Soft Like a Marshmallow

Gracie and I have been enjoying being back at Tierra Nueva after our year away in France.  We’ve appreciated our weekly worship services, which are drawing ex-offenders, people in recovery and immigrant workers.

For the past three months on Monday evenings Salvio, Bethany (TN Family Support Center directors), a growing number of Tierra Nueva apprentices and Gracie and I have been meeting at the Tierra Nueva building for thirty minutes of prayer before seeking to enter into a contemporary practice of Jesus’ mission according to Luke 10.

In Luke 10 Jesus sends out 70 workers in pairs, telling them to “beg the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” because the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few (10:2).  Our group varies from four to eight. As we’ve gone out we’ve seen that Jesus’ assessment of First Century Palestine is true today for Skagit County.  There is spiritual openness, great need and a longing among ordinary people to engage in some kind of outreach.

During our prayer time together we thank God for what the Spirit is already doing in our ministry and community and deliberately ask how we can best collaborate with God.  We seek guidance regarding where we should go.  We expect God to speak, bringing to mind families to visit, specific places to go, conditions needing healing—whatever the Holy Spirit wants to show us.

In Luke 10:3-4 Jesus sends out the 70 dependent and vulnerable (no shoes, money, extra clothes) and specifically commissions them to go as guests rather than hosts.  Seeking the person of peace is all about receiving people’s hospitality- and yet there’s a proactive side to this involving going out looking for receptive hosts.

Usually we visit people in their homes, and end up praying for their concerns—which include anything from the need for work to physical healing and comfort.

A few weeks ago Gracie got the impression: “soft like a marshmallow” thinking it was about the condition of someone’s heart.  She also thought of the laundromat across the street beside a Mexican grocer.   Anna and Salvio thought we should go to the megastore Wal-Mart, and Salvio got “palm tree” and someone else thought of “black hair.”  I wasn’t sensing anything but decided to join Salvio and Anna and head to Wal-Mart, even though I dislike this particular megastore. 

Meanwhile, Gracie and Paul headed across the street towards the laundromat, but as they passed by the Mexican grocery store, “Los Antojitos” they felt they should go in.  There Paul noticed a bag of big heart-shaped marshmallows by the cashier, and in front of it was a Mexican woman making a purchase with whom Gracie struck up a conversation.  They accompanied the woman outside into the cold December wind.  After they introduced themselves and briefly described how they were praying for God to bless people, they asked her if she needed prayer.

“Yes I do, but doesn’t everyone?” she said in Spanish.  Gracie agreed that everyone needs prayer but told her: “I think God is highlighting you,” and shared how they’d been praying and had gotten the impression of a heart as soft as a marshmallow.  At this the woman seemed to melt and said that in fact she needed prayer: for pain and swelling in her leg from deep-veined thrombosis and some other conditions.

The cold wind motivated them to duck into the laundromat, which was empty, and they prayed.  The woman cried as she told how she’d been longing for someone to tell her about Jesus and help her understand the Bible.  Gracie and Paul invited her to our Sunday service. 

At that point she invited them to her car and offered them bags of oatmeal and granola from the factory where she works.  She’s come twice in to Tierra Nueva’s services, and we recently visited her and her family in their home where we celebrated God healing her leg, and prayed for her family.  Afterwards she invited us to share a meal delicious home-made chicken tamales and strawberry atole (a sweet pudding-like drink) (photo below).

This woman truly has a soft heart towards God and us.   She is longing to go out with us on our Monday night outreaches, which shows us that Jesus’ call for disciples to beg the Lord of the harvest for laborers is a prime example of evangelism as recruitment. 

That same evening when Salvio, Anna and I went into Wal-Mart I was skeptical about our prospects.  However, as we walked down the first main aisle we ran straight into a big tower made up of stacked cases of Corona beer (a Mexican favorite).  Atop it was a big plastic palm tree! (photo below).  There beside it was a man with jet-black hair pushing a shopping cart full of hot chili cheetos. 

Salvio and I approached him about our mission and he immediately agreed to receive prayer: at which time we learned he was from India but living in Vancouver, BC.   We prayed for him and encouraged him, realizing that our church aisles were becoming strangely inclusive, and the nearness of Jesus’ Kingdom was coming into places I would never have chosen (Wal-Mart). 

We rejoined Gracie and Paul and truly could identify with joy of the 70 who returned to Jesus to debrief (Luke 10:17-21).  Last week I sensed God speaking to me to “double” these outreaches—which we plan to do beginning in January. 

May you too experience the joy of the harvest as you venture into whatever version of Jesus’ ministry the Spirit leads you into in 2013.

Why Celebrate?

In mid-October we gathered to celebrate Tierra Nueva’s 30-year anniversary.  A few weeks before that celebration I was fretting in the middle of the night, wondering: “why celebrate?” I experienced feelings ranging from ambivalence to disappointment to outright grief.  Perhaps mourning our many setbacks and outright failures would be more appropriate, I thought.

We've had so many losses and disappointments these 30 years: We’ve poured time and resources into projects that haven’t always born fruit; we’ve raised up leaders who have left us;  people we've led to Jesus and seriously advocated for have relapsed, re-offended, grown cold or been killed.  We’ve started and lost agricultural committees, Bible study groups and churches.  Truth-be-told we don't know what's happened to most of the people we've ministered to in Skagit County Jail or in the Honduran countryside.

I lay there feeling discouraged, thinking how successful other ministries and churches seem to be in contrast.  I struggled to believe that it’s not too late for us.  I found myself surrendering myself as fully as I know how, crying out to God to have mercy on us and to work with us and through us more effectively.  As I lay there praying I think God spoke to me.  

I found myself thinking about God’s own ministry experience promoting salvation/liberation. I thought back to the first humans in the garden, who distrusted God’s goodness and chose death, rapidly-- in spite of the most ideal beginning.  My thoughts moved to God’s failed efforts to prevent Cain from murdering his brother or getting humans to fill the earth and subdue it rather than starting from scratch after the Flood.

Jacob's family came to mind.  I remembered Simeon and Judah who killed all the men in a city to retaliate for one man raping their sister Dinah; the ten sons of Jacob who threw their brother Joseph into a pit to kill him, selling him to the Midianites instead; 400 years of slavery in Egypt; Moses who murdered an Egyptian, fled his people and then 40 years later reluctantly responded to the call.

I thought of the Israelites making it out of Egypt only to be disgruntled and rebel, worshipping a golden calf.  None of the original escapees from Egypt made it into Canaan but died in the wilderness. 

Then when God’s people do make it to Canaan they blow it over and over, turning to the gods of the land, being carried off into bondage, crying out and God showing mercy on them... many times (see Judges 10:6-16).  

Then the monarchy-- a bad start with Saul; David's life of violence and adultery; a seriously-broken royal family; the kingdom dividing; lots of kings that did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; the people and leaders ignoring the prophets, or killing them; the Assyrians carrying off the 10 northern tribes after they spurned God's prophets; the Babylonians destroying the temple and carrying off the cream of the crop into exile; returning to the land and rebuilding the temple, only to mess up again, and again. 

When Jesus is born Israel is under Roman occupation.  He embodies God’s total presence to heal, deliver and in every way save.  But religious leaders reject him, the Romans crucify him, and his disciples abandon him.  The church is birthed into this mess and we keep making similar mistakes. 

As I thought through the history of God’s people I felt strangely comforted-- like maybe I was feeling the paternal heart of God, the feelings Jesus must have felt and still feels (though I don’t think God is anxious or depressed).  Yet it seems God hasn't been totally successful yet, or has he?  

God hasn't managed full-on global revival through all the myriad of efforts to call, disciple, equip and mobilize.  God hasn’t succeeded in weaning his church from their current idols (money, politics, violence...).  Jesus and his disciples haven’t stopped global warming, human trafficking, mass incarceration, school violence, drug addiction, at least not yet.

I’ve concluded that I still like the way our great God goes about ministry and invites us to join.  God is kind, persistent and never gives up, in spite of human frailty, unreliability and outright rebellion (mine included).  Jesus shows us a God who reigns by serving, exercises power by emptying himself, wins by losing, and saves the world by dying.  God lets us fail and fall and learn hard lessons, but he is with us through it all.  The Spirit brings comfort and reignites faith, inspiring and mobilizing us anew.  I feel mobilized and grateful to be part of his messy (bloody) body of Christ.  

We ended up having a rich and encouraging 30th anniversary.  Gracie and I are grateful to be seeking Jesus’ kingdom in the company of 20 committed colleagues who now make up our staff. 

We value your prayers and friendship as we end this year and continue into our 31^st.  May the Spirit comfort, encourage, strengthen and inspire you this Advent season.