This week, I preached on the subject of the adulterous woman at our Woodland Hills campus. John Ortberg, really opened my eyes which helped me see her in a different way.
Often times we see someone like an adulterer, murderer, gang member, alcoholic, drug addict, convict and the list goes on and on, but basically the outcasts of our society and we take them at face value. What I mean is that we think that is just who they are. That they are just wicked and disgusting people. We normally don't stop to think that they may have a story of how they became those kinds of people. I don't think any little kid sets out to be an adulterer or thief or alcoholic or etc. I think we all have similar dreams to be amazing people. But somewhere on this road we call life, we hit some potholes. And sometimes those but potholes are small and we get over them. But sometimes those potholes are big. And sometimes they are so big that we get stuck in them and we can't get out. I believe that all of our outcasts hit some big potholes in their lives. I have spoke to many people and one thing everybody has in common is that we all have a story of how we got to where we are.
Some people's stories are worst than others but we all have stories. I find another thing that all human beings have in common is that we all have wounds. We all have been hurt. We all have hit some potholes on our journey. Our job as those who have been helped out of the potholes, those of us who are not an outcast....our job is to listen to people's stories. This is not an easy thing to do. Listening means getting involved. Listening means taking time out of our lives. Its much easier to dismiss the homeless guy on the corner as an alcoholic than to sit down next to him and listen to his story. It's much easier to dismiss the single mother who is pregnant with another child than it is to listen to how she got to that point.
But for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, we have to remember that Jesus always had time for people's stories. He never took people at face value, He never judged people by their condition but looked at their stories. And in their stories he found their wounds and He met them right there. Just like He did with us. We all have had broken dreams and shattered hopes. We have all made wrong choices and we all came to Jesus broken and shamed, just like the adulterous woman. But Jesus saw past all that. He saw past our current condition.
Our job as Christians is to do the same. To love people like Jesus loved people. To hear people and listen to their stories just like Jesus did.
To not take people at face value. We are called to be His hands and feet and His ears. If we don't listen to the outcasts...who will? If we don't have compassion on them...who will? If we don't love them...who will? If you spend any time in the Gospels, you will see that Jesus has a special place for the outcasts. For the hurting. For the love-less. Bono of the band U2 puts it this way "God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."
Our job is to validate people as lovable human beings, to listen to their stories and when we listen to their stories we will find a wound.....every body's got one....and then to take God to their wounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment