Faithful Presence

by Rev. Jim HollandMost of you have heard this statement: “We only use 10% of our actual brain function, and if we could just figure out how to tap into the rest of that potential, it would be revolutionary.” I decided to look the “10%” figure up on the Internet to see if it was really true. (Anyone can be an expert on anything in 15 minutes with the Internet!) According to what I read, that might not be exactly true, but what is true is that in the field of “mind” and “brain” there is much mystery and experts agree that there is a great deal of untapped potential.I was thinking about that when, not long ago, I was with some ministry leaders in Memphis and, to tell you the truth, I was staggered. I sat and listened to story after story from leaders in a vast array of ministry. The things going on in Memphis and around the world by faithful people who really care about spreading the message of restoration through the gospel of Jesus is truly amazing. They were a testimony to courage, sacrifice and love, and I came away feeling very encouraged.And yet…. there is still the question that plagues many ministry leaders and was directly taken up by James Davidson Hunter in his book To Change the World. He too asked the question: “If we have so many people doing so many amazing things, what is the problem, and what are we complaining about?” Here is what he says: “The problem is that these initiatives represent just a fraction of the potential within the church to bear witness to the love, grace, mercy, and truth of Christ.” As I read that I was thinking of what we hear about the brain; it is there, it is functioning beautifully—at least, I think mine is most of the time, though I do question it’s functionality after a few hours with my grandsons and I have morphed back to an elementary level—but what if we could just tap that potential?Davidson goes on to say, to carry on with the analogy, that all the “official” ministry we can ever dream up in the church, in para-church organizations, and in other useful ministries would, at best, be only a fraction of what God’s people are really capable of in being “salt and light” to the world around them. So what is the solution? What is the way the Church of Jesus can really tap into this vast potential that lies dormant? Hunter continues: “The people of God, individually and collectively, are called to give expression to the redemptive work of God in all of their lives….What has been missing is the leadership that comprehends the nature of these challenges and offers a vision of formation adequate to the task of discipling the church and its members for a time such as ours.  By misreading the nature of the times and by focusing so much energy and resources on politics, those who have claimed the mantle of leadership have fixed attention on secondary and tertiary problems and false solutions.” (Emphasis Hunter’s)One of the huge themes that has come out of studying the book of Daniel, and now looking at the Kingdom of God, is simply this: Daniel and Jesus both lived in cultures where they were surrounded by cultural values, actions and expressions that were totally antithetical to Biblical teaching and they didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all, didn’t seem to resent the pagan hordes around them, and didn’t have a need to vilify them at every turn. No, they just assumed that people who were blinded by sin, ignorant of redemption, and did not bow the knee to God would just do what blind people do—stumble into folly. My dog Jeb, who I don’t like very much anyway, just went totally blind. This has been hard for me. Even before this, he had no redeeming qualities—he obeyed when it pleased him, if you turned your back on him he would run off (which has resulted in three major surgeries), he barked if the phone rang—well you get the picture. But now he is blind. I mean blind as a bat.On one hand, it is pitiful; he just walks around the house and bumps into things. In the mornings, we take him up the stairs if we are watching TV, we take him outside to use the bathroom, we rattle the food bowl to get him to eat, and by and large, his quality of life is pretty good. But here is what has happened in our home: I’m not mad at Jeb anymore. He is a burden, yes, but I don’t find myself screaming at him anymore or constantly irritated at him. He is blind!The way Jesus relates to the “lostness” of the world around him is sort of like that. He weeps over the city and then enters it. He knows people are blind and dead in sin. You can’t expect lost people to model Biblical virtue any more than I can expect my dog to stop running into things. This freed Jesus and the disciples to actually love people who had totally different values systems than them. It freed them to eat with those folks, engage them and be “present with them”—we might say “woo” them with the promises of new life and an end to being a slave to whatever was happening in the culture at the moment.Hunter is saying that the untapped potential of God’s people is not more programs or weekend seminars, but the people who know Jesus intentionally and purposefully living out the good news of Jesus in their everyday, ordinary and rather mundane lives in the places they work, shop, play and school. Jesus spent three years doing rather mundane ministry, most of it with twelve guys. It was typically not flashy; most of it was eating and drinking with people, going to their houses, helping them with their sick and dying. In doing so, he brought a new kind of kingdom, one built on faithfulness and serving people in the rhythms of everyday life, not in the “shock and awe” that so easily dazzle us! We would do well to do the same.