In, Not Of

Last night my husband and I were watching the 10:00 news. It's kind of a thing we do. The house shuts down, essentially, at 9:00, we put dogs in their houses, kids in their beds, dishes in the dishwasher, and lock the doors and windows. Lights out. By 10, we are in the bed and snuggled up to the glow of the bedroom television while the anchors of our local newscast give us the scoop on all of the day's activities. It's a lot of the same lately - foreign affairs, economy, weather changes... and violence.

I believe we have, at least in part, become immune to the kinds of violent acts that take place in war. My kids, the oldest of which is 13, have never known a time when the United States was not actively involved in foreign conflict. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are common to them, and the notion of peace seems almost mystical or imagined. They've seen family members and friends in their BDUs, coming and going, as if it were just part of life. Kids, adults... I guess we've all just gotten used to hearing about how many service members were wounded or killed in a day. The word "death" doesn't illicit the same response it once did.

Last night, while watching the news, the first 3 local stories contained a death, a robbery, and a kidnapping, not necessarily in that order. We barely blinked. It didn't even phase us that in our own city, someone was killed unnecessarily over money, someone was forced to look down the barrel of a gun over her purse while onlookers stood idly by, and a child was taken from her home by a man twice her age for what purpose we can only guess. And at this thought, we didn't even flinch.

I sent my kids off to school today in the usual way. Breakfast, clean clothes, and "have a good day at school!" And I thought to myself, how many moms in the Sandy Hook area did that exact same routine just a couple of months ago, never even entertaining the idea that their precious babies may not come home? Admittedly, I was a little choked up then.

Friends, our world is jacked up. It's straight-up jacked. You do not have to look far to see the ugliness that has, I believe, over time, crept in and made itself comfortable among the beauty. You don't have to really search out dishonesty, greed, and maliciousness. It will find you, if it hasn't already. Statistically, you won't go through your life without being the victim of a crime. It's impossible. Someone will take from you what wasn't theirs to take, will destroy your property, will cause you physical pain, and/or will ruin you emotionally. It's not a matter of if, but when. Statistics are grim. We live in a broken, ugly, messed up, nasty, violent, evil world. Outside of my front door, things are ugly. There is just too much sin in our world to avoid.

But that shouldn't stop me - or anyone else - from going out into it. These people who are broken and lost and messed up, these are the ones that Jesus came for. These are the ones that were so lost that there was no way - absolutely no way - they could save themselves. Psalm 40:2 says, "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." It does not say "I lifted myself out of the slimy pit," but that HE lifted me out. He did for me what I could not do for myself. Jesus came to this jacked up, ugly place to save those who were stuck in that slimy pit of sin, and didn't know what to do to get out. He walked among the sinners, the lepers, the poor, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the hungry, the ceremonial unclean, the religious zealots, the sick, the unbelievers, and the killers. He washed their feet, he blessed them, he prayed for them, he healed them, and he loved them.

Jesus was born of a woman, but he was otherwise sinless. He was perfectly God, and perfectly human - just jacked up enough to understand the human condition, but just holy enough to know it couldn't keep going this way. He could have stayed shut up in his house, praying constantly, and only surrounding himself with things that were clean and holy. But he didn't. He walked where the sinners walked. He talked with people who spoke evil. He touched those that were considered too filthy to even look at. He wept with those who mourned. He fed the hungry, he healed the sick, and cured the diseased. He didn't minister with words, but with his love. He loved those that were unlovable by anyone else. And he has called us all to do the same.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'
Matthew 25:40

We need to go out into the ugly world and make it better. Love God, love people. Give where you can, how you can, and when you can. To put it into perspective, consider this: Jesus Christ hung on a cross, to be mocked and spit upon, pierced and bleeding, with common criminals, in anguish so that you would know what true love looked like. He's only asking you to be generous with your time and money.

Jesus spent time in this ugly world, trying to make it a better place for future generations. He knew sin would always be a part of our human experience, but he also knew that mercy and love were real, powerful forces that could work to combat the sin and ugliness that lurked on this big hunk of rock floating through space. He didn't ask that we succumb to the sinful nature of our flesh, but that we love those who have, and that we understand that no one sin is any more or less sinful than another - because all sin is ugly, and we all have it. "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) All have sinned. All. Every single last one. To completion. All. So, why do we think that it's so beneath us to go out in the trenches where "the sinners are" to serve them? Are they more sinful than us? The Bible says no. Because all sin is ugly, and all sin keeps us from glory. All of it. A little white lie the same as an axe murder.

It all boils down to this: we are all, in God's eyes, on a level playing field. We all sin. We all do things that displease him. But we also all have a capacity for love. And we can show the world who Jesus really is by walking a mile in his shoes, err... sandals. Go where he has gone, do what he has done, love whom he has loved.

Be in the world, not of the world.