Speaking Their Language

Okay so Christmas has past, but there is this thing that keeps running through my head. It is one of the absolute coolest parts of the Christmas story, apart from God being born as a baby. Nothing trumps that, but this is pretty amazing, too.

I think I like it because I love the Bible stories about the outsiders, the people who didn’t quite belong or fit, but were included anyway. The Bible is full of them. I guess I really don’t see it as that big of a deal when someone who knows the rules does the right thing, but when someone who has never been taught is just so overcome by the splendor and holiness of our God that they instinctively do the right thing, it just blows me away. It reminds me of how far God is willing to go to reach all who have a heart to respond.

Maybe this is why my favorite people on the scene, (although technically, they arrived way past fashionably late, make that two to three years late), were the Magi. The Bible doesn’t have a whole lot to tell us about who they were, what their background and history was, and so we have built up a lot of myths and legends about their journey. We have given them names, that may or may not have been theirs, we have given them different and distinct ethnicities so they can serve as representatives for the rest of the world. (Read that Gentiles).

But as usual, the truth is so much stranger than fiction. Magi was the official title of the priests of a Babylonian god named Mithras. In their official capacity they observed the stars, foretelling the future, searching for omens, and looking for signs. Stars were the writings of the gods, revealing to man all that the gods desired for him to know, and it was a language they knew well.

Here’s the first thing that amazes me, God got their attention and he did it using their language, their area of expertise. He did not require that they learn some new culture or code of conduct before he would deign to speak to them. It’s as if he said, “Okay, you can read the stars. Allow me to write it in the medium you know.”

It makes me wonder how many times we Christians like to complicate the message for those foreign to our ways. Why does it seem so hard for us to follow God’s example and speak the language of the people we are trying to communicate with? It’s time that we recognize that God desires to reach all humanity, not just the ones who talk, look, and act like us. We need to take the time to learn how to speak their language and quit expecting them to learn ours.

The second thing that amazes me is that God accepted their gifts, even honoring them by mentioning them by name in his Word. Now, there has been a lot written about the nature of these gifts, how they were used by kings and in anointing royal bodies, but the Bible never clarifies why these particular gifts were given and most of our Christian writings are just speculation. Maybe it is our attempt to Christianize these heathen priests.

I think it honors them far more to understand the gifts in light of the Magi’s culture. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were gifts reserved for their god. It was the way they understood how to honor a deity, and just as God spoke their language to communicate with them, they now speak their language to communicate with him.

And it’s okay. It’s what they have to give to him, the highest honor they can bestow, and God says it’s enough.

Perhaps as Christians we need to value the language of foreign people a little more. Perhaps we need to be more sensitive when someone from outside our culture responds to God, and be less judgmental when it fails to meet what we deem to be correct. Maybe we need to stop placing our interpretations on their actions and let them speak for themselves. God was okay with the sincere gift of foreign men, and I can’t help but feel he has the same response to all who seek him with sincerity.

Perhaps it is time we took the value off the form and placed it on the intent of the heart, and let God decide whether it is a good and acceptable gift.

Don’t Flinch – Part 3

Of all the parts of this “mini-series,” this has been the hardest to put into words. There is a delicate balance that must be struck and requires a certain sensitivity of one who wishes to implement what I am about to say. It is difficult to share what I have learned without sounding arrogant or condescending. So I ask for your grace as I share. Please bear in mind that I am only submitting what I have learned from experience, both as someone who has been judged harshly and as someone who has judged others harshly.

When we take the title Christian, or Christ Follower, we are shouldering a tremendous responsibility. It is a declaration that as we walk through this world, we are to be a revelation of the Lord who gave his life on our behalf. We are to be an example of his grace and love to a world that is suffering the effects of sin, sometimes as willing participants and sometimes as another faceless victim. How we respond to those who are dealing with the effects of sin in their lives may be the only clue they have as to how God responds to them. It is our duty and obligation to fulfill this role with integrity and compassion.

Unfortunately, many of us fail to meet this standard. We act as if God’s holiness is in danger of being contaminated by a sinful world. We flinch as we hear the stories, we draw back in fear when we see the effects, and shun those who need his touch the most. I often speculated what could lead us into such damning behavior – are we afraid another’s sin will pollute us? Are we worried that God is unable to clean us up again if we get a spot or two on us? Do we think that he won’t love us if he found out we spent the day with a divorcee, an addict, a liar, a gossip, or worse?

Now, I have heard all the excuses. God doesn’t want us to associate with sinners. What does light have to do with the darkness? Evil company corrupts. Tolerance is the same as approval. You don’t want to be led astray. And I am not denying the validity of any of these arguments, but when they are not held in tension with the truth that we are the light of the world, we are the ones responsible for reaching out to those God loves and values as much as he loves and values us.

Don’t flinch, means that we are able to live our lives with a confidence that God is greater than any evil we may encounter. It means that instead of being appalled at a behavior or action we focus on the person, we see the need they have in their life, and we respond according to the strength and power of the one we serve. It means that we recognize the inherent worth the other person has as God's creation, and we demonstrate his desire to redeem any and every thing they may have ever done or endured.

When we flinch, we are telling the world that God is flinching, too. We are saying that God is not big enough or doesn't love them enough to reach out to them or push aside anything that separates them from him. We are telling them that their sin is so great, all hope for redemption has been lost. We are misrepresenting this God we claim to serve and have the utmost faith in, and I hope to never be held accountable for that action.

When I don’t flinch, I can hold the hand of one who is in pain. I am giving them permission to ask the questions, to seek God, and to hopefully, experience his love through me. When I don’t flinch, I am saying God is strong enough to deal with their issues, unafraid of their doubt or anger. I am declaring that he loves them enough to endure anything to be near them, including death and he has already done so. When I don’t flinch, I am saying that I am not naïve enough to think I am better than them, that I have been there and he was good enough to save me. I am giving them the hope that he may be big enough to save them.

When I don’t flinch, I am modeling the behavior of my Lord, who was not surprised that the Woman at the Well was living in sin. I am saying that he knows, he always knew and he still desires to share living water with all who are willing to sit at the edge of the well with him.

Don’t Flinch – Part 2

In the last post I retold the story of the Woman at the Well from my perspective. As I said, I love this story because I know it all too well.

Once upon a time, I was well versed in the faith of my family and culture. I knew the proper forms of worship, the hope of the return of the Messiah, and I thought I knew all the right Bible answers. But once upon a time, I got married to a man who renounced his faith shortly after the ceremony and our marriage crumbled into a game of survivor. One I had to win if I was going to save my children and myself. I got out and tried to make a life for me and my girls, but it was a rough go.

Many people could not grasp how a good Christian girl could get a divorce or how I could wind up married to such a man that would make divorce the only option. I must not have prayed enough or I wasn’t submissive enough. There was sin in my life or I didn’t have enough faith. Not many were brave enough to speak these words aloud, but they didn’t have to. It was there in their eyes, in their offers to pray with me, and in the quiet way they would ignore the ugly facts of my existence.

I learned you don’t go to the well in the morning. Everyone was there ready with that pitying but condemning look. The whispers were low, but not low enough. So I learned to avoid the crowds, draw into myself, take comfort where I could find it, even in a few relationships that were less than holy.

When I would meet a new Christian, someone who did not know my story, I learned to tell it with a note of defiance and an unspoken dare to condemn if they must, but get it over with. I learned to accept the fact I was too far gone to be of any use to God or his people. Like the Samaritan woman I had too many strikes against me.

Worship was hard, my faith seemed as stagnant and dead as the water in that seep of a well but it was all I had. So I learned to make do. Fake it. Act like it was enough, all the while I was dying.

I hated the Holy Flinch, that involuntary reaction that good Christian people have when they are in the presence of sinners. The one we are taught is a gauge of our holiness. Oh, we are taught to hate the sin but love the sinner, but too often we fail to recognize there is no sin separate apart from the person. So often the sin has become the definition of who they are – as in, “Oh, you mean the divorced woman who sits in the back at church.” We begin to shy away from that person, as if their sin was going to rub off on us, like God wouldn’t like it if we came home smelling of divorce. Our kindness is marked with that boundary of “I will give you this, but don’t come any closer.” In the end, that type of kindness is crippling to the receiver.

My perception of God began to shift over time. I mean, if his people flinched then surely he flinched. And if he flinched, it had to mean one of two things, my sin was that great or he was that small. Either way, it meant there was no hope for me. I was lost, endlessly and miserably lost, and there was not a God who loved me enough or was great enough to save me from my reality. My façade was crumbling and my faith was a tattered rag too full of holes and too worn to be warm in the coldness of life.

But then came the day, when I went to the well and stared into its depths and wondered why even bother to lower the bucket. I would just be thirsty again, why prolong the inevitable? So I sat waiting my demise, wondering how long it would take to kill off those last vestiges of faith, and he showed up. I didn’t believe him at first. My ability to hope, to dream of great things for myself and my girls was dead, but somewhere in the deepest part of who I was I knew that when the Messiah came he would explain everything. And when he sat beside me on the edge of that well, that is exactly what he did.

He explained how there is plan and purpose for us all. He told me how there is not one moment of my heartache and pain that would be wasted. He told me he was big enough and great enough to redeem it all to his glory. He said his holiness could never be sullied by my sin and shame. He shared how his heart’s desire was to resurrect all this world had killed within me, and called me back to life. He shared a drink with a disreputable woman who had given up hope, until he saw me and didn’t flinch.