God has been teaching me lots about my own limitations these days. While it has always been a comforting thought that my actions and words were capable of bringing about major changes in the world, God has continually been teaching me that it is primarily through the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of people, the church, and the world that the real changes occur. So, at the same time, God has been exposing my pride and revealing his power. Good things, but hard.
Boundaries
Sometimes I wonder if I have created boundaries in my life that keep me from interacting with hurting people. There is no doubt that there are thousands, even millions, of people that are hurting in our country from substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse, poverty, loneliness, and brokenness. Do I make decisions that place me out of the reach of these people? Do I insulate myself through my choices of where I shop, eat, live, study, play, and relax? If so, how do I make decisions that will cause my life to intersect with theirs? How do I make choices that will make my life reflect the life of Jesus, who frequently came into contact with both wealthy Pharisees and poor beggars? And when I do come into contact with those that are hurting, will I have the faith to display the love of Christ to those who need it so desperately, or will I continue to live in my insulated world? I am ashamed of myself, but hopefully that will change in the future through God’s grace and direction.
Mark 10:35-45
Read this text several times over the next few days. It is one of the three major passages in the later half of Mark concerning discipleship (8:31-38; 9:33-37; 10:35-45). Mark begins his gospel by letting the reader know the true identity of Jesus (1:1), but the disciples seem to be clueless about Jesus’ identity, as well as his teachings (4:13, 41; 6:50-52; 7:17-19; 8:14-21). Then, they appear to understand who Jesus is when Peter makes his confession, “You are the Messiah” (8:29), but in reality they merely want Jesus to be the kind of Messiah that they want; the disciples want to be the ones calling the shots (8:32; 10:35).
Mark uses the second half of the gospel to flesh out what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah: he will be handed over to the Jews, then he will be killed, but on the third day he will rise again (8:31; 9:9-10; 10:32-34). And at the same time, Jesus teaches the twelve what it means to be his disciple: you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus (8:34). And as we follow the Savior, we learn that we must love as he loved (Eph. 5:1-2) and serve as he served (10:42-45), even if that means that we sometimes have to sacrifice our own well-being for the good of the other (1 Cor. 10:24, slightly out of context, but still applicable, I think…).
Mark 10:35-45 is a beautiful passage that I need to reflect on more as a disciple of Jesus. It is the passage that I preached at the Westgate Church of Christ this past Sunday, but unfortunately it is not a passage that I often live out in my own life. That we may all follow in our Savior’s footsteps nearer everyday, that is my prayer.
Bread for the World
This will not be an easy post to write. Every time the topic of world hunger comes up, I am both convicted and enraged. According to most figures, there are over 15,000 people that die every day from hunger-related causes; there are 854 million people across the globe that are continually hungry. These figures, among many others, are very hard for Americans to grasp. We live in a country that has an over-abundance of food. We can travel to the local grocery store or one of the hundreds of the restaurants that are scattered throughout our cities. But for many people throughout the world – apparently 854 million people – food is matter of life or death.According to Bread for the World’s website (www.bread.org), the basic health and nutritional needs of the world’s poorest people could be met with an additional $13 billion per year. While this might seem to be a big amount, consider this: people in the United States and Europe spend more than that on pet food annually. Please do not misunderstand me; I am not advocating that you stop feeding you pet. But I am asking us to consider where our priorities are. As Americans, we are incredibly blessed financially. We all have, or could have (depending on where we spend our money), an excess of money. So my challenge to every person who reads this (and myself) is: start seriously analyzing how you spend your money. Try to eat out less; try to spend less money on things that you don’t need; read Ronald Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger; consider what things that you can live without, because there are many in the world that don’t have that luxury. I definitely need to do this as much as the next person. Lord, teach me to love my neighbor as myself.
Partners In Health (PIH)
Recently, I read the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Through masterfully written stories, Kidder describes the life of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard-graduated doctor who has chosen to spend his life serving poor people across the globe. Farmer first encountered the desperate need of those living in poverty while visiting Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The people that he met living in the Central Plateau did not have clean water to drink, arable land to farm, health care, sanitation, or education. Many people in developed countries would love to credit these deficiencies to laziness, indifference, or some other reason that would pin the blame on the Haitians. But what Farmer found was that this extreme poverty often came from systematic oppression from the ruling elites, who were often supported by the United States government. These people could not will their way out of poverty no matter how hard they tried; the entire deck was stacked against them.Thus, Farmer, along with several other devoted individuals, established a free clinic in the Central Plateau. In the process, they founded Partners In Health (www.pih.org), an organization whose mission is to “provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.” PIH gives preference to those people that never receive preference in anything else; they seek to provide health care for “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40), treating such diseases as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria, as well as any other problem that people bring them. Please check out their website. Read the book; donate your money and your voice; help save lives.
World Vision
I love this organization! World Vision (www.worldvision.org) is a Christian-based humanitarian organization that seeks to help some of the most needy people in the world by developing communities and providing relief during times of disaster. Through their community development programs, they seek to build sustainable communities all over the world that have adequate food, water, health care, education, and income. It is through these humanitarian programs that World Vision displays the love of Christ to the world; through their acts of love and service, they open up doors to share the good news of Jesus with people who are dying, both spiritually and physically. They are an organization that seeks to meet the entire needs of communities. Please think about supporting this wonderful organization. Check out their website; look at the faces of children who desperately need clean water and sufficient food to survive; think about how blessed you are, and choose to share. Begin by sponsoring a child. Then, after you fall in love with that child, support another. And when you do, I would love to read an e-mail about it (markwclancy@gmail.com). And then pass the word along.
¿Qué apoyas tú?
That is the question: “What do you support?” Of course, your answer could take an infinite number of forms, such as “my family & friends” or “Barack Obama in 2008.” But those answers are not exactly what I am looking for. What I am getting at could be restated as, “What causes do you support?”In my own life, I have learned that if I don’t intentionally stand for anything, then often I don’t stand for much at all. If I don’t willingly seek to share my faith with those around me, no matter how strong my own inner faith may be, it normally isn’t shared at all. If I don’t make a conscious effort to let my family know how much I love them, those sentiments often go unspoken. And if I don’t intentionally choose causes to support, chances are that I will never merely stumble upon them.My next several posts are going to be about causes that I believe are worthwhile, that are concerned about the needs of those who are hurting, and that display the love of Jesus Christ to a suffering world. There are organizations out there that are deserving of your time, voice, and money. Maybe I can introduce you to a few.
Women in the Old Testament
This past week I have been auditing the ACU graduate school course with the above title. It seems that I just can’t get enough of school-inflicted torture, so I keep taking more classes. Yet, this past week has been anything but torture; in fact, I might even label the week joyous. Dr. Glenn Pemberton proved to be an excellent professor, leading the class through difficult biblical passages, discussions, and topics. My classmates provided helpful insights and questions, in addition to being kind and humorous.But the best part of the class was the material. For the entire week, from 8 am to 5 pm (with several breaks, of course), we examined obscure Old Testament passages that are often overlooked and nearly always oversimplified. These passages were ones that included women as one or more of the main characters in the story. It was fascinating to examine the numerous dimensions that affected, both positively and negatively, the daily existence of women in ancient Israel: the roles they played in religion, their importance in the family and community, their social oppression, their abilities, their short-comings, and the way God worked both through and sometimes in spite of these dimensions.And the most surprising outcome of the week: my greater appreciation of the Song of Songs as an amazing biblical text that offers hope and a vision for the future (but not in the way that one might expect). Ask me about it sometime.
The Word & Prayer
This morning I was blessed to be able to spend time in the Word and in prayer with some of my teammates. We simply took time reading various passages without feeling the need to comment or interject our own opinions. Interspersed among these scriptures were times of prayer and thankfulness. What a joy it was to listen to God’s Word with my brothers in Christ! What a joy it was to simply listen without feeling the need to talk! What a joy…
Post-Trip Report # 1
Mexico was fantastic! The city was neat, the food was great, but above all, the people were wonderful. Apparently, one of the biggest fruits of the Spirit at the church that we visited is patience, because they sure were patient with me.
The most popular phrase that the people said to me, other than “Dios le bendiga” (God bless you), was “Pocito a pocito” – “little by little.” In saying this, they meant that I was learning the language little by little. They would often say this, with a smile on their face, after I had completely butchered their language. Man, I have a long way to go!
