June 27, 2015

I've done a lot of reading online today. I saw several scriptures repeatedly quoted in response to the Supreme Court decision declaring marriage equality is a constitutional right in all 50 states.

I've seen references to Sodom and Gomorrah today, but somehow this one didn't come up:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49 NIV)

That one hits a little close to home. Because today I threw out a kitchen garbage bag full - literally - of food from not one but TWO freezers at our house. Food that I bought but apparently had so little need for that it expired before we ever got around to eating it.

So maybe I was a bit more sensitive to another oft-quoted scripture today:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 NIV)

How can someone who hoards food in two freezers and throws it away rather than eat it NOT be considered greedy?

I've read today that God is grieved by the Supreme Court decision. But I can't help but wonder how He feels every day about the contents of my trash can. And my pantry. And my closet. There are five verses in the bible that address homosexuality. Compared to how many verses about caring for the poor? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 300.

As Americans, we are allowed to feel what we feel - and we are free to say what we want to say. But as Christians, we are advised to first get rid of the log in our own eye before we can see well enough to address the speck in someone else's.

I've read a lot today from Christians writing about other people's sins. Which is something I'd have a hard time doing. Because there are children in Lee County who went to bed hungry tonight as a big bag of wasted food thaws in my trash can outside.

As for the Supreme Court ruling, the Bible tells us in 1 John 4:7 that love is of God. To me, that means that wherever there is love, there is God. I trust that He is big enough to work out all the other stuff. I n the meantime, I know He has plenty of work still to do on me!

Asking the Right Questions

I've heard the question asked more than once in (or after) Haiti, "Did I even make a difference here?" 

I can relate. This has been a very different trip for me, in ways that I can't really quantify or express. But I have wrestled with frustration and discouragement on this trip like never before. Problems abound here - and most days, it feels like every solution only generates a new set of problems. I've found myself repeatedly humming a line from a Don Henley song, "The more I know, the less I understand..." Trying to get down to the heart of the matter? Um, yeah. 

So have we made a difference here over the past two weeks? It doesn't really feel like it, no. 

But here's the thing I think this trip has taught me: we (and by "we" I mean Americans/foreigners in general) are not supposed to be the difference-makers. We are here to pour love, support, prayer and instruction into the Haitians (young and old) who are and will be the difference-makers. 

I'm trying to think of analogies: maybe wanting to be the star of the show when you're actually called to be the set designer? Being the chef when you're supposed to be peeling potatoes? Either way, confusion over these roles seems to lead to frustration and discouragement. So then  maybe clarity about this distinction might be what is needed to keep hope alive when doubt (and even despair) creep in. 

The question to ask in Haiti is not, "Did I make a difference?" but rather, "Who around me is Haiti's hope for a brighter future, and what did I do to empower them today to make a difference here tomorrow?"

Unfortunately there are a some harder, implied questions to consider, "Who around me is so sick or vulnerable that there may not be much future left for them? How can God use me to bring peace and comfort that they might have the chance see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?"

So, then. Where and how can we make our most enduring contribution to God's kingdom work in Haiti? Some of the things we do for the Lord here will be big things and some will be small, but we can't fall into the trap of measuring our efficacy here by how big of a wave we make, by how visible the results of our efforts might be. 

Jovenel's dad Josué told me when we were here in December, "whatever you do for the Lord is a blessing, no matter how small - even if it's only a cup of water." This was only days after I had held a cup of cold water to the lips of a child named Kenise at a special needs orphanage here in Port-au-Prince. I suspected at the time - and sadly, it has since been confirmed - that Kenise was dying. The cold water was the only thing that soothed her, and the it was cold because it was chilled in a refrigerator an AUMC team had bought for the house only a few months before. Giving her that water was a holy moment for me - and for my friend Kelly who was back in the States at the time, but who loved Kenise with a mother's love from the moment she laid eyes on her. Kelly was on the team who bought the refrigerator, and I truly felt like a conduit for her love and for Christ's love during the time I tried to comfort Kenise. 

It was a moment orchestrated by God - which I believe was confirmed by Josué's words just a few days later. Was it a moment that will impact the future of Haiti? Not that I can discern. But it reminded me then - and reminds me now - that God is at work here, even in the smallest details. He will use if me if I let Him, if I trust Him enough to surrender even the saddest of outcomes to His design. 

In our service in Haiti, we're tempted to think that we should focus on being a foot soldier rather than the captain. But I'm increasingly thinking that we're neither. We're the equivalent of the cooks in the kitchen or maybe the uniform suppliers. (And some of us are the USO volunteers back home!)  It will be the Haitians who are both the captains and the foot soldiers in the battle for the future of this country - so how are we equipping them? Education, health care, nutrition, job training, leadership development, family planning, etc., - all in the context of knowing Christ and making Him known. 

And for those sweet babies who won't be healed this side of heaven, who won't get the chance to grow up to be foot soldiers or captains, either one - maybe we'll be honored with the chance to hold them close and pray over them for a brief moment or two before they go. 

God is at work in Haiti, and many hands are needed. But discouragement lurks behind every corner. Maybe that's because applying an American measure of success here is like a trap in and of itself. We want to make a measurable, quantifiable difference. And if we can't be sure that we've done that, then what's the point? 

[Not losing sight of the fact that the biggest trap at the enemy's disposal is that if I can't quantify the benefit of my my contribution here, then I just won't to anything at all.]

And of course I have to point out that there are Americans and other foreigners who are making huge, visible, measurable differences in Haiti every single day. Conjoined twins were recently separated at a nearby hospital by a surgical team made up of specialists from around the world. Talk about visible results! Clearly, there are a great many quantifiable successes accomplished here every day, and I don't want to undermine those in any way. I'm just saying that they can't be our only measure of value. 

In eight trips amounting to 96 days over the past 27 months in Haiti, I've been privileged to participate in more and more "real life" here. And while that has blessed me immeasurably, it's also left me with some outright doubts about how on earth the hope that God has planted here can ever be realized. If my time here raises more questions than it answers, then I have to consider: am I even asking the right questions? 

Who is the future of Haiti? It's not us. It was never supposed to be us. And as much as we would like to have a crystal ball to see the future of Haiti so we know how best to contribute, that would be the opposite of faith. We show up here, trusting God that He will use us and prosper the work of our hands today to accomplish His present and future purposes in Haiti. Maybe we'll see results in our lifetime - maybe we won't. But we trust Him, either way. We trust Him with our American standards of deliverables: what can we see? How can we know if it's enough? But we must also learn to trust Him the with that all too common Haitian experience of manna, of God's provision of daily bread: was it enough for today and today alone? 

If we will surrender the desire for a crystal ball and instead pick up the jar to harvest manna (ever mindful that it will only be sufficient for today), then maybe we can learn to trust God that it is indeed enough - not because we are enough, not because our efforts here are enough, but because He is here. And He is enough. 

Connecting the Dots

So, is there such a thing as a Bible study fangirl? Because I think I might be one.

I have some really cool things I want to share here about our Christmas trip to Haiti, and they're all rolling around in my head. But I made two notes earlier today about readings in Exodus that I think I'd like to blog about sometime. And then I had a third revelation - an epiphany, if you will - while brushing my teeth tonight that I think I'm just going to have to go ahead and share.

As a quick note of explanation, I'm currently in a Disciple II Bible study for my second go-around. I think maybe that's what puts me in the fangirl category. This is a study I first took nine years ago, but my memory is just bad enough and my faith walk is just farther enough along, that it truly is like I'm taking it for the first time!

Long-term Bible studies have been such a game changer for me. They are like one big connect the dots puzzle, and I'm in awe every time I see all those little dots link to form a recognizable image. Sometimes the image I see is of God, sometimes it is of myself. But I've come to recognize these moments as revelations: personal encounters with the Living God. These moments are His revealing/unveiling of who He is and the story He is telling - and then He goes further still with the revelation of how those things apply to the life I'm trying to live for Him. 

Anyway, this week we're wrapping up our Old Testament readings of (primarily) Genesis and Exodus. Next week, we'll begin our New Testament readings of Luke and Acts. Reading the last 15 chapters of Exodus was a little trying at times (urim and thummim go where? why exactly are we splattering blood on the priests' ears, thumbs, and big toes? that sort of thing). So I pulled out one of my favorite biblical resources, The Schocken Bible, Volume 1 (http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Books-Moses-Deuteronomy/dp/0805211195). It is what I would call a very Hebrew-centric translation by Everett Fox of the first five books of the the Bible, and I find both the translation and the commentary very insightful. 

As tedious as these closing chapters of a Exodus can sometimes be, I'm actually kind of a fan(girl!) of the descriptions of the tent of meeting and the specifications to build it. Another word for the tent of meeting is Tabernacle. Maybe it's because my paternal grandparents founded and ran an interdenominational holiness camp meeting every summer for decades and worship there took place in an open-air tabernacle. But it's a word that just seems to draw me close. 

Years ago (I honestly can never remember where or when I heard most of the stuff that I think is really cool, but I totally fact checked this one in Strong's Conordance), someone pointed out that the verb dwelt in John 1:14 "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" is a word that essentially means "tabernacled." So, Jesus encamped among us - He pitched His tent with us in the same way God did in the desert with the Israelites. And because I love that image so, I'm always intrigued by the Exodus passages that describe the making and equipping of the original Tabernacle itself. 

So, I'm good, right? But I figured I'd be better if I could wade through some of this with the Fox commentary, which is what I read this evening. He makes some great points about how in Exodus 29:20 the ears, thumbs and big toes represent the extremities of the priests' bodies, so including them is symbolic of the anointing of their entire bodies. Also, he points out that observation of the Sabbath being so closely connected with the Tabernacle (Exodus 31) has no known equivalent in the ancient world. He writes, "The Dwelling account presents us with a people for whom sacred time takes precedence over sacred space." There is some very cool stuff here!

Then I read this, "In Exodus, the coffer [the term Fox uses for the ark of the covenant, probably to drag our attention away from images of Raiders of the Lost Ark] literally plays a central role. It stands in the innermost recesses of the Tabernacle, at the sacred center. Considering what the coffer contained - tablets with God's words on them rather than statues of gods - it addresses the primacy of divine word over divine representation in ancient Israelite thought." And this kind of blows my mind. For years, I have been captivated by the idea that Jesus tabernacled with us here on earth - but it had never really occurred to me that what was represented by those tablets in that ark within the Holy of Holies was the WORD of God. 

The Word of God at the heart of the tabernacle among God's people in the Book of Exodus. 

The Word of God tabernacling among us in the Book of John. 

The miracle of Emmanuel - God with us. Right there in Exodus. Once again in that familiar passage in John. And yet again, today! 

Does it get any cooler than that?

Oh, yes. Yes, it does. 

Within the ark of the covenant: God's word. God's presence. 

God with us. Emmanuel. Our Deliverance. 

And what do we know about other arks in the Bible? 

The ark in Genesis 6:14. Deliverance - for Noah and all humankind. 

The basket that Moses' mother placed him in among the reeds along the edge of the Nile - an "ark of bulrushes." Again: Deliverance - for the baby Moses and ultimately for the people of God.

Connecting the dots. An image emerges! 

And then there's the veil. 

The veil in Exodus 26 within which the ark of the covenant was placed, with the veil serving as a partition between the holy place and the holy of holies - this, so that a sinful person might not erringly approach the presence of God. 

This would become the same veil that was torn in two with Jesus' death in the cross (Matthew 27:50-51, Mark 15: 37-38, Luke 23:45-46). God's Word set loose in the World, His presence accessible to all. 

The written word of God veiled in the Temple, unleashed as the the embodied Word of God (Logos) paid the final, complete sacrifice on the cross. And now we are the temple of the Living God?

Talk about connecting the dots!

I know that a lot of people are put off by studying the Old Testament - at times it seems archaic and maybe even anachronistic. But the Bible is ultimately one story of one Savior. It just happens to be told across the span of two testaments. 

And, yes: Bible Study is a big commitment. I'm going to be sleepy at mine tomorrow because I stayed up too late tonight writing this blog! 

But then I think about my favorite story in the Bible: Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well. Jesus met her there where she was. And He continually meets me where I am, in the study of His word. Even when I procrastinate, even when I skim some parts, even when I get sidetracked by Facebook in the middle of my reading. He meets me there. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.