Jesus’ Friends

Have you heard Tony Campolo tell of the time he ended up at a greasy spoon diner in Hawaii at three-thirty in the morning because jet lag kept him from sleeping?  While there he overheard a prostitute remark to her friends that tomorrow was her birthday.  It gave him the inspiration to ask the owner for permission to bring a cake and decorate the diner for a party the next night. 

The place was wall to wall prostitutes when she arrived to a “Happy Birthday Agnes” and wild cheering.  Agnes was stunned saying that she had never before had her own birthday cake and asked to take it home to show her mother.  After a few uneasy moments when she left, Tony finally blurted out, “What do you say we pray?”

He prayed that God would make her new that God would give her back everything that had been taken from her.  After the prayer Harry the owner said, “Hey, Campolo, you told me you were a sociologist.  You’re no sociologist, you’re a preacher.  What kind of church do you belong to?” 

Tony Compolo answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at three-thirty in the morning.”  The owner came right back at him with the response, “No you don’t!  No you don’t! I would join a church like that.”

This story reminds me of what Tim Keller said in his book Prodigal God.  “In every case where Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (as in Luke 7) or a religious person and a racial outcast (as in John 3-4) or a religious person and a political outcast (as in Luke 19), the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the elder-brother type does not.  Jesus says to the respectable religious leaders, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you” (Matthew 21:31).

“Jesus’ teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious of his day.  However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect.  The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.  We tend to draw conservative, button-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church.  That can only mean one thing.  If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.  If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.”

Henry

Henry lives in a neighborhood filled with ethnic diversity which allows him to be a part of a larger world community.  He shops in a market that supports local organic farmers and spends time with friends at a café that supports fair trade with coffee growers in Latin America.  His company provides technology solutions for small business that are making an effort to become more environmentally friendly.

Social justice issues are important to him, and he backs it up by supporting organizations that combat human trafficking in Asia.  Saturday mornings finds him putting together food bags for children living in poverty whose parents are struggling with drug abuse.  Spiritually he is involved in a Value and Vision Circle that keeps a conversation going about values, ethics and designer spirituality.

In his own words, “It is up to me and our community to make a meaningful contribution to this world.  The institutions around us have in large part failed.  Science has not delivered on its promises.  Religion has become morally bankrupt and political leaders are corrupt.  Families, including my own, are breaking apart.   This world is dysfunctional on so many levels.” 

When someone commented on his negativity, he quickly countered, “Not at all.  Even though my friends and I recognize the chaotic nature of the world and though we have dismissed any overarching purpose in life, we are discovering the value that our personal stories make on a local level.  We embrace the conditions as they are but still contribute positively to society in individual ways.” 

As for me I would like the "Henry’s" of the world to know that as Christians, we too value personal stories.  We do believe after all that we were created to do good works which God prepared in advanced for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).  We know the importance of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8). We do care for widows and orphans in their distress (James 1:27).

What I would welcome from them is a conversation about the grand biblical narrative.  Because as someone once said, “I can only answer the question, ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”        

I would invite them to consider what God wanted for us through creation and what happened to us with the fall of humanity into sin.  To consider what God has done in Jesus Christ to put things right and how things will be restored in Him.

What I would like us to realize is that the "Henry's" are not just an insignificant number of free thinkers.  Instead they represent a largely growing contingent of people dissatisfied with life, and they see their stories as a way of making sense of it all.  They represent a coming generation that has arrived.  

The Touch

She was lost among the crowd which was just what she wanted.  It was an opportunity to position herself on the fringes, to watch and to wait for just the right moment.  While she must have felt that all eyes were upon her, she none-the-less tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. 

Sickness defined her life, robbing her joy and strength.  In her country there was a lack of medical knowledge which resulted in a weird range of prescribed remedies.  In desperation she had tried many of them.    For instance, “Dig seven pits, and burn in them some vine branches not yet four years old. Then let the woman, carrying a cup of wine in her hand, come up to each pit in succession, and sit down by the side of it, and each time let the words be repeated: ‘Be free from thy sickness.’”   

Health in a third world country is extremely fragile.  We saw it played out in many different ways in Mexico where hospitals and clinics are assigned according to the economic status of the family.  When medical care is unavailable or unattainable, many turn to alternative practices. 

In her town that day was an extraordinary man with the reputation as a Healer.  After twelve years of hemorrhaging and growing worse, she was willing to let in a glimmer of hope.  “If only I can touch his clothes, I will be healed,” she thought to herself. 

Jesus was up and moving now.  A man named Jarirus had requested Jesus to come to his dying daughter.  This may be her only chance.  The crowds were moving with him.  She jostled with the crowd drawing closer.  Others were reaching out to touch him.  She pushed forward and touched his clothing.       

 

Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from suffering. 

Now if she could only quietly slip away…but no. Jesus had sensed healing power going out of him and was asking, “Who touched my clothes?”  He continued looking around to see who had touched him.   

Fear seized her.  She had been caught.  She knew what had just happened to her, and he knew.  Trembling she fell down at his feet and told him the whole truth expecting a rebuke. 

Instead she received a gentle affirmation.  “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” 

Postscript:  There is room in my theology for a present day miracle of bodily healing, but God seems to instead give an extra measure of sufficient grace in the midst of the difficulty.   That is at least what he did for the apostle Paul when he asked for his “thorn” to be removed. 

The greater precedent is for healing deeper in and higher up.  God especially delights in a healing of the spirit and soul.

Given the opportunity, from what would you be set free?