The Fast That God Desires

 Thirteen years ago, I served as the pastor of an English-speaking church in Nuremberg, Germany.  It was a fascinating experience.  The church was small, only 30 or so, and composed mostly of young adults starting their careers in Nuremberg. They came from Cameroon, South Africa, India, Japan, Ukraine, Poland, Ireland, UK and, of course Germany. There were even a couple from the United States.  Nuremberg, once shrouded under the dark cloud of Nazi history, has emerged in the twenty-first century as a cosmopolitan city welcoming people from around the globe. 

 As a result of that experience, I followed refugee reports in Europe with special interest.  I was impressed with the way Germany and other European nations opened their resources, their communities, their arms and their homes.   In 2015 ABC News reported, “Dozens of volunteers have been driving to Hungary and to the Serbian border, picking up refugees walking along the highway in the aim of helping them travel to Western Europe.” Universities offered free classes to refugees. In Berlin more than 780 people opened their homes for temporary shelter. The continued flow has become overwhelming. Today there are more than 122 million refugees worldwide, people forced from their homes by war, crime and corruption. According to Statistica, in 2024 Germany ranked third in hosting refugees at 2.6 million.  The U.S. ranked 20^th at 435 thousand with 60,000 admitted in 2023.   

 I am always encouraged to see people reaching out to those who are different and desperate. There are, of course, dangers and risks, just as there were dangers and risks in Jesus’ Good Samaritan story.  But the rewards far outweigh the costs.

 In the United States, we are a nation of immigrants, refugees and their descendants. We all came from somewhere else, often from places suffering famine, disease and oppression.  In the 1960s and 70s we welcomed refugees from Viet Nam.  Fifty years later they have built businesses and sent their children to college where some became doctors, lawyers and engineers. When we lived in Minnesota, we came to know and love the Hmong our allies who fled slaughter in Laos following the fall of Vietnam.  Most came to the U.S. as animists.  Today many are devoted followers of Christ. St. Paul has the largest Hmong church in the nation. 

 While some traditional churches in the U.S. are in decline, many immigrant churches are growing. I attended the dedication of a new building for Liberian Christians north of Minneapolis. In St, Paul a church composed of immigrants from Myanmar (formerly Burma) rapidly outgrew their meeting space.

 In Isaiah, God said, “Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke?  Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?  Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth, and your righteousness will go before you; and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard,” (Isaiah 58:6-8).

Pope Francis

 White smoke curled from a chimney over the Sistine Chapel at 7:06 pm on March 13, 2013.  Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina had been chosen as the new Pope. Within an hour he had selected his new name: Pope Francis. 

In 2008 our family rented an apartment in Rome overlooking St Peter’s Basilica.  We strolled through St Peter’s Square, the open plaza where a standing-room-only crowd of more than one hundred thousand gathered to welcome the new Pope. We visited the Sistine Chapel and stood beneath Michelangelo’s images of Creation and the Last Judgment, where cardinals have gathered to choose the next Pope since 1846. 

 Cardinal Bergoglio was the first Pope to choose the name Francis, in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.  It was a significant choice. The man we know from history as St. Francis lived at the turn of thirteenth century.  He grew up as a spoiled youth in a wealthy and influential Italian family. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display … the very king of frolic.”  By the time he was twenty, Francis became a mercenary, was captured in battle and spent more than a year in prison with a protracted illness.  That experience seems to have started his spiritual journey that would set him apart. But his turning to Christ was neither sudden nor easy.

 Once released he decided on a military career of conquest and glory, but a series of dreams began to redirect his journey.  Through a series of missteps and, what appears to be a confusing period of solitude, prayer and clumsy efforts to serve God, Francis eventually came to a clear vision of God’s will for his life.  He found the focus for his life on February 24, 1208 when he heard a recounting of Jesus’ instructions to go into every village, two by two, carrying no money, neither bag nor shoes, greeting everyone on the way with blessings of peace.  To heal the sick and proclaim the Kingdom of God.  (Matthew 10:7-11).  From that moment forward Francis committed himself to a literal application of these instructions from Jesus, devoting himself to the poor and a joyful proclamation of the Kingdom. Francis is credited with being the first to celebrate Christmas with carols and many Christians still sing his hymn, “All Creatures of our God and King.”

 The name emphasizes the transforming power of Jesus Christ, who can change a profligate mercenary into a joyful servant of the poor. The passing of Pope Francis serves as a powerful reminder that all of us need to care for the poor, the refugee, the disenfranchised, the outcast.  Ten weeks ago Pope Francis warned, “What is built on the basis of force and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.”  

 Christianity Today wrote, “His humility won the praises of international evangelist, Luis Palau who called him a friend and ‘a very Jesus Christ-centered man.’”

Persistence

 Some of you will remember that we adopted Buddy, a tri-color corgi, 16 years ago after he was found starving on the streets of Fort Worth.  I wrote his story for my grandkids, “just the way Buddy told it to me”: how Barney the Blood Hound helped him survive on the streets until they were picked up by the dog police. I named the story, Buddy the Floppy Ear Corgi because his left ear flopped when we first met. Unfortunately, the lifespan of our pets is much shorter than our own. We had to “lay him down” in 2022.

 Like other dogs and pets, Buddy got us through Covid. He followed me from room to room and sat patiently near my chair on our back deck.  He took me for walks in our neighborhood and introduced me to neighbors.  

 During those difficult days of “sheltering in place” he taught me persistence. “Persistence” isn’t a word we use much.  But we all know what it means: never quitting, never giving up and never becoming discouraged. We saw a human example of persistence last weekend when Rory McIlroy won the Masters to complete the Grand Slam in golf after 11 attempts.  Like most humans, I am not very good at it, but Buddy was a natural. He communicated mostly by “persistence.”

 If he wanted to go outside, he went to the door and sat there looking out the glass.  He never moved.  He just sat there until I noticed and obligingly opened the door and let him out.  He did the same thing about coming back inside. If I was eating, he locked his eyes on the food and stared, again refusing to move.  I could scold him, tell him he wasn’t getting anything from me, act as callous and cold as possible, but it didn’t faze him. He just sat there staring with those big brown corgi eyes until I finally gave in. He won his arguments with persistence.

 I need to learn more of that. We humans are always looking for shortcuts to get what we want.  We resort to tantrums, tears, weeping and wailing, pouting and protests. We get angry and argue.  But it seldom achieves our goals.  We need to learn from Buddy.  Persistence and peaceful perseverance is irresistible.

This must have been what Jesus was getting at when He said, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and from inside he answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children ^[e]and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’”

^“I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs.  So I say to you,ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” (Luke 11:5-10). 

Be persistent.  Be patient. Don’t get upset. Don’t give up.  A better day is coming.

Buddy the Floppy Ear Corgi is free April 15-16 as am eBppl pm Amazon. 

Liberty and Justice For All

 I am not sure when I first learned the pledge of allegiance to our American flag.  I did not attend kindergarten, though most of my friends did.  So, I guess I learned it in first grade at Robert E. Lee elementary.  With a portrait of the Civil War general peering over my shoulder, I faced the flag and  tried my best, pledging to one nation “invisible.”  That made sense.  The nation seemed pretty “invisible” to me at the time. Later, I learned the word was “indivisible” and had deep meaning related to my school’s namesake. 

 I think I got the last words of the pledge right from the start: “with liberty and justice for all.”  In my childhood world, It sounded a lot like what I read in the Superman comics:  “Truth, justice and the American way.”  (DC Comics changed the motto a few years ago to “truth, justice and a better tomorrow.”)

 By design, I suppose, our pledge is short and simple. It is that last phrase that has given us trouble.  “Liberty and justice for all.”  We haven’t always lived up to it. In fact, from the very beginning, as a nation, we have fallen short.  Just ask the Native Americans whose treaties were repeatedly broken and, after roaming the hills, plains and mountains of this continent for thousands of years, found themselves herded onto reservations. 

 Or ask the African Americans, whose ancestors were captured, shipped to our shores on slave ships and for two centuries were property, bought and sold for profit.  It has taken us a century and a half following the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13^th amendment to achieve significant advances in civil rights. Still, every time we remove our caps, cover our heart and repeat the pledge, those words both inspire and haunt us, “liberty and justice for all.” 

 I guess this is why I am disturbed that our government is suddenly backtracking on efforts to include people who are not like us.  I am disturbed that our government mistakenly scooped up Kilmar Abrego Garcia who is married to a U.S. citizen, father of a 5 year old, living here under the protection of our law and shipped him off with gang members to El Salvador. I am even more disturbed that after a federal judge ordered his return, our government says they can’t or won’t do anything to right the wrong he and his family have suffered. Even though our nation is paying El Salvador $6 million to incarcerate these men, they say it is out of our hands. The Justice Department attorney who admitted the government’s error has been placed on leave by the Administration.

 Who are we becoming?  What are we becoming? 

 The Bible has a lot to say about accepting others and treating them with respect.  “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” (Galatians 3:28).  Jesus always practiced inclusion of the poor, the downtrodden, the racially rejected, the moral outcast. This was largely what got Him into trouble.  He condemned arrogance, greed and injustice of every kind.

 Maybe “liberty and justice for all,” is best summarized in the golden rule that He gave us, another “pledge” we learned as children: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Matthew  7:12).