The Least of These 

I recently visited a church in my neighborhood and was pleased to find Christ and His gospel being proclaimed. There were a variety of excellent classes for adults and children from 9 to 10 as well as throughout the week. From 10 to 11 adults and children joined together for praise and worship and prayer. I was especially touched that they called all the children forward for a blessing and the congregation came to greet and bless each child.  They do this every week, praise God!  Those children know they are an important and vital part of that fellowship. What a gift to each of them. The eleven o'clock hour brought the spoken Word, heartfelt, sincere and scripture based teaching on how to be good parents and supporters of the parents and children in our lives and communities. I was blessed.

However, one of the prayers offered stunned me then and I have not been able to quit thinking about it even now.  It was a passionate prayer pleading with God to help Israel annihilate and crush its enemies quickly and surely. I have heard that sentiment expressed in conversations but to hear it in the context of prayer sent a shiver down my spine. My body tensed as I tried to understand what I was hearing.  I could only suppose that this good person was blinded to the teaching of Jesus that proclaims whatever we do to the least of these we also do to God...be that good or evil.  In times of war it is the political agenda to dehumanize the enemy and to propagate fear so as to justify the course of the war.  There are times, of course, when acts of true evil must be stopped by means of force....that has always been true.  The challenge before us is to act nobly and justly so that every person can live in truth and freedom, and to not lose sight that the enemy is still a child of God.  To know that each of us is capable of great good and great evil is a humbling realization.  Whatever injustices and hurts that occur and turn people toward a cycle of hate and evil can be healed only through the acknowledgment that we are all brothers and sisters in the family of God and we can all receive God's infinite love and reconciliation when we choose. 

Jesus mingled with the marginalized and set the example that all people are loved by God and deemed worthy to be called His children.  When people lose sight of this basic truth of God, atrocities follow.  We only have to examine our history of the Nazi holocaust or more recently the Rwandan genocide to find examples of what can happen when biases, prejudice or national pride override the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is true that God intervened in history and chose the Israelites to establish monotheism and used the Israelite prophets to reveal His ways to the people. But then, Jesus came straight from God into our world to proclaim that all are chosen and valued by God.  Jesus taught us about Abba Father, the most accurate translation being, Daddy....a personal, loving, forgiving, compassionate, and merciful God.

A God who wants a personal relationship with each of us so that we rely on Him to lead us in paths that are just and true.

Jesus' ministry reveals a God who interacts with lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, women, children and even Samaritans!  He came for all of us! 

Yes, Israel and the entire Middle East are an integral part of our world, past, present and future.  What happens there directly affects us here in many more ways than just the price of gasoline.  We can say the same for every part and parcel of the earth for we are all God's children and we all live in the same global community.

I received an e-mail titled "In the name of Islam" which showed a 5 year old boy who had stolen bread from a marketplace somewhere in the Middle East.  It showed him getting his arm crushed to mark him as a thief for the rest of his life.  Then at the bottom of the e-mail it said, "And they say theirs is a religion of peace and love?" I don't know which upset me more, the image of this little boy stretched out and having his arm crushed or the hatred being perpetuated toward the entire Islam population by the passing of this e-mail. 

Every major religion has a form of the Golden Rule to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. God is in Islam and other major religions of the world...but they do not yet have the blessing of knowing about the Christ that we do. That is not something to gloat over, it is something to pray over. Do I abhor what happened to the small boy? Yes! Do I think they were wrong? Yes!  Do I understand they are fulfilling the letter of the law of their culture and religion as best they understand? Yes.  And that is where we Christians are supposed to enter the picture!  Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets and usher in a new understanding!  This is our message! 

We are not supposed to shout that they are all wrong and we are all right, that they are all evil and we are all good...such is not the case.  We must come in humility as Jesus did and exemplify God's type of justice and mercy and peace and love.  We must make sure our motives for force are honest and true and noble because if they are not, their children with memories of bombs and death and destruction will be easy targets for the radical extremists and their jihads in the name of the very same God we both claim to represent.

When we pass e-mails or have conversations or prayers that do anything other than proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and the love and hope of the gospel for all, then we crucify Christ and his message as surely as the people who nailed Him to the cross.

When we promote divisions and judgment rather than foster understanding and a desire to bring our brothers and sisters of the world into a new understanding, a new dimension of God's love and concern for all His children then we perpetuate the cycle of hate rather than the reconciliation of all people into the family of God.

When I see the images of violence and hate and hear the casualties of war, I can only fall to my knees in all humility and pray the Jesus Prayer for us all, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on me, a sinner." 

Beckie Ballard