Living in Exile

Ponder this picture. Heavy wooden doors in a stone church – closed. Ancient vaulted ceiling over flagstone entrance with a man lying on the ground. He appears to be poor or sick and unable to rise. My eye wants to bypass the figure to meditate upon the graceful arch and inspiring architecture. This disturbing image is the cover of the book “The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice”.

The author of that book was brought by our presbytery to lead a conference in February. Mark Labberton is the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. He believes that Christians often walk around that man in need to get to church without a thought to the absurdity of it. He wanted us to be awakened to caring for the needs of hurting people as we worship and as we live.

He talked a lot about the difference between living in the promised land and living in exile. To refresh your memory, in the exodus account the Egyptians are the enemies who God defeats for the Israelites. He leads them to the Promised Land where they can live as his people. He believes we misread the story of the exodus. Instead of it being a story about God’s victory over oppression and sin, it becomes a story about God freeing us from hardship so we can enjoy a pleasant life. In this light, our faith becomes all about ourselves. “What can God do for me? What can the church do for me?” We might say in defense of this view, “Isn’t Jesus’ purpose to lift my burdens and smooth my brow?”

Mark said, “No that is not why Jesus came. He didn’t come to make our lives simpler, but more complicated. Not easy but hard!” He had us think about the Exile. In that story, God’s people have turned from Him and have become the enemies of his purposes. God then removes them from their land and comforts so that they will learn to depend upon Him. “The challenge for Israel in exile is not to escape. Their vocation is not to get out. It is to stay and be changed by seeking the welfare of their enemy: “Seek the peace [shalom] of the city where I have sent you into exile . . . for in it’s peace [shalom] you will find your peace [shalom]” (Jeremiah 29:7)”.

Living in exile, he said, is to focus on how to bring love to those in pain. Not because they are nice people, but because you want their lives to be made right. When one lives like this, then one looks for the pain in others and come alongside to share in it.

This is not a call to masochism, but a call to genuine Jesus life. It is a way of life in which we take seriously the injustices in others lives and take actions to repair them. This is a call to genuine peace, not one built on circumstances. It is a call to share the heart of Jesus.

I would offer that Jesus also came to take away our burdens and heal our wounds. But not perhaps in the way we first think. Sometimes through our sufferings we learn hard to explain lessons which God later uses to expand our compassion. Sometimes through a long time of waiting upon Christ we develop deeper faith out of desperation. A faith that later strengthens us and matures us to better love others. So that we become the answer to anothers prayers.

Back to the cover of the book. I think the author wants us to think about why we would walk around a man in trouble to go to worship. If I think that worship is for me, then it follows that it is more important to get through the doors than get involved with that suffering person. But if I think that worship is to help me see the world as God does, then I’m more inclined to miss worship by helping the man.