I Have 69 Slaves Working for Me!

Last Sunday at our church our featured speaker was Sean Gladding - church planter, leader, and author, currently living in Lexington, KY.  He's the author of a book entitled TEN: Word of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided, and Worn-Out Culture.  (We've been in a sermon series based on his book.)  Sean and his book have helped us see the Ten Commandments not just as legalistic rules in a land where many people think they should stay posted on courthouse walls, but few can remember and recite all ten.  Rather, Sean, our lead pastor Aaron Brown, and other pastors on our staff have helped us see these words from God as life practices, designed to help us be a people free from that which would bind us.  Then, as free people, like the Hebrews who first received them, we can be a people who demonstrate the light of a living God in a world mired in darkness.

Seeing the Ten Commandments this way is convicting and transforming.  For example, consider this commandment:  "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."  (Exodus 20:7, New International Version.)   As a kid I was taught that this means I should not say the name "God" in any other way than speaking to God or about God.  That's certainly part of it, but a small part.  Sean helped us see that, as a life practice for a people set apart for a particular purpose and mission, this is much bigger.  In the Hebrew worldview, the name of God encompassed God's identity, nature, heart, passion, and purpose.  So, as Sean observed, "taking the LORD's name in vain" isn't just asking God by name, aloud, to damn something or someone.  Sean said, "When we fail to care about what God cares about, we take God's name in vain."

As an example, he steered us to www.slaveryfootprint.org.  The words of this website assert that there are 27M slaves in this world, many if not most of whom are shackled in supply chains that ultimately benefit North American consumers.  I challenge everyone to go to the website and take the survey.  According to it, I have 69 slaves working so that I, personally, can maintain my lifestyle!  Is the survey stylized to make a point?  Probably.  Is it entirely scientific?  Likely not.  Is it pointing to the fact that product and service production outsourced to forced labor, child labor, or below subsistence labor has created many of the goods in my life.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, yes!  Just like I have a carbon footprint on this planet, I have a slavery footprint.  And this contributes to the bondage of people loved by a God who took human form for them and died for them.  And THAT is a far worse use of God's name in vain than shouting out, "G...D...it!" when the hammer hits my thumb!

That's the level at which we need to allow the Ten Commandments to speak to us, convict us, and change us, way before we argue about whether or not our founding fathers believed and followed them and whether or not they should be posted on courthouse walls.  I can't speak for anyone else or make demands on anyone else.  All I can do us humble myself, seek the mercy of a forgiving God, and get about the business of reducing my slavery footprint, regardless of how it affects my convenience or my purchases and finances.   Ask me about it; hold me accountable to it.

Just some food for thought.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

I May Be the Reason Christianity's Not Growing in North America

Many who study our movement offer both theories and data which help explain why Christianity struggles in North America, while it grows and thrives in many places on the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America.  While exercise-walking and listening to some music of our faith yesterday morning, I experienced some conviction about this.  The Holy Spirit invited me to take a look at my life as a Jesus-follower.  Specifically, I thought about how much time I have spent defending causes, taking positions on push-button issues, arguing for this position or that position, and pointing out the flaws in someone else' position.  I felt compelled to compare this with the amount of time I have taken to choose to love someone first, to let God's grace come first, and to let my first concern be introducing someone to the living, saving presence of Jesus.  The rest of the walk was humbling.  I'm afraid there may be other church folks in North America like me; more issue-driven than mission-driven.

Jesus-followers of all stripes fill up social media with saber-rattling over the placement of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, same-gender marriage, whether the Confederate battle flag is heritage or racism, and who knows what else.  I'm not saying it's not important to know where we've been called to stand and to stand there faithfully.  But what if all the energy we've spent on these and other battlefields had been put into loving the least and the last, and humbly evangelizing all the lost?

I don't know the answer.  All I know is the lyrics of the song that convicted me yesterday morning:

"Jesus, Friend of Sinners"  (Casting Crowns)

Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name, but the sword was never ours to swing.
Jesus, friend of sinners, the truth's become so hard to see.
The world is on their way to you, but they're tripping over me;
Always looking around but never looking up, I'm so double-minded,
A plank-eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided.

(Chorus)  Oh, Jesus, friend of sinners,
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointed fingers.
Let our hearts be led by mercy,
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors.
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our heart for what breaks yours.

Jesus, friend of sinners, the who's writing in the sand
Made the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands.
Help us to remember we are all the least of these.
Let the memory of your mercy bring your people to their knees.
Nobody knows what we're for only what we're against when we judge the wounded.
What if we put down our signs, crossed over the lines and loved like you did...

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast,
For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that you came.
Lord, I was that lost cause and I was the outcast,
But you died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at your feet....

Again, we are a unique people; not better than the world, but not defined by the values and structures of the world.  Yes, there are stands that will be taken.   But Jesus didn't suffer and die on the cross to promote causes.  He did so to love, embrace, heal, and transform human beings - all human beings.  The Body of Christ's mission of loving like Jesus did and making disciples is greater than any one issue at a specific point in history.  At our church, our lead pastor, Aaron Brown, talks about us being a mission-driven church, not an issue-driven church.  That's the kind of movement of which I want to be a part.  And I think the Holy Spirit reminded me of that yesterday morning.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.  (Be careful - lots of rain this week, and the rivers are up!)