A Message from Steve

Dear Friends,

I think Jonathan Edwards—back in 1732—expressed with perfect clarity a concept that the Church struggles with today:

"Where have we any command in the Bible laid down in stronger terms, and in a more peremptory urgent manner, than the command of giving to the poor?"

Recently, I listened to Tim Keller's sermon "Blessed are the Poor." You can listen to it here, and I would encourage you to make time for this message. In the sermon, Keller reflects on Jonathan Edwards' words on the poor (read here), as well as many of the hundreds of biblical references to the poor. In short, Keller agrees with Edwards, saying that one of the clearest things in all of scripture is the mandate to know the poor, become the poor, and love the poor. Keller goes as far as to say that we cannot remain "middle class in spirit," but must embrace poverty of spirit, something that happens in relationships of reconciliation with real people living in poverty over a long period of time.

"We may also observe how peremptorily this duty [giving to the poor] is here enjoined,
and how much it is insisted on." Jonathan Edwards

So it's clear that scripture says loving the poor is imperative--but do we really see it as imperative? Do we see it as an essential part of our personal identity as Christ followers? Or do we see it as an option? Do we see it as a personal mandate? Or do we see it as something that can be "outsourced" to a church committee or a para-church ministry like Advance? The truth is that none of the important kingdom activities that the church should do, whether soup kitchens, shelters, job training, tutoring, widow-support health care, justice ministries--or any other effort--can be effective without ongoing relational reconciliation between rich and poor. And as Keller argues, these relationships WILL INEVITABLY challenge and change our lives as well.

I was convicted of this recently when we interviewed a group of Advance Memphis graduates about the role of Advance in the community. We were gathering information to inform our strategic planning process, and we asked students, "What does the community need more of?" I was humbled to hear the answer from "Mary," a recent grad, aged 24: "Not more money or food. We need more people to spend time with us. Teach us. Teach us about God." Friends, Mary is a single mother of 5. Throughout Mary's childhood, her mother was addicted to crack and she had no relationship with her father until the very end of his life. Right now, Mary is living with a family member in Foote Homes. Her extended family is eating her food and leaving her kids hungry. She is working part time, studying for her GED, and raising 5 children. I asked myself, "DID THIS WOMAN REALLY SAY THAT THE GREATEST NEED WAS RELATIONSHIPS? She DID!" And I remembered again how we so often consider poverty solely in material terms, forgetting the importance of relationships of reconciliation for RICH and POOR alike!

How wide is the gap between you and your neighbor? Join me in praying
that God would close the gap a little more each day for all of us.

I often meet people who ask what we need at Advance—how they can help. My prayer is that I'll be bold enough to share our biggest need: the presence of Christians, loving, serving, and building relationships in the neighborhood. We need these relationships because social support is key to life change. We need these relationships because the gospel calls us to reconciliation between communities divided by race and economic class. And we need these relationships because theoretical solutions to poverty designed in board rooms rarely work, and neither do blank checks without accountability or understanding. We've got to stop DOING THINGS FOR poor neighborhoods and start DOING THINGS WITH our poor neighbors. Bob Lupton argues in his book Toxic Charity that anonymous aid, given without the wisdom and consent that comes from relationships with the targeted community, can do far more harm than good. As an example, Lupton describes the effect of aid on Haiti, as witnessed by Tim Schwartz, an anthropologist and long-time resident of the country.

What does it look like to DO WITH the poor instead of FOR? That's a big question, but if we're really working relationally with the poor, we'll not only be seeing financial generosity, justice in business and legal relationships, and education for poor neighbors...we'll be seeing Luke 14 parties!

Do you have the relationships in place for God's design for a Luke 14 party?

So is my friend Mary crazy to say there's more to economic healing than money? No! Toxic Charity powerfully reminds us that disconnected aid is not enough, while we see first hand the powerful life change in EVERYONE'S life when the gospel calls individuals and communities "to the other side of the tracks"—the Kingdom community.

What I didn't tell you is that my friend Mary has gone from zero income to $2,000 a month. She hasn't achieved this through a hand out, but rather through a whole host of educational initiatives, supportive relationships, and employment opportunities made possible by business partnerships. I wish you could see her pride and joy as she experiences some level of economic self-sufficiency. She remains grateful for her diminishing public assistance while being filled with the dignity God designed for us through work. She wants to keep growing and fulfill all her God given potential. And what does she say when she asks what would help her and her neighborhood? MORE relationships and MORE time with Christ-followers.

So I want to invite the Body of Christ to respond to God's imperative to engage with those who are unlike us. We cannot help the poor if we do not know them, and God tells us that through relationships with the poor we ourselves will be changed. Our lifestyles, economic classes, recreational activities, neighborhoods, workplaces, and yes, even our churches often segregate us from our poor neighbors. Please take a minute right now to look around wherever you are. I'm sure you see the segregation of the rich from the poor. Now consider: how can we respond to God's imperative and help shape a world that looks different?

Responding to God's imperative means we've got work to do. We need to ask why in the poorest city in the nation there are no poor people in our Sunday school class or on our block, and then DO SOMETHING about it. And we need to find places to engage in relationships of reconciliation with the poor neighborhoods right now, today. If you need help with that, we'd love to introduce you to some of our neighbors through a Champion small group, a GED tutoring session, or as an assistant in a computer class. We'll take everything we can get! What might happen if every Christian in our city was actively pursuing healing in their own lives and in the lives of their poor neighbors through personal relationships? We don't know. But we'd love to find out. Pray with us! Struggle with us! Learn with us!

Thanks for all your time reading this note. It's longer than usual, but I'm grateful for your time, and grateful for the staff, friends, and volunteers who helped me take this from a first draft to a finished letter...the body of Christ at work!

Steve Nash

P.S. As you consider all these things, join me in challenging yourself to make God's Kingdom our target; not a human kingdom with some room for God, but—truly—God's Kingdom.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

At the end of his long chapter on Christ’s resurrection and second coming in I Corinthians 15, Paul declares: “therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your work in the Lord is not in vain.” For most of us, though, the resurrection seems like little more than the epilogue to the story of the cross. What’s the connection between Christ’s resurrection and our work? How does the resurrection affect “our work?” What does it mean for us today to declare, as churches around the world will on Easter Sunday, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”?

Christ Has Died

At the cross, God-the-Son “made himself nothing,” became a “servant,” and obeyed the Father all the way to dying an excruciating death on the cross (Phi 2:6-8). The cross means that we are no longer estranged from God, but have been reconciled to the Father “by Christ’s physical body through death” so that we, though our sins condemn us, might appear before God as “holy in his sight” (Col 1:22). The cross means that sin itself has been crucified so that we no longer are slaves to sin (Rom 6:6). Jesus became our sin (2 Cor 5:21), bearing “our sins in his body on the cross” (1 Pet 2:24).

But the meaning of the cross goes even out beyond our individual reconciliation with God. Through the cross, God has reconciled himself to the whole world, and given us the mission of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-19). All of the evil powers and principalities and every system of injustice has been “disarmed!” Jesus “made a public spectacle of [the powers and authorities], triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:15). The cross of Christ “destroys the Devil’s work” (1 Jn 3:8).

Though the Bible makes clear that Adam’s sin brought all of creation into sin and decay, releasing the power of the Devil into every corner of the cosmos, at the Cross Jesus has shattered the Enemy, has paid the price for our treason, has unmasked the injustice and oppression of a world which would crucify its own Creator, and reconciled the Triune God to the whole world.

Christ Is Risen

On the third day, the Father took the mangled, tortured, broken body of His Son and raised it up to new life. The point of the story isn’t that Jesus’ soul went to be with God, but rather that the broken body of Jesus was remade into something glorious and altogether new. Not only does Jesus pay for our sins at the cross, but he empowers us for new, resurrection life at Easter. As Paul writes, if Christ has not been raised, then we are still dead in our sins. But He has been raised! And that makes all the difference.

Scholars point out that in John, the Risen Jesus meets Mary in a garden on the first day of a new week; after dealing with all of the sin that had corrupted the old creation, at the resurrection Jesus becomes the “new Adam” on the first day of a new creation week. And so we know that we too, along with the whole creation, will be resurrected one day with Him. As Paul writes, “Christ has indeed been raised, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.” Moreover, Romans 8 tells us that the entire creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed at the resurrection so that the creation might share in the glory of God’s children! What happens to Jesus will happen to us . . . and to the entire created world.

Christ Will Come Again

In Acts, the disciples watched as Jesus ascended into heaven. Suddenly, two angels appear and ask them: “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” And so, along with the resurrection, the ascension reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Risen King who promises to return to us again in glory. Sin has been beaten, and a new day has dawned at Easter, and we wait faithfully for our King to come and complete the work in fullness.

What It Means For Us

Everything has changed! At the cross, Jesus unmasked, disarmed, and destroyed all the sin and death that hides in our hearts and that breaks out in violence, poverty, disease, and injustice. At the resurrection, Jesus has started a “new creation” project that begins in human hearts and pours out and overflows into a New Heaven and a New Earth. And just as our resurrected, vindicated Lord returned to the Father He will one day come again to reign as King over all Creation.

The reason Paul wraps up his teaching on the resurrection by declaring that our works are not in vain is that the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are the Father’s grand YES to the world, His gracious promise that we will be resurrected like Christ, and His invitation to participate in the resurrection of the whole world. Without this YES, this promise to redeem all things along with the “first-fruits” of Christ’s own resurrection, jobs make no difference. Neighborhoods make no difference. Rocks, trees, birds, cities, careers, and homes make no difference. But Jesus Christ has become one of us, has suffered our death, and permanently secured our resurrection life in His resurrected world. Our lives in this world matter. The work we do anticipates the sure redemption of all things, and it is not in vain. Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again! And we’re called to live lives in the kingdom, for the King, by the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and who will raise us and the entire cosmos into new life when Jesus comes again in glory.

Michael Rhodes

michael@advancememphis.org