Last week, Bill Webb, an editor colleague from Missouri, and I sat with an interpreter and listened to heart-breaking accounts from Syrian refugees of life and death. And hopelessness. (See “Dispiriting Stories” on p. 15.)
In the form of Syrian refugees, the Christian church has one of the greatest opportunities ever afforded to demonstrate Christ’s love. About 125,000 refugees live in camps inside the Jordanian border. Almost 400,000 others are attempting to live on Jordan’s economy and constitute the “poorest of the poor.” Others have settled in Lebanon. We can show a Muslim majority that Christians will not turn a deaf ear to the cries of the helpless and hopeless. We can show that the barriers of race, language, nationality, economic status, education and even religion will not keep us from loving them and helping them in the name of Jesus.
Jim White
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But there is another barrier I’m not sure we can cross. The hardest lesson in life is, “It’s not about me!” The lesson is made more difficult because our egos keep telling us it should be! Each of us tends to see ourselves as the center of our own universe. It is only natural, I suppose, that in our own minds, everything in our experience should revolve around us. But when it does, we forget about “them.”
In almost every church, some members regularly expect others to give them what they want. After all, people don’t cease to have human natures just because they accept Christ and follow him in baptism! But, when those “Me” members rise to positions of leadership, real conflict is just waiting in the wings for an opportunity to rush in and take center stage. And mission opportunities crumble.
The transformation implied in the term “conversion” is hardly ever instantaneous. While admitting our own sinfulness, and accepting the salvation Jesus offers may be a singular event, conversion is a process. The spiritually mature know we are not the center of things and what we want may not be significant in the grand scheme of things.
When it’s all about us, we think that anything making us uncomfortable or causing us pain or demanding sacrifices should cease. What pleases us should persist; what threatens us should dissolve. In short, we should get what we want when we want it.
But this primitive and childish way of seeing the world causes problems in the church and keeps us from having influence and creating impact in the world.
If we are reared in a healthy environment, we begin to learn early in life that we are only one of many others and we don’t always get what we want. As we mature, hopefully, we will also learn that the needs of others may require limiting my own consumption so I will have abundance enough to share.
Still, persisting within our human natures, self-centeredness rises even within Christians and shouts its demands to be crowned monarch of the universe, and from time to time has to be beaten into submission once again.
For the Christ-follower, “me-ness” stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ teaching and his way of living. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many," he said (Mk. 10:42-45). He continued to speak in terms of his purpose. These samples reveal the common theme: “I came that they might have life and that abundantly,” (John 10:20); “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me,” (John 6:38); “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost,” (Lk. 19:10). Then, to prove that his words were not just theory, he laid his life aside and died for the sins of the world.
He clearly outlined his expectations for his followers in Matthew 25:35-36: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”'
Whether we live in the “me-ness” of self absorption or the “otherness” of self-sacrifice depends largely on how much we believe Jesus. In fact, this ability to set ourselves aside and see the needs of others and the needs of Christ’s kingdom is what Jesus expects of his followers.
In response to a question from the disciples about how to increase their faith, Jesus said a servant does not expect to do his work and then have the master wait on him. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”
For the Christian, setting “me” aside in favor of a transformed attitude is simply expected. Doing what Jesus told us to do is simply our duty. In Jordan last week I was introduced to an Arabic phrase, “La shukran alla wajib.” It means, “Don’t thank me, it is my duty.”
The problem is, we Christians have often assumed the primitive notions of childhood are the norm, and have not expected more of ourselves or of others. On those occasions when we have risen to a higher level of being and magnanimously set aside our own wants to assist the less fortunate, or build up the church of Christ, or give our tithes, or even give our lives that others might live, we have thought we exceeded expectations. Not so, says the Lord. It is expected that the servant should understand that he serves the master, not himself. It is his duty.
If we could set self aside and let Jesus’ words and actions guide us, what kind of difference could we make? What if we listened intently to why Jesus came and took seriously his blockbuster revelation: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (Jn. 20:21)? Could love do what bombs cannot? How much do we believe Jesus?
You may donate to help meet the needs of Syrian refugees by giving online through either the International Mission Board, (https://gobgr.org/projects/project_detail/ syria-crisis) or the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (http:// cbfportal.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/cbf-makes-appeal for-disaster-relief-funds-to-meet-immediate-needs-of-syrian-refugees/).
Jim White ([email protected]) is executive editor of the Religious Herald.