But For The Grace of God . . . There Go I!

Few things get under my skin and really irritate me but one of them is when I hear someone, particularly someone who claims to be a Christian, in their arrogance talking badly about the homeless or just really poor people. When I hear them referred to as "lazy," "bums," "drunks," "deadbeats," "parasites on society," etc. I want to ask what is there about you that makes you better than they? They may well be any one or perhaps even all of those things but somehow I still feel my righteousness becoming indigenated when I hear them being talked about as they were something less than human.

First the critic doesn't know anything about that person or what brought them to be where they are. Each one, while much about them is the same, has their own personal story. They may well be a representative of the Lord to test the depth of our faith. "In as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me," said Jesus. Truth is Jesus was something of a homeless person wandering about the country depending on he kindness of strangers. "  He once said, "Foxes have their holes and birds have their nests but the Son of man has nowhere to rest his head."

Second, we must never forget that they, like ourselves and the rest of humanity, were created in God's image and after His likeness. Not only was that person created in the image and after the likeness of God he is also a person who God loves (John 3:16 includes him as well as us) and for who Jesus died.  Granted he may not represent the best of the image of God but he none-the-less is such a person.

Finally, it is hard to put those words in Jesus' mouth (Let the words of my mouth . . . be acceptable in thy sight oh Lord my God).  He also seemed to believe that the Rich by-in-large failed to realize that it was God who had blessed them with riches not that they should build bigger homes and drive finer cars but so they would have the means to meet the needs of the poor that He would bring into the circle of their lives. 

It seems Jesus saved His softest word and kindest blessings to those who were the powerless of His day. The poor, widows, orphans, street beggars, physically ill and infirm, the mentally ill, and those in prison all seemed to have a special place in His heart, life and ministry. Indeed, his harshest words were reserved for the pompously pious religious people/leaders of His day.

I had a friend who is now with the Lord who may well have been the wealthiest man I have ever known. I loved him as a second father. In the 1970"s he was worth multiple millions of dollars having risen from a lease operator for Sun Oil to become the largest independent oil service company in the East Texas Oil patch in Kilgore, Texas. He told me on one occasion that there was nothing about him that deserved or even knew how to make money. However, God had blessed everything he'd ever done and now he was wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. In the years I served as his pastor there was rarely a week that he did not come by my office and give me an envelope to take to a family he had learned was facing some sort of difficult time. I remember asking Him why he was always giving money away and he replied, "I believe that God has blessed me in regard to my wealth for a reason and that reason is to be able to help others. I also believe if I quit sharing with people needing help that God will cease blessing me. It is what God has gifted and enabled me to do." All I can do is agree.

I would add to that story that all his giving was anonymous except to his pastor and accountant. Once reminding him of an instance of a man he had helped for over a year in a multitude of ways who did not like him and rarely missed an opportunity to talk badly about him I asked, "Does it matter to you what __________thinks of you?" To which he replied, "I hate that he feels that way about me but that is not what matters. What matters is what God thinks about me and what I think about myself." 


Again, I simply had to agree. An antidotal story about my friend was when he died and I finished the memorial service in the church and was walking ahead of his casket to the funeral coach I saw three young oil executives standing and overheard one turn to the other two and say, "There goes the last honest oil man in this oil patch." M.A. would have liked that. (BTW - he was not just generous with the poor and needed but with his church, his pastor and many others).

I tell this story because it illustrates what Jesus expects from His people whom He has blessed with this world's goods. He has not so blessed us to consume it on ourselves but use it as a tool to lift up the downtrodden. Now let me remind you, before someone says even the poorest among us is rich compared to other places in the world. I wouldn't argue with that for one minute. It is absolutely true . . . it just isn't relevant. Poverty is relational. The poor here do not live in that other culture. They live here in the richest nation in the world. I just heard the Chairman of Chase/J.P. Morgan say today that America is in excess of $100 trillion. I thought to myself, I live in the richest nation in the world and children in Appalachia or going to bed hungry . . . how can this be? 

Let me add here that God fully expects you to use part of what He has blessed you with for your own family's wellbeing. What He doesn't want is for you to consume it all upon yourself. Several things in my life have influenced my attitude toward people who do not share in the American dream though they live slap-dab in the middle of it. One was that I came from a family of share-crop farmers who prior to the Civil War had been prominent citizens of their communities but after the war had all their land and most of their possessions stripped from them. I heard the stories in the family how they came to Texas starting in the 1850's right on through the mid 1860's. I knew about my great grandparents  Robert Appleby farming with a mule and living in a small one room shack and sleeping on hay spread on the floor and covered by a sheet. His son too was a farmer in North Central Texas just north of Dallas living in a two room house on a small acreage and share cropping. I've visited that house (no gone) on two occasions with my father. What I am saying is that I know what it is like to be poor.

Another was the opportunity I had as a young minister to preach in the now historic Star of Hope Mission in Houston, Texas on a fairly regular basis. It was there, at the Star of Hope Mission, that I discovered that behind everyone of those haggard faces was a very human story. I remember the Director of the mission pointing at a man who was obviously now an alcoholic, saying, "See that man there at the end of the third bench, you wouldn't believe that at one time he was one of the most influential men in this city (Houston)." I asked, "What happened that he ended up here?" He replied, "Long story short he lost his whole family in a terrible accident and he just could cope with it." The Director continued, "He needs Jesus in his life and I sometime think he wants it. I can almost guarantee you he will come forward at the end of your sermon for prayer."


I have sort of debunked in an earlier post the idea of a "Red State Jesus" but I also want to dispel the idea of a "Blue State" Jesus. Jesus is not a mascot for either political party. Make no mistake about it, Jesus was heavily invested in the poor and he fully expects his people (Christians) to have the same burden for the needs of the people at the bottom of our economic system as He has. I rather suspects he looks upon the grinding poverty in the world's richest nation and thinks about how much he has blessed His people and wonders, "How can these things be?" Did He not warn us that "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Luke 12:48.


As deep as Jesus' concern for the poor is and as much as He insist that pure religion involves caring for the poor he never endorses a big Nanny State. Jesus never envisioned the Roman Empire or any subsequent government meeting the needs of the poor. Instead, we are charged to "Remember the poor." That means think about them and do something to help relieve the level of their poverty. Every generation of believers will have this challenge because as Jesus also knew, "The poor you have with you always."


I think sometimes that is true as a test for God's people.Jesus assigned dignity and worth to the poor not their poverty. According to Zachariah 7:9-10 we, God's people, prove our heavenly citizenship by our attitude toward the poor. The greatness of a people is found in the way it treats the poor and the helpless in its midst. As citizens who are Christians we must advocate for policies that seek to put an end to generational poverty by creating opportunities for the poor to create individual wealth. So instead of expressing disdain for the poor, down-trodden, homeless etc try to see them through they eyes of Jesus or even the eyes of  John Bradford, English reformer and martyr on seeing evil-doers taken to the place of execution, is reported to have said, "But for the grace of God there goes John Bradford."     Indeed, but for the grace of God there go I

The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Pastor

I recently shared a Facebook poster that a friend tagged me in on my personal Facebook page. You can see a copy of it on the left.

The truth is pastor's are not appreciated because only other pastor's know what they actually do and what they often sacrifice to do it. Now I am not talking about the pastor's of the large mega-churches who have large specialized staffs, research assistants, and the like. They have their own set of special issues. I am talking about the pastor of the average local community based church. You know, the church where the local pastor does the marrying, burying, preaching, nurturing and is the main educator in the church. He visits the sick, comforts the hurting, and attends virtually every community meeting and every church meeting of every kind. He does all of that and lives off of a meager salary, wears nice clothes and gives a tithe to the church and participates generously in all the special offerings as well as helping people who are in need.  All of that and he never complains.

Then of course there is the added fact that he has virtually no one in whom he can confide. It takes a very special person to be a pastor's confidant. A pastor's confidant must be loyal and not flighty; he must be stable emotionally; but most of all he must be able to keep a confidence. In a sense he has to have some of the same qualities we require of a pastor and keeping a confidence is vital.

I was reading through my journal recently . . . revisiting some of the more challenging times in my ministry. Times where I had to carry the weight of responsibility for something because I could not, no, would not, share things I had received in confidence. There were other times when things I had shared in confidence came back to bite me. Truth is, every pastor, including myself have had close friends everywhere they served as pastor. But no matter how close their friendship the pastor carried burdens, sometimes his own but most often those of others, that he dared not share.

I remember hearing of the pastor who was complaining that some of the men in the church were out to get him. His friend said, "Oh you're just being paranoid." To which the pastor replied, "Yes, I am being paranoid and with good reason." The point being not many people are really suited to be a pastor's confidant. For that reason he avoids getting too close to members of the church and denominational leaders. Instead he generally relies on friends he made in college and seminary and they number in most cases fewer than five people. Among those five only one will be his closest confidant with whom he shares his deepest burdens, hurts and concerns.

My father was one of those kind of people whom his pastor could us as a confidant. Dad had many qualities that I admire, he was loyal, he was generous, he was kind and he could keep a confidence. I knew early on he had served as a confidant to my own pastor growing up because I was around when some of those conversations took place.  What I didn't know until after his death when an older preacher friend told me shortly after my dad died, "I'm going to miss your Dad, you know he was more than a friend to me, he was the one person in my life other than my wife that I could tell anything, anything at all, and know it was safe." He went on to tell me that he and two other local pastors used my Dad as a "safe" place to unload a heavy hurting heart without fear of it ever being repeated. He was right, telling my Dad something was like placing into a galactic black hole.

Unfortunately, people like my Dad are few and far between. In most cases even people with the best of intentions will let something slip especially around folks who are skilled at ferreting out information they don't need to know. Another unfortunate thing is that few pastors have a friend like my Dad who could listen without judging or offering unsolicited advice.

However, just because you can't be your pastor's confidant does not mean you can't support him. You can, as the above poster suggests, pray for him. Even if you don't think he's the best pastor or even a good one you can still pray for him. I remember hearing Ed Young the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Houston say that he had a business man come by his office to let him know that he was going to join his church. Ed said that he knew the man to be a Deacon and leader in the First Baptist Church and so he asked him, "Why do you want to join our church?" The man went on to list a number of things he was unhappy with in his church: The preacher was not preparing as well as he used to do; they music was not to his liking . . . too modern; the deacons were always being disagreeable etc.

Ed said after listening to him for a while he said to him, "We'd love to have you as a part of our church but before you join our church I want you to do something."  He went on, "I want you to go back to your church and I want you, over the next several months, to pray for your pastor that he'll preach better sermons, and that the minister of music will do a better job with music selection and that the deacons will become unified and if after a few months you still want to join our church just give me a call and come on over." Well, long story short the man agreed and did as Ed suggested. After a few months Ed said he received a cell from the man saying he had done as Ed suggested and had decided to stay where he was. Ed asked him, "What changed your mind?" The man replied, nothing short of a miracle, Dr. Bisagno is preaching terrific sermons, the music is wonderful and the deacon's meetings are a real joy to attend.

The moral of that story is if your pastor is your best friend the best thing you can do is pray for him. If you pastor is your least liked acquaintance pray for him. It is a truism in Christian circles to say that "Prayer changes things."  When you pray for your pastor you are helping make him a better pastor. When you pray for your pastor you will find your attitude toward him changes and you become a better person. Remember, one man cannot be all things to all people but he can excel in some things and be, as a preacher friend of mine says. "be adequate" in the others.

Pastor's need an adequate salary and family time but what they need more than anything else they need church members praying for them. I assure you if they are like my mentor and like myself they are praying for you. We used to sing a little course that said,

 

Keep me true. Lord Jesus, keep me true
Keep me true. Lord Jesus, keep me true
There's a race that I must run
There are victories to be won
Give me power, every hour, to be true

Remember, You Hold the Keys