Christian ministry

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A Shift in Focus

At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” – Mark 12:23-27

This was supposed to be a trap. They wanted Jesus to admit the absurdity of the resurrection. The people who questioned Jesus did not believe in it. They did not believe in the life after death. For them, there exists only one reality which can be perceived by the senses. They came to this conclusion by a literal reading of scripture. They were the fundamentalists of Jesus’ time. These people still exist today. They are not the fundamentalist Christians. Today they call themselves different names. They are rationalists, secularists, and materialists. Each age has a different name for them. Their thoughts and ideas are not new. Nevertheless they still prevalent and influential. Many hold their views without even knowing it. In Jesus’ time, these opinions were held by the Sadducees. They only believed in the first five books of the Bible and since most of the Old Testament does not explicitly mention anything about life after death, they refused to acknowledge any possibility of such a notion.

The Sadducees brought a problem to Jesus and wanted him to give a solution. They thought that any solution that Jesus would propose would be unsatisfactory. They wanted to show how the concept of resurrection was incompatible with this reality. To their surprise, Jesus agreed with them. Resurrection cannot be comprehended with the values and principles of this existence. It ushers in something new. It presents a new way of looking at our reality.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! “(2 Corinthians 5:17)

I was recently listening to a British comedian, Eddie Izzard, and in one of his routines he talked about Moses. Izzard, being an atheist, pointed out the absurdity of someone doing something because a bush told him to do. He is right. If someone wrote to me and said that she wanted to work in our ministry because her stove told her do so, I would recommend that she seek some help. I would not make her my leader like in the case of Moses. However, Moses did not speak to a bush. The bush pointed him to a new reality. The bush was a symbol that drew Moses to something greater than itself or even himself. Jesus used this as argument for the resurrection. He addressed Himself as the God of the deeper and more profound reality that moved Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to see beyond what was presented to them by their senses. They walked against the so-called common sense of their generation. This new reality put them at odds with their families and society. It radically changed the way they interacted in this world.

The early church members sold everything and lived in common. They were not communist or socialist, such notions did not even exist. These were not celibates or monks. They were regular people with families. They had regular jobs and some even had great properties. According to the standards of this world, they would be considered irresponsible. According to the New Creation, they were acting like the people of the resurrected Christ. They did not do this to make a social statement. They did this because their notion of life had changed radically. The resurrected Christ changed everything. He changed the nature of family. Complete strangers now became family to them. They no longer pursued wealth and power. They dedicated themselves to the service of God. Eventually some serious conflicts arose from this attempt. It was inevitable. The new creation has to function within the old. The old values came to haunt the early church and consequently caused much tension and distress. Much of the writings of the New Testament record the struggle of the community of the Resurrected Christ trying to live out the new creation in the materialistic world. If we find their struggles strange, maybe it is because we don’t have the same understanding they had of the resurrection. Maybe they can teach us something valuable that we have lost.

When Jesus told the sadducees that the physical resurrection is going to change the nature of our relationship with the opposite sex, it was a truly radical concept then and now. Jesus said that we would be like angels. Unfortunately, this has been trivialized by infantile imaginings of the dead growing wings and playing harps in the clouds, not to mention the sentimental hollywood pseudo-theology that has contaminated our thinking. Jesus is, in fact, saying that the resurrection changes our basic concept of relationships in this world.

The male-female relationship is a basic relationship. Even current times with dialogues and openness about alternative lifestyles cannot alter the reality of this basic relationship model. All relationships stem out from this foundational relationship. In our reality, this relationship has only been sexualized. Our cultural and societal values evolved based on a sexualized concept of this foundational relationship. Jesus has shaken this foundation with the Resurrection. It is no longer based on sexual or reproductive roles but on the new creation that Jesus ushers into our reality. One of the implications of this radical shift is reflected in the concept of the family in the New Testament. It was no longer limited to blood-family ties. Paul was the forerunner of this concept.

“Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 4:15

Paul tried to live out the radical implication of the Resurrection. It doesn’t mean that he did it perfectly. If we are only looking for someone perfect, then Paul would not be the right person. We won’t find anyone perfect except for Jesus in the Bible. However, if we want to find someone who struggled to understand the broadness and depth of the Resurrection, then Paul is a good role model. He was limited by his cultural and social upbringing and yet he was an apostle and a father to the people whom he was taught from infancy to despise. He became the spiritual father to the Gentiles. This was a radical shift that only the reality of the resurrection could bring.

When God calls us to serve, whether it is in Brazil or in our local neighborhood, God is calling us to discover the reality of the resurrection. I have to point out that we would miss a great opportunity of knowing the power and wonder of the New Creation if we reduce Christian ministry to social work or just doing some charitable work. Christian ministry is a ministry that introduces the values of the resurrected reality into this world. It breaks the boundaries between us and them. We go into the world to receive and embrace strangers as family members. It is not something that will happen automatically. We are still living in the old creation. The values of the old creation are dominant here. It is hard for people to see something beyond the reality before them.

We have been here a little over two years. After two years of talking and spending time with the children and teens, they are beginning to see beyond our games and the art work we do with them. Recently, Gabriel, a fourteen year old, complained that we were not passing by during the weekend. The others joined in and said that they wanted us to spend more time with them. In reality, we have been spending more time with them than before. Some older teens have taken us aside and talked about their relationship problems with us: the kind of stuff one would talk about with one’s parent. They are figuring out that we are more than social workers. We realize that we want to become a family to the children and teens. However, it is a new kind of family. It is the family of the New Creation. There are no manuals or books written about this kind of family. The instructions on how to become this family are being written on a daily basis in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

We cannot prove the Resurrection is true with persuasive arguments but we can live its reality and invite others to join us in this new reality.

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Serving God is not the same as Altruism

And when the scribes and the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”-Mark 2:16-17

Every Monday evening, volunteers from different religious and social agencies take time off their busy schedules to feed countless number of homeless adults and children in the red light district. These groups are well organized. They come in their vans or trucks and serve nicely packaged hot meals. Their distribution method is immaculate. They take less than a hour to feed about hundred to two hundred people and then they move on to the next location. These volunteers get nothing out of this service except perhaps the knowledge that they have done a good thing. This is altruism in action in our context. It is a good thing.

However, it is not what the Lord was talking about when He said,
“And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”-Mark 10:44-45

In altruistic service, the action alone is sufficient. Relationship between the giver and the recipient is not a necessity. Sometimes the homeless do not even know or recognize the people who provide the food and the altruists give without attempting to find out the names of those who benefit from their generosity. It becomes a dry and mechanical exchange between two parties where the humanity of both parties is hardly acknowledged.

Jesus sat and ate with the tax collectors and so-called sinners. The religious authorities criticized Jesus for doing this. I think the pharisees and scribes would not have minded if Jesus just preached and taught the tax collectors and the sinners. However, sharing a meal with them changes everything. Jesus wanted to become their friends. Sharing a meal is an intimate moment. Even in our present reality, it is rare that we invite people into our homes for a meal. It means bringing the relationship to the next level. It is moving from a superficial acquaintance to a potentially profound friendship. It is a movement from altruistic action to Christian ministry.

Friendship in the context of the New Testament time was considered to be one of the highest virtues. Almost all the influential philosophies in the Roman times considered a happy man as one who is surrounded by friends. This is because friendship is voluntary. It is the one thing that belongs to us which we can freely give to another.

One of the homeless teens once asked our team leader whether she was his friend because of the work or because he wants to be her friend. He said that it was both. His ministry in the streets opened the door to knowing her and it set the foundation for the friendship that they have now. Friendship can be based on many foundations. Jesus is the foundation of our friendship for those who are lost and lonely in this world. Jesus came to be our Friend.

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”-John 15:15

Jesus changed the nature of his relationship with the disciples because they had come to an understanding of the foundation of their friendship. It is to make the Father known. The best way to make the Father known is through our lives. The Father is not a concept that can be taught. He is person who lives within us. His presence and influence is seen through our lives. We cannot manifest the Father in our lives without being friends to those are friendless and lonely.

Christian Ministry begins with altruistic actions, but this is just the key that opens the door to a friendship. We cannot preach the gospel if we refuse to be friends with those to whom we minister. However, friendship alone does not make it a Christian Ministry. The goal is to make the Father known.

 

 

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A Successful Christian Ministry

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.-John 4:24

I would like to start with the subject of failure. Unfortunately it is something that we encounter quite frequently. We jokingly say that it has become an unspoken prerequisite  for anyone who wants to work in this ministry. They have to be people who are willing to fail.

In our ministry, we are asking people to make a radical change in their lives. Very few people are willing drop everything they have and have known for something radically new and uncertain. Albeit, they are living in the streets and for most of us, a change in this situation would be a no-brainer. However, let’s look at the same situation from a different perspective. Let’s say your friend is a millionaire and is obsessed with work to the point that it is destroying his personal life. He needs to radically change his life. Most likely, he must choose between giving up his luxurious and wealthy lifestyle for something simpler or die a sad rich man. It is a no-brainer, but we know what the majority of the people would choose. Most people would prefer to have the best of both worlds. To change one’s life, one has to give up things of the past to move into the future. Not many are willing to do this even when things are certain. However, the straight and narrow path towards Life is not a certain and easy path.  Jesus said that only few will choose the narrow road so we know from the beginning that our ministry is not going to be very successful in the material sense. We are not going to bring a busload of people through the narrow road of Life. It is doomed to failure; so then, why bother doing it? Well, it is about worship. We are in the streets to worship God. Perhaps it is quite unconventional to think about service as worship. However, when Jesus said that God is Spirit, He drastically changed the way we are to worship God.

God who is Spirit is not confined in space and time. This means that the presence of God is not limited to the temple or churches. He is present everywhere and He is present nowhere specifically. There is not a place that can contain Him fully and everywhere is the place and time for us to seek and meet Him. Worship is an encounter with God. If God is everywhere, then every encounter with Him leads to worship. Proper worship is to honor and glorify the presence of God.

Our worship of the God who is Spirit needs to change our idea of success. It cannot be a superficial change. It has to be a true and profound change in the way we understand the world. So, how do I gauge success? Well, the point of worship is to encounter God in our reality. The encounter should change our perception of reality to see the Truth. The Truth is that the very essence of God is Love. His presence, therefore, emanates Love so much so that it changes the environment. We cannot recognize this loving Presence if we ourselves are not intoxicated with this Love. We need to know first that God loves us and then this helps us to identify His loving presence in the streets. It also shapes the way we work in the streets. This Love informs us how to serve those who living in the streets. In a way, it is not necessary that we see any physical success as much as we desire that personally. It is more important to see that God is present and in His presence, Love is always manifested. It is the knowledge of this Love that enriches our lives. This is the meaning of a successful life in Christ Jesus.

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