I lived in Chicago for a few years on the north side at Foster and Kedzie. For those of you who are familiar with Chicago you will know where I’m talking about. This is the dividing line between the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and the multinational neighborhood I lived in. The few blocks around me on the south side of Foster contained 23 different nationalities. The city itself is made up of different district or "towns." Like German Town, Greek Town, and China Town and the whole city is represented by these nationalities. I fell in love with the city the very first time I drove into town. I felt like I was home. That first year the taillight covers for my car were stolen 3 times. Someone didn’t negotiate a turn and broadsided the car. Yet, I loved the town and still do.
One afternoon I was driving to a location in Chicago that was unfamiliar to me. Before I knew it I was smack in the middle of Cabrini Green. All Chicagoan’s now suck in a deep breath. You see, this part of the city is the epitome of sham and drudgery. The poverty level is so overwhelming that programs don’t work there. There are on average 1 murder a month and many more shootings and stabbings. Alcoholism and drug addiction are paired with prostitution and other crimes. Back to my story. It was just beginning to get a little dark as the sun was setting. I was lost in Cabrini Green. How much worse could it get? I locked the doors and rolled up the window despite the August heat and my air conditioning on the fritz. No map! Did I mention I didn’t have a map! As I began a slow stress climb there in my car I spotted a lady across the street. She was standing at a bus stop waiting for the bus. I pulled over beside her and rolled down the window. She looked in, saw this Caucasian man and said, "You are definitely in the wrong neighborhood!" "Let me tell you how to get out of here." She did just that and I got out of there.
Once safely on the freeway and on my way home I reflected on the event. All I could think about was this elderly lady who wasn’t afraid, knew what was going on around her and was concerned for me and my safety! The sham and drudgery of the area didn’t match the beauty this woman portrayed to me that day. It’s a matter of perspective. I guess beauty lies in the beholder. I sure thought what she had done was beautiful. For the two years that I lived there the city continued to grow on me. Everywhere I went people were good to me. And I returned to their "towns" from time to time just to be a part of them and their community. I definitely came away much richer for my time spent there.
That first fall and winter I discovered another side of the city. I volunteered at the local homeless shelter. Understand that I was raised in North Dakota and knew what cold was. The city had a rule that no shelter could be opened until the temperature was 15 degrees. What did they do until then? They slept where they could find shelter and possibly heat. I walked past them where exhaust grates funneled heat from underneath the city. They were in the subway just before the turnstile huddled together or on or around their possessions; what there were. This was hard for me to find beauty in. Yet, again beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. When the shelter opened we had hot coffee, sandwiches and fruit for them. They filed in until the shelter was full. Those who came after were turned away…city rules. However, that night I discovered a beauty that was beyond common. The homeless were kind to one another. They knew each other and took the time to "catch up" before settling down for the night. Their community as mobile as I have ever seen was as beautiful as those of the "towns."
Within this beauty the element of peace emanated to those who would see. People go along every day without seeing. They see their way to work and home but never see the drunk asleep in the doorway. People go along in life without hearing those sounds of peace. I’m not naive enough to say all of the negative is beautiful. That would foolish on my part. I knew that there was the other side. The "dark" side of their world. The side that the elderly woman in Cabrini Green was living amongst and protected me from. The dark side of the homeless world went away for 10 hours and they had peace. Life was simple to them. I imagine there are many who had broken dreams, lived a life of "less than." The sham and drudgery were labels put on their communities to explain why they were the way they were. Much like a warning to not go there unless you get lost.
I spent my first summer in Chicago doing an intern pastoral minister position with Northwest Hospital. On an average Friday or Saturday or even Sunday evening it wasn’t unusual to find gurneys stacked 15 and 20 in the hallway waiting to be triaged. The 20 bays were full and no room anywhere. When it became really bad the ambulances were diverted to another hospital. If you have never worked with the doctors, nurses and other personnel in this kind of setting you do not know what a community like this accomplishes. Much like Polish Town with its block parties in the summer there is a community that trusts, knows, and encourages each other. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder in a busy emergency room. They have jobs that border on the most horrendous I know. While a police officer I frequented emergency rooms so I knew somewhat the environment and the caliber of people who worked there. I was accepted for two reasons. First I had history (police officer and time spent in ER’s) and secondly I had what they desperately needed. I could listen to the complaints, give reassurances, and talk down potential hot spots and whatever else they needed from me. The team was incredible. When they went home they entered a strange world as the one they were leaving was the community where they depended on each other for their very lives. The ER community was full of sham and drudgery and yet was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been a part of.
There are places all over the world where we can find sham and drudgery as well as broken dreams. In those very same places beauty can be found. There is something about God’s creation that draws us to the beauty. For many the sham and drudgery are too much to look at that the time is never spent there much less looking for the beauty. This can go for our lives or lives of someone whom we know. Should you know someone who is hard on themselves at what it seems a daily activity; there has been little to no focus on the beauty of God’s creation. Looking inside of yourself with help from the Holy Spirit is always a positive event. Doing what the Lord wants as a result of that peek into ourselves is quite another thing. We’re happy to know positive things about us and yet are not very happy when the Lord has a desire to take the sham, drudgery and broken dreams from us. They are just in the way but we hold onto them as if our lives depended upon them. Here is a clue so listen up. OUR lives do depend upon the sham and drudgery we so dearly don’t want to let go of. HIS life lived in and through us cannot be lived until we surrender our lives to him. When we do let go, we are given a view of Jesus and our world through his eyes and it is beautiful!
This is no easy task and yet it’s the simplest task that we will encounter. Due to sin and the influences of the world we are trained to distrust and to avoid anything that upsets the status quo. The excuses and barriers to God having his way in our life are both many and complex. The early church seemed to grasp this as they began to form. The Bible gives us a wonderful view of community. In Acts we are told that the Christians shared all things in common. Acts also says that the community took care of itself and its family. Like so many differences, the Christians had a different idea of belonging to the Lord. For beginners, the "all things in common" part included possessions. Their (and our) possessions belonged to God and there was no "want". People were saved daily. Miracles happened frequently. Persecution abounded. Wait, I didn’t sign up for that! I like the miracles part but the rest is a fuzzy zone for me. I think I’ll begin another church that holds my point of view. So, here we are with (for example) one major denomination having 201 different kinds of church groups because there is not one of them having all things in common.
As a young non-believer I remember that our town of 300 people had 7 churches. At the time and even now I think that 7 churches for a town of 300 was overkill. Especially since it appeared that at least half of the population didn’t attend or belong to any of the churches. Who would voluntarily be a part of a group whose objective was to be right and prove others wrong? No sense of community there. There were Christians in these churches and in the classes I attended. Yet, there was nothing to attract me to want to belong with them. What was missing? There had to be something that was missing. The focus on how the other church was wrong eliminated the beauty of the community that could have been. In its place was sham, drudgery and broken dreams. Overseas in Germany with the US Army I came to know Jesus. I returned home on leave and among other things asked the "believers" to talk with my family about Jesus as my family wasn’t listening to me. They said they couldn’t do that. Incredible! So, I prayed for them and my family. It’s no wonder that the adhesive that kept the early church together and viable was missing in my home town. And so it is across the nation today. Finding a church where that is not so is a difficult task but not an impossible one. That’s because it begins with you. What are you doing to be called of God to community?
The largest part of our task for God is to be peacemakers. Peacemakers includes lots of different jobs or callings. For instance, there is need for nurses, doctors, construction workers, preachers and many more callings. Oh, that’s right, I forgot to tell you that the "community" you are called to may not be one of the 7 churches in my small town (population 92 now). The "church" is comprised of all believers. Not only do each of us have a calling, we also have a community where that calling is to be used. God knows your gifts and the need of each community. If we answer the call, we will be paired with the community and God will be able to bless and be blessed. It’s amazing how this works. Satan hates it and tries every way he can to derail the Christian train. He begins with individuals and moves to the community once he has a foothold. Are you going to be the one who is the foothold for Satan? That may seem to be an unfair question. It is not. If we are not part of the solution, we are a part of the problem. Don’t deny what is true even if you don’t like it. Being able to admit your failings is the first step in reconciliation with God. Are you reconciled?
How we find the beautiful world God has for us is less important than what we do with that beautiful world. Many of us as parents have wiggled loose that first tooth and joined the joy expressed by our sons and daughters. There were the pictures of a smiling face with an empty space where the tooth had been. About the same time the other front tooth came out. If this was around Christmas you probably sang the song: "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth". Now photos are taken on your camera and sent to social media for everyone to like and comment on. So enthralled are we with this rite of passage that we keep the tooth forever. At least it seems that way. Now that the celebrating has made them the focus of attention, praise and in some circles, gifts; the stage is set for the next tooth to be removed and the joy repeated. Fast forward to 55 years old and the dentist says you’ll have to have your front tooth or teeth removed. What? No celebration? No picture taken and sent to social media? No congratulatory phone call or video call from relatives? The circumstances have changed due to age mostly. The implant and tooth replacement will cost in the thousands. So much for vacation this year! In both scenarios the action is the same but the response is different. This is an important distinction.
Where once there was joy, attention and celebration there now is expense, pain, upset schedules and insurance companies to deal with. So, the results have changed as well. There is a cost to growing up. Events that were once fun and celebratory are now obligatory and leave a bad taste in our mouth (no pun intended). When you learned about Jesus in Sunday school when you were but a child, the learning was fun and there were treats. The treats were often the focus of some children…okay, all children. Life isn’t that way we find out as we grow older. Leaving the things and ways of childhood is difficult and some men and women have yet to leave their childhood. When we place a Christian perspective on this, the difference that is felt by the "grown-ups" in Christ is responsibility for what we learn. Again, some adults never make the transition in their Christian life from childhood to adulthood. The responsibility of the life in Christ is daunting to some and scary for others. The joy of childhood Sunday school is gone for the more mature things as we grow older. The tooth that was a joy to lose one day is now the adult problem that requires attention to the problem.
God poses this problem in all of our lives and asks (he doesn’t tell) us to become Jesus to the world. Not just our world but also the whole world. He says that he will never leave nor forsake us. He says that he will provide insight and the words to speak when we listen and talk. He says that he will take care of ALL of our needs even before that need becomes evident in our lives. He says that our retirement comes at death and he has been preparing a place for each of us to live with him in glory. So, what’s the catch? The "catch" begins with the dilemma of freedom of choice. God also gives us freedom of choice. In fact most people look at choice as a "right" rather than a "gift" given to them. The very sense of entitlement keeps them from being effective in most if not all areas of their lives.
I once was gathered with a few believers from a small town in the Midwest. We were talking about how the summer had gone. I was home from overseas and was eager to share what God was doing in my life and the ministry I was part of. One of the people in the group said that his church had held a week of revival meetings. When I asked him how many people came to know Jesus; he replied almost like I should know this; "Well, no one but 3 rededicated their lives." Somewhere the message that status quo was perfectly fine had been passed on over the years to the people of that church. No one had come to Jesus and they were okay with that. I was shocked and amazed at his response.
Where was the excitement, anticipation, and joy just at the opportunity to be a part of someone coming to know and accept Jesus as their Savior? And so time goes on and the attitude remains. My expectations from the mission field in Europe had birthed in me the excited anticipation of people receiving Jesus and added to the beautiful community of believers I was a part of. Having seen many people leave the sham and drudgery of their world for the beauty of Christ’s world had set up expectations of what God could and would do if men and women would let Christ live through them.
The need to be peacemakers in this world isn’t relegated to stopping violence and hurt in any of a number of ways. The Bible says there will be wars and other violence till Jesus comes back to end the violence. So what is our "job" regarding peacemakers. First, we are to be peacemakers. Peacemakers help people obtain the peace "of God that surpasses all understanding." These peacemakers help people to see what their lives are apart from God. They don’t stop there though. The peacemakers bring the news that there can be peace in the souls of men and women through salvation brought by faith and surrender to Jesus Christ. As the new believer grows in faith he or she is then able to be a peacemaker and help others to do the same.
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