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CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
THE WORD OF THE LORD
Matthew 14:14 NIV
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
CONSIDER THIS . . .
A dear man in our congregation who spent most of his time on the street was in front of me in the line for Communion. As we neared the person distributing the bread, I could see his hands were shaking uncontrollably. His struggles with substance abuse had taken their toll over the years. I took his hands in mine, and we took the bread together. The Lord whispered to me, “Say his name, as if I am saying it through you.”
“Tom,” I said, “the body of Christ, broken for you.” He ate the bread. Then we came to the cup. With my hands around his, we raised the small cup of juice to his lips. “Tom,” I said, “the blood of Christ, shed for you.” He drank the cup. Then, he turned to me. “He knows my name!” he said. He gave me a big bear hug, right there up front, and we stood in an embrace for a few moments.
The early church made a big deal about Jesus seeing people in their situation and naming them. He didn’t treat people as part of a group or a crowd. He saw people for who they were, individual image-bearers whose lives were made to function optimally in relationship with him.
So when Jesus is seeing the large crowd, it is not primarily the group he is feeling compassion toward. He is, I believe, feeling compassion toward each person in the crowd, which gives him compassion for the entire collection of souls. As dear brother J. D. Walt often says, “He sees the one.”
When you are walking down the street, do you see a person on the street as having a name, a mother and father (alive or passed), a sister or brother? Or do you lump them into a category, like “the poor” or “the homeless” or the “street people”? I come with humility to give my answer. Sometimes I lump people together in my mind, as if their name and personhood before God are less important to me than the category I’ve put them in and the group’s impact on my personal or social well-being.
Jesus did all the things he did because he saw individuals, with names and backgrounds and ancestors, for who they were. It was to these ones that Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matt. 19:14).
Who within your reach is powerless? Who lacks the basics they need to do life, either in resources, opportunities, or personality? Who is facing the disease of poverty, by their own poor choices (who doesn’t make those?) or by the choices of others (there is injustice in the world), who you could walk up to and simply ask their name?
Jesus saw a crowd, but he also saw the individual vulnerability in each person’s eyes. And seeing them, he had compassion on them—and healed all their diseases.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, give me eyes to see the crowds as you see them—as individual image-bearers. Whether someone is poor in spirit or poor in resources, show me how I can be a vessel of healing to them. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
Write down the first group of people who come to mind that you tend to see negatively as a group rather than as individuals. Write a prayer that you could see an individual within that group as a person rather than just part of a crowd. Then write a prayer for the individual.
ACTIVATION
Today, let’s see the individual in the crowd. Ask someone, perhaps a person living on the street or someone who is struggling in society, what their name is and then share yours. Simply leave it at that, or ask, “May I pray for you?”
SING
Today, we will sing “The Doxology” (hymn 682) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt
Dan Wilt is an author, communicator, pastor, and practitioner. With roots in the Vineyard stream of churches, Dan has served the development of followers of Jesus internationally and is part of the Seedbed Farm Team.
2 Responses
How To See and Love the Vulnerable, Poor, and Weak
Sunday morning is still the most racially and ethnically segregated hour in the world. Why is that?
I see two reasons. One is the Christian history of pride, self-righteousness, and love of power. The earliest Christians were full of joy. They were led by the Holy Spirit and humbly radiated God’s love, compassion, and forgiveness not only toward one another, but even toward the people who persecuted them.
However, once Roman Emperor Constintine made it illegal to persecute Christians and began to personally put his political authority behind Christianity things changed. Christianity shifted from being motivated and spread by love to being spread and maintained by coercion, political power, and even by violence.
Church became a place of compelled conformity. People who didn’t fit the church’s mold were seen as threats. Instead of “speaking the truth in love” and with kindness, church leaders began to speak and act with insults, baseless accusations, and hostility toward people who looked, believed, or acted differently.
Church teamed up with political power and began to verbally and eventually even violently persecute people who disagreed with or looked differently than them, even to the point of torturing people and publicly burning people alive. Some examples are the treatment of nonbelievers called “heretics,” violently forced conversion, the Spanish Inquisition, church supported racial and ethical prejudice, the endorsement of chattel slavery, the Crusades, and the way so-called Christians around the world have physically abused even to death Bible translators, protestants, anabaptists, quakers, and people who were seen as inferior.
Today there are tens of thousands of denominations and independent churches each with their own self-focused version of Christianity. They’re not only divided by beliefs, but they’re also divided by race and ethnicity. If they have any diversity at all, it is minimal.
The second reason Sunday church is so segregated is the controlled way church services are conducted. In the Bible Paul told the Christians in Corinth what to do “when you come together.” He told them that each person present should share “a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation . . .” Gradually Christianity drifted away from that biblical model and moved toward the same one man controlling the meeting and doing all the speaking each week.
Jesus told His followers to avoid setting up a hierarchy and instead to see each other as brothers and sisters. However, by the second century a hierarchical system was continuing to develop where one-man controlled each church and a one-man bishop controlled a group of churches. Individual Christ-followers were made subject to them.
I believe that Jesus had a reason for wanting His followers to function as equals, free from hierarchy. That was so that they would learn (both individually and corporately) to rely on the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit (“Christ in you, the hope of glory,”) instead of on human control.
Human hierarchy in institutional religion tries to maintain homogeneity, (the outward appearance of unity) by resisting or rejecting people who look differently. The same one man speaking and controlling every Sunday meeting is a powerful way to keep things homogeneous. He can set things up in ways that make people who look differently feel uncomfortable being there.
However, a meeting where everyone present is free to speak up as they feel prompted by the Spirit, is inherently equalizing and welcoming to everyone. The institutional has church strongly enforced slavery, segregation, and other more subtle forms of racism. Spirit-led, participatory Christianity has persistently resisted.
those things.
My wife and I helped oversee a nontraditional, Spirit-led church in inner city Nashville for ten years — The Salvation Army Berry Street. The meeting began with a Scripture reading. Then after Spirit-felt praise and worship people were invited to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey His promptings.
The meetings attracted intimate racial diversity that went far beyond tokenism and superficiality. We shared our hearts and our resources with one another, supported and encouraged each other, and began to know and love one another at a deep level. We learned to listen to each other and to appreciate and find God’s beauty in our racial and ethnic differences. Every time we gathered we would experience even greater love for Jesus and for each other.
One young shy black man who stuttered began coming. He eventually stood up to share something. It was painfully slow to watch, but everyone was patient and respectful toward him. You could see in his eyes the encouragement he felt. Gradually he began sharing almost every week and even began greeting people when they arrived. Over time his stuttering began to subside and although it never completely went away, he became a very effective communicator of God’s love.
To break free from the presence and history of Sunday morning segregation, I believe we need to shift from the passive model of pastor-controlled homogenous church services to the welcoming, interactive model that the early Christians called “ekklesia.” A participatory circle free from hierarchy is inherently equalizing.
Try it and see. Gather a small group of Christ-followers. Have someone lead a prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to everyone present. Then encourage everyone to be still and inwardly listen. Finally ask them if they will share what they heard. You’ll be amazed at the results.
If you live in the Nashville, Tennessee area you can experience a gathering like that every Saturday morning at 8:30 at Chile Burrito, 330 Franklin Road, Brentwood, TN 37207. Everyone is welcome.
Hi Dan,
Went for a hearing test by my audiologist today. It has been three weeks since I had an ear infection and started an antibiotic. It has been three years since the last test. Right ear was unchanged. Left ear has a slight more loss. The big news is that there was no ear wax left after a week of ear drops. What the audiologist doctor found in my left ear was … an old rubber ear tip from my hearing aid! Yes, it was revealed after getting the wax out. After taking the tip out and readjusting both hearing aids, I can hear 100% better than before the infection three weeks ago. Yeah, and praise to God the Holy Spirit moved me to schedule a hearing test. At the end of the visit I pointed to a detailed picture of the ear and head bones. I commented on how delicate and detailed the ear was and that all the parts had to be fully functioning and in one place to work as an ear. I asked if she believed that happen by accident or by a designer. She said by a designer. No question. I agreed and we gave God the glory. This was a divine moment of encouragement. Amen!