New Year: Goodbye 2008, welcome 2009

This year I’m spending New Year’s in New York City. With all of my adventures in life, spending New Year’s Eve in New York City is not one that I have yet experienced. So I’m excited. But I’m always more excited to see people that I care about. After all, being in a really cool place alone just isn’t the same as being with people that you care about. I’m currently in the airport waiting for my former roommate to arrive. We’re staying with a college friend who I haven’t seen in some time. I’ll also get to catch up with two good friends from when I lived in Milan, one from South Africa and one from Greece. So really the best part of the trip is the people.

Airplane rides for me still do a really wonderful thing in that they allow you uninterrupted time alone (unless you are sitting next to chatty Cathy). So I always have time to read, write, pray, journal, or sometimes work. There are no emails coming in, no one pulling you into a meeting, no phones to ring or texts to read, just time to do whatever you need to. It’s wonderful.

This trip I took with me my new copy of Relevant magazine that just arrived yesterday. Relevant is the only magazine that I currently receive; at least the only one that I receive that I pay for. I subscribe to this magazine because it makes me think, at it lines up with my faith and values in life. I always learn about new things and get educated on the issues I care about. I don’t always agree with everything it says, but I think it’s healthy to be challenged in ideas.

I read the following on the plane today that had me relating and pondering at the same time. The article was entitled The Right View of the Bible by Scot McKnight. Here’s what it had to say:

A student walks from the lunchroom to my office, sits down to chat, looks at me and asks this:

“Why does my pastor ask me all the time if I still believe in the inerrancy of the Bible?” Before I had collected my thoughts enough to being answering such a question he interrupted me with this: “You know, Scot, I don’t really give a damn what my pastor’s view of the Bible is because he doesn’t give one frickin’ dime to the poor and he’s never met a homeless person in his life and he didn’t even know about Darfur when I mentioned it to him at Christmas. At Christmas, Scot. Christmas! And he doesn’t even know about Darfur!” He was obviously setting me up because he asked me this next: “My view of the Bible is this: I read it often – not everyday – and I do what I think God tells me to do. What good is inerrancy, if you don’t do what God says?” Then a kick-you-in-the-face questions: “if I do what God says, doesn’t that show that my view of the Bible is the right one?”

My student might as well have said-to swipe and adapt words from the letter of James-“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if people claim to have the right view of the Bible but don’t live it out?” (James 2:14)

What St. Francis of Assisi comprehended what Jesus had called His disciples to be and to do, he went for it. He gave up a life of luxury and sensual pleasures to follow Jesus as radically as he possibly could. The brown habit worn to this day by Franciscans embodies the vision of Francis. He reconstructed shabby old churches, he tended to the poor and the lame and the leprous and he established a concern for God’s creation beyond what most had ever seen. Francis set off a revolution. All of this because his view of the Bible was one that went beyond having the right view to having a life that matched it……

I know many Christians who believe the right view of the Bible but don’t seem to live it out. In a day of dramatic poverty, how can one believe the right things about the Bible and not do something for the poor? Too many Christians are satisfied with believing the right things (orthodoxy) and not concerned enough with doing the right things (orthopraxy). Orthodoxy that does not lead to orthropraxy is dead.

This article reminded me of growing up in the church. I grew up in a few different churches right here in Orange County where Giving Children Hope is located. Hardly ever was the poor the central of any sermon and if they were talked about it was in distant far off places and they didn’t push us to do anything. At least that was my experience. I was an adult when I learned that in Orange County there are many homeless families called “motel families” and that OC has the highest rate of homelessness behind Detroit. Really?

I attended Santa Barbara churches when the Rwandan genocide happened but not once did I hear of it. Brothers and sisters being massacred and I never even knew. The orphans and widows, they were from the Bible times, we didn’t care for the orphans around the world and the American foster care system was largely ignored by the church.

So when I read this article I related. The people in the communities I grew up in knew the Bible better than me, and for that I envied them. But I wasn’t sure it ever compelled them to do anything. And how could it when you had a Bible study or accountability group every night of the week?

I think the church has come a long way since I grew up. And I think the Orange County churches have particularly come far. An area that was absent in the social justice movement I think has now taken the lead. Mega churches like Saddleback Church hold conferences on HIV/AIDS and Rock Harbor raises money each summer for local and international charities making a difference. They are encouraging the church to be out in the community and connect with the pain and heartache. Churches like this are growing. People are longing to see the church go back to its roots and care for the poor.

So as we approach the New Year of 2009, if you are a Bible reading person, I encourage you to grapple with the scripture. What does it mean for YOU to serve the poor? Visit those in prison? Care for the orphan? The widow? The sick? What does it REALLY mean and what does it mean in YOUR life? Just think of all of the ways that God has been waiting to use YOU.