moment to the God who is their good Father, they will have bigger eyes. They will open their eyes wide to inheritance, hope, and power.
A Look of Compassion
The week before Jesus's arrest, torture, and execution, he rode into Jerusalem in the midst of chaotic celebration. The story is told in Luke 19:41-44. He could have been distracted by the noise and the clamor and the crowd. After all, he was getting all kinds of attention - the kind of political and celebrity attention that many of his followers thought was the next inevitable step in the establishment of God's new community, the Kingdom. But even in this moment, Jesus notices something different.
Jesus has bigger eyes. He opens his eyes and takes in all the extreme needs of the city and the people he loves. He is overwhelmed. He is compelled. His look of compassion is the heart of God's message of hope to our world.
My prayer is that as we care for the world's orphans that we would have bigger eyes.
WIDER EMBRACE
Touch and Taste
Our physical senses are such a strong and helpful way to encounter the world around us. Sure, thinking and feeling is important too, but smells and textures and tastes and colors and sounds add shape and substance to our lives. The smells and textures and tastes and colors and sounds that I've encountered among the orphaned children of the world have overwhelmed and inspired me. It's no wonder then that Jesus, when he sends out the Twelve in Matthew 10, instructs them to engage the people of need around them through their senses. Mission is embrace. This involves touching lepers - those on the fringes of society - orphans.
In order to bring the message of hope and help to those in need, a wider embrace is necessary. For when the King says in Matthew 25 that the one we embrace, the one we feed, the one we visit, the one we clothe is him, then we realize that our senses have put us in touch with the divine.
Images and Ikons
It should not be surprising that orphaned children have challenges with affection and attachment. If rejection and abandonment are the common means of relationship and communication, barriers are built. Children shrink away from hugs. They dismiss themselves from activities. They love to receive letters, but do not write back. It is because the embrace many of them have experienced is not one of grace and love, but rather of abuse and criticism.
I know what Jesus looks like. Sunday school teachers and scholars have their ideas, but I have seen him. He has red cheeks and a blister on his lip. He has his head shaved because of an outbreak of lice. His beautifully dark African hair is now blond because of malnourishment. This is not poetry. This is sound theology. It is because in Genesis 1:26-27, when God created human beings, God did so in God's own image. These precious children are living ikons of Christ himself. When they understand their true identity, when they have a wider embrace to accept who God made them to be, then they will have the courage to survive.
Jesus Never Cared How They Got Sick
I challenge you to survey the Gospels and find one place where Jesus asks a diseased person how he or she got sick. That is not the issue at hand. The issue is God's healing mercy breaking into our diseased reality. This is why Jesus ate with those on the fringes of society. Table fellowship - as it does today in so many cultures around the world - speaks loudly.
Jesus has a wider embrace to gather those who have been shunned, to encourage those who have been beaten down, to heal those who are sick, to bring joy to those who have only known despair. By keeping a distance, our God could not have brought such a beautiful salvation. But through being here and being now among us, God is still creating people in God's own image. God is still embracing the unlikely and unlovable and calling them his own.
LONGER STRIDE
In It For the Long Haul
The first question an orphaned child asks me when I enter an orphanage is, 'Do you have letters for me?' They crave connection. They require relationship. The last question is, 'When are you coming back?' not 'will you' but 'when!' There is no way that my parents could have raised me if only they prayed for me a couple times a month when it didn't slip their minds. There is no way that spending 1 week each year with me could have prepared me for adult life. Instead, it is by walking with, being with, investing in children that we are able to make a difference in their lives.
Prayer, letters, visits. These are great things. They encourage and excite. They are a major part of our ministry to orphaned children. But these outreaches move beyond encouraging and exciting to restoring and reviving when they are consistent over months, years, decades even. In Hebrews 12, the analogy of a race is used to describe the Christian life. I ran a 1/2 marathon in September 2007. And believe me, you can't be a 1/2 athlete and do that. It's not easy. It takes consistency - in training and on race day - to be successful. The same is true when we care for children in need. We need to be in it for the long haul. We need to have a longer stride.
Life Expectancy and Expecting Real life
In Swaziland, the life expectancy is less than 30 years. It is a country of the young and the aged. HIV/AIDS is killing off everyone else. In Russia, the life expectancy for orphaned children is less than 30 as well. This is unacceptable. The gospel tells me that real life, eternal life begins now. And this real life should give the opportunity for a full expression of faith, family, education, vocation, service, leisure.
Again in that same chapter, Hebrews 12, we are encouraged to take a firm grip and stand strong, so that those who follow us - though they are weak - will not stumble and fall. I don't run just for myself. I run to be in shape - physically and spiritually (no better time to pray!) - for my family and for my ministry. The same is true when we are in a marathon of orphan care. Those who follow us - our fellow missionaries and especially the children in need - will know that they can expect care and compassion from us for the long haul.
Carrying the Pack
What strikes me most about this posture of mission, this method of orphan care - bigger eyes, wider embrace, and longer stride - is that it's not something I made up. I see it in the heart of God. I see it in the hands and feet of Jesus. I hear it in the words of Scripture. God is among us. It's not only that Jesus walked the earth in first-century Palestine. Jesus is among us now, running the 1/2 marathon beside us, carrying our pack, visiting, writing, praying, even now.
Our God, who was, who is, and who will always be has a longer stride. Finding time on the calendar for hopping a transatlantic flight and finding funds in the bank to pay for it - these are not issues for our incarnational God. God is among us and God is among the poor. By imitating that heart, those hands and feet, we take part in a revolution of hope that can literally save millions of lives.
I pray that in our care for the world's orphans, that we would have a longer stride.
Thanks, and amen!
Posted by: Tammi | November 24, 2008 at 10:41 PM