02.21.2007

Deuteronomy 15:7, 8, 10, 11
If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.
Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.


Hello friends,

How are you doing? This past week has been pretty crazy for me, especially the weekend. I attended the CCO’s annual conference, Jubilee, with some students in tow and let me tell you – it was pretty awesome. I would say that the main point made during the conference was about social justice; that is, God’s perspective on the poor and the oppressed, and our response to such things.

While I knew before that caring about the poor and oppressed was important to God, I didn’t know how much the Bible actually emphasized on how His children ought to be acting in order to alleviate them. Of course there will always be suffering in the world until the day Jesus Christ comes again, but that doesn’t mean that we can sit back and expect everyone else to take care of it for us. That’s just laziness… unfortunately, this is the sort of laziness I’ve found the tendency to slip into. It’s either that or, “I don’t have enough money,” when the truth is that the Lord has blessed me amazingly with the finances I need.
God seems to make special emphasis on caring for those in need, so much so that there were systems in Biblical Hebraic times in which the poor (specifically, widows) were taken care of so that they would not die. One of the ways in which this was done was through the tithing of money and food. The tithe of food was to be given to the poor for food. How different this looks today, where a great deal of the tithe seems to be dedicated to a lot of churches’ buildings and programs. Also, there were certain years in which the people were told not to harvest so that the poor could be sustained. This had to be intentional in order to be effective.
Many times when the people of Israel are being rebuked in the Old Testament, it’s due to their idolatry. Not just this, but they are also rebuked for not taking care of the needy in their land by the means mentioned above, or rebuked for taking advantage of them. I wonder then, if many of us (including myself) ought to be rebuked for not taking care of those who are needy. Of course, not all of us can be missionary doctors, and not all of us can give large amounts of money. However, one of the speakers from this weekend made a fantastic parallel between this situation and the feeding of the 5,000. All they had available to them was five loaves of bread and two fish – no more, no less. And yet the Lord made it possible that all 5,000 (and more!) were fed; everyone had their fill, and there was even some left over. If God can do this with bread and fish, certainly He can do it with our time and money. All He asks is that we give what we have and what we can, not what is sufficient to fix things, and He’ll take care of the rest. I would imagine that this not only involves greed issues, but also trust issues.
Do we trust the Lord will provide out of what we give away?

I pray that each of us would learn more about what it means to serve the Lord by serving those who are poor and oppressed. I also pray that the Holy Spirit would move us to pray for those not only in other countries, but also those in our own country. I ask that we learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus and one who is burdened for the weak, so that we can become more and more like Him.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne

2.10.2007

Hello everyone,

There are a number of things that have been on my mind this past week – which seems to be a common starting point whenever I sit down to type out the Weekly Thing. There are plenty of things I’d like to share… However, this morning I read another chapter of Sabbath Presence (by Kathleen Casey), and I thought that it might be good to share some of it with you since it was certainly good for me to read.


Exodus 16:22-30 (not quoted, because it’s long, but I encourage you to look it up)

For the Jews, the miracle of manna paralleled the miracle of creation. It showed God’s intimate involvement in the world. This as not an absent God. For forty years in the desert God fed approximately three million people. Each morning, manna, a sweet honey bread wafer, fell from the sky for people to eat. God gave them just enough for each day. If they gathered more than they could eat in one day, the leftover manna would be full of worms the next day. If they were lazy and did not gather the manna provided, it would melt. God provided for them on a daily basis. They had to trust God to give them enough to eat, enough of everything they needed.
On the sixth day God gave two days’ worth of manna so there would be no gathering on the Sabbath. They did not have to work for their food on the Sabbath even if the work was only to gather the manna from the ground and carry it to their tents. But many did not trust God and tried to be in control by over-consuming and hoarding. Those who ate too much went hungry on the Sabbath, while those who gathered more than they needed during the week in an effort to hoard were disappointed to find that their stores of manna were rotten.
Exodus tells us that the Israelites wandered in the desert on a journey to the Promised Land. All their possessions had to be carried; those who could carry more possessed more. Carrying equated ownership and security. The very first activity restricted by Sabbath law was carrying. On the Sabbath the people could not carry anything. They had to lay down the symbols of ownership and security. The restriction against carrying also made it impractical to travel or make progress on their journey because they would have to leave their possessions behind. With that one restriction, God ensured that on the Sabbath the people would recognize that their possessions, security, and achievement were dependent on God.
Making things, producing, harvesting, and trading were all restricted so that the Sabbath would be solely about God’s presence. Breaking the Sabbath in spirit or in fact was the central concern of most of the prophets. Nehemiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Amos explicitly warned against breaking the Sabbath and equated the people’s adherence to the Sabbath with their loyalty to God. The prophets were concerned about the people who overlooked their relationship with God in favor of their economic gain. …
… The Hebrew prophets were messengers of God who called the people to live by God’s justice. They were not well liked because the action required to bring justice usually involved some personal sacrifice. It was probably one of the prophets who started the saying, “Don’t blame the messenger!” John the Baptist was one of those prophets; he told his followers, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none…” (Luke 3:11). I read somewhere an updated practical version of that same command which said, “If you have two coats in your closet, then you have someone else’s coat in your closet.”
Compliance to Sabbath was an act of obedience and trust. The Israelites had to trust that God would provide enough for them each day, including the day when they did not work for it. Monks of all major religions, no and in the past, have begged for their daily sustenance as an act of voluntary poverty and as a discipline of trusting in God. The Japanese name for a monk’s begging bowl is ‘oryoki,’ which means “just enough.” Jesus told his disciples to carry no walking stick, no food or money, and to depend on the kindness of strangers. The disciples were to trust that God would provide enough and then be obedient to God by accepting that what was provided was enough.
Saint Francis of Assisi took Jesus’ command literally and made it the foundation of his order. Francis and his brothers wore a rope around their waist to show that they did not have a money belt or wallet. They, like the Israelites, did not carry anything so that their security, dignity, and identity were not based on what they possessed. Their security was grounded in a relationship with the Father, not in the social or political system. They were living examples of the Sabbath. How countercultural that would be today!
Our society is quite the opposite—“There is no such thing as enough.” If you have one, two is better. Bigger is better. More is better. Shopping must be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—we can’t seem to get enough. The underlying cultural message today is that if I have more then I am more. If I acquire enough then I am enough; but enough for whom? God’s message is that I am already enough for him; he made me, and that is enough.


Questions provided by the text:
Where in my life is there excess?
What would it mean for me to trust that God will provide?
Do I believe that I am enough for God? Why or why not?


Rather than sharing my own words and thoughts, I encourage you to wrestle with God in prayer.
In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne