Do you ever get the sense that God is trying to tell you something?  Perhaps there is a common theme in the stories you are hearing or the books you are reading.  Perhaps you can see your life moving in a certain direction and you suddenly take notice.  Perhaps in quiet moments your thoughts revolve around certain topics.

This has been happening to me lately and I must say it’s a bit disconcerting. 

I think Christa and I have always felt a call to help and love others.  We have seen that this is crucial to walking closely with Christ and loving our neighbor, but lately I have been convicted even more that we need to do what Christ did in engaging with and caring for the marginalized people around us.  The problem is that we have been so conditioned by our culture (middle-class, materialistic American culture) and lifestyle (entertainment and comfort-driven) that we often don’t know how to even relate to marginalized people. We rarely know any.  Sadly, this physical/social distance from the poor, the widow, the orphan, the persecuted, and the downtrodden, is often evident in the Christian Church in America. 

Shane Claibourne’s penetrating book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical really brings this truth to light.  I’m an over-quoter, I know, but I thought this passage was really good in summing up what I’m getting at here.  (I highly recommend this book, but like I said it can be a bit disconcerting to face some of these issues truthfully and head-on):

So I did a little survey, probing Christians about their (mis)conceptions of Jesus.  It was fun just to see how many people think Jesus loved homosexuals or ate kosher.  But I learned a striking thing from the survey. I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor.  Nearly 80 percent said yes.  Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said that they did.  I learned a powerful lesson:  We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did.  We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things.  We can adore his cross without taking up ours.  I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.

When the worlds of poverty and wealth collide, the resulting power fusion can change the world.  But that collision rarely happens. I could feel it happening inside of me.  One of my punk-rock friends asked me why so many rich people like talking to me, and I said because I’m nice to them. He asked why I was nice to them.  I said because I can see myself in them.  That gives me a little patience and grace.  I long for the Calcutta slums to meet the Chicago suburbs, for lepers to meet landowners and for each to see God’s image in the other.  It’s no wonder that the footsteps of Jesus lead from the tax collectors to the lepers.  I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning.  And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end.

Wow.  When I read something like this, I think the tendency (for me, anyway) is to immediately say, "Yes, but…" It’s like I have this self-defending justification machine inside my brain.  It goes something like this:

"Yes, but I’m living in China.  I gave up my culture, my
language, my career, my sense of security, my relationships (to an
extent), my hope for a cushy 401K, my dreams, my salary, etc.  All for
the call.  Aren’t those sacrifices enough?"

"Yes, but we have well-intentioned plans to help the poor.
We want to start a training center in one of the poorest areas of
China.  We hope to be involved in community development projects,
English teaching, real hard-core loving of marginalized people…."

"Yes, but we can’t even speak the language here.  How can we
love people when we can’t talk to them?  Isn’t living in this country
enough?"

And in my heart, if I’m able to shine truth in those dark recesses,
I have to say, "No, it isn’t enough."  I don’t know any poor people.  I
didn’t know many (any?) poor people in the States. Plans to do good
aren’t enough.  We have to engage and actually DO what Jesus did.  He
felt like it was important to befriend the poor, the sick, the outcast,
and the hated dregs of society. 

This is not a condemnation thing (His Spirit never condemns us) but
it definitely is a conviction thing.  It is an eye-opening,
spirit-moving, realization that requires some action on my part.
Repentance even.

It is amazing to me how comfortably I can live even in this remote
part of China.  It is amazing how, even here, I can shield myself and
my family from the poverty that devastates most of the world.   The
sacrifices we’ve made (that I mentioned above) are REAL, but in many
ways we take our culture with us and the suffering that others face is
far-removed from our existence.  I have a TV, a DVD player, a computer,
on good days a full cup of Starbucks coffee, a bed, a kitchen full of
food (and snacks!), money in my bank account, the economic ability to
fly to other countries and take vacations.  I am filthy rich.  Filthy
rich.

It’s easy to say, "thank you, Lord, for all these blessings."  It’s
easy to feel fortunate.  It’s harder to consider myself the modern
version of the rich young ruler who is being asked to give it all away
in order to follow Christ.  It’s so easy to spiritualize that passage,
isn’t it?  It’s difficult to grapple with the reality of our wealth and
to model Christ’ relationship to the marginalized within our own daily
lives.

I am still processing all of these things.  This blog post is not
the end of this discussion or the Lord’s conviction on my life.  Even
though I can’t speak the language (very well) here in China yet, I
think the Lord wants me to start to take action where I am–in the
small ways I am able.  I am praying for wisdom in how to proceed.  Pray
with me.  I want to truly know and LOVE those who are poor; because as
Claibourne suggests, "we learn the gospel from them" [paraphrased].  As
I mature in my faith I am finding that discipleship to Christ is a
pretty "hands-on" endeavor; so how in the world can we love his people
from our comfort-level distance?