Feeding The Poor Feeding Us

This story starts a few stories back, so give me a moment to get there.

The power of love is slowly taking over Abilene, which means that Jesus sightings are increasing. His love is an all consuming fire. What water can quench it? Everything I have ever looked for is satisfied within this man's embrace. It's crazy but true. Even fear is cast to the side in the presence of his love. The current sermon series at church is called Love War. The pastor started off by unveiling a painting of pretty dramatic proportions. One of the church members painted him a modern day, living, breathing image of what Jesus means by "love your enemies." The picture was Jesus kneeling before Osama Bin Laden, washing his feet in front of a restored Twin Towers. His point was this: Osama Bin Laden is one love encounter away from being the next Paul the Apostle. Can you reach the Muslim extremist? I might not be able to, but Osama surely could, and the fact is Osama might - if one follower of the way was willing to lay down their life for him. So why Love War? Because love is its own supernatural power. When human instinct says fight or flight, love says "Here's the other cheek, I forgive you." Supernatural love gets nailed to the cross and says : "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." Supernatural love lets the enemy be one of his twelve closest friends.

Many can overcome the fear of death knowing it is unavoidable, but only love can defeat death, only love removes the fear of living. Not any love - the love that Christ shows us, gives us and wraps us in. This is the kind of love that enables a heart to care for the poor. The only currency that enables a transaction between The Have and Have Nots is love, because its the only thing that a rich man will receive in return.

Having said that, all my favorite praise songs right now have to do with love...
try this one:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I'm caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won't turn back
I know you are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

(Chorus:)
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f85o-whqDY

After learning this song in particular my life changed pretty drastically. I started singing it all the time. It's a good song musically but it's also so rich in the spirit. It's freedom for my bones, water for my weary soul. You can disagree if you want but I wouldn't recommend it. One day I was walking home with this song stuck in my head, and I was really grabbing hold of the line "Your perfect love is casting out fear." This has got to be the reason Peter determined he could walk on water, even if for a short time. If I saw my savior in the flesh, no obstacle would keep me from him; his love would simply compel me. Its in coming to this kind of love that I've started to understand the early martyrs. Did you know they really wanted to die? It was an honor to be slaughtered for the sake of Christ, and for a moment, on that Friday afternoon, I felt the same way. My path changed its course. Suddenly I found myself walking towards the most dangerous street in our neighborhood. Not just that, but my feet were making their way towards the part of the street that our friend Zelma told us to never go to. Why? I'm not sure, I just felt that love wanted to make an appearance in the heart of a dark and forgotten place.

I stood there for a moment and stretched out my arms, releasing all the love in my body and closing my eyes. My heart beckoned me to approach one of the houses surrounding me. When I opened my eyes I was surprised by what I saw. There was a sign on one of the old beat up houses. It read something like: "Jesus is Lord of the Stevenson neighborhood." Naturally, I walked up to this house and knocked on the door.

"Come in." came a deep and weathered voice. The old screen door with no handle squeaked open. I squinted my eyes and looked in. It wasn't really a house. The building was just one small room. There was a high counter in front of me with a kitchen behind it. A middle-aged African American man wiped the sweat from his eyes as I took a step through the door. The expression on his face said something like: "What on earth is a white boy doing here?" I introduced myself and explained that my roommates and I had recently moved in on Cockerell Dr.

"The name's Riley. I'm the pastor of the mission church here" he said. My Spirit settled as I realized that my life was not going to meet with Christ's as soon as I hoped for. Riley was busy cleaning up a bunch of plates and running them through the sink. It turns out I showed up right at the end of the Thursday lunch program. I think it took a moment for Riley to really believe I was there, and maybe even the rest of the day after our meeting to believe that we really moved into the hood, but, in any case, I invited him over for dinner some time. It was good getting to know Riley that night he came over. He's T Dog's uncle, one of our high school friends that hangs out with John. It was good to hear his take on the area.

After dinner we offered our service to Pastor Riley in any way we could help. Almost instantly he was in, and in moments we were planning what we could bring for the next Thursday lunch program. As Riley left, a communal sigh of relief went up from our souls. We had prayed for more opportunities to serve our hood, and feeding the needy is the thing we enjoy the most. We love to cook in our house, especially together. The interesting thing about our house is that it either has a lot of food in it, or really none at all. We seem to feed a lot of people and eat a lot of left overs. Anyways, planning for our meal took an interesting turn on Tuesday. During a Bible study on the parable of the talents, Wes and I were surprised by a knock on the front door. It was surprising because people usually use the back door. There was a woman holding a couple plastic bags standing at our door. She heard from some one at church what we were doing in our house and the ministry it was bringing, and she wanted to come by and bring some things. She brought bed spreads, cups, plates, canned food, and a few gallons of milk. She stayed just long enough for us to get her name. Angel. Oh, by the way, she has four kids lives with some family and is on WIC, which is a kind of welfare program. She works two jobs, and she even offered to come over and clean our house for us once a week. Right when we get to a place to feel good about the Lord's work in our lives, something comes along to trump out our pride and teach us deeper humility.

Lunch with Riley led me to meet a bunch of the neighbors, and I even got to step foot into the house of all bad houses in the hood. That day is a story all of its own. I'm sure in the future we'll have to back track and weave some of that stuff into a post, but at the end of the day, my mind kept coming back to this: Feeding the Poor Feeding Us?

This kingdom is so upside down.

I love it.

"Our lion is a lamb that did more with love than war ever will." - Prayer tent