Apologetics from an Anabaptist perspective
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Reading the news can can give one the impression that everything around us is changing, crumbling, ready to collapse. But when I pause to reflect, there are a lot of things in my day to day life that have not changed, and I take courage. Here are a few things that come to my mind:
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon; build ye houses, and dwell [in them]; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. Jeremiah 29:4-7
Aren’t we in much the same position as the Jews who were captive in a foreign land that did not know their God? This vile world that we live in is not a friend of grace, to lead us on to God. Do we think it should be? Do we feel like victims?
Victims we may be, but we are not helpless. God is our help and He instructs us to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get on with living a victorious Christian life, right here where we are. He even tells us to pray for our governments in these heathen lands. And all the countries of the world are heathen lands.
Complaining does not bring peace, it just discourages us. Why should citizens of the heavenly kingdom ever be discouraged? Jesus promises abundant life, it is within our grasp. “Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet.” (Hebrews 12:12-13)
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“God will provide.” We say those words glibly, so certain of their truth that we may appear to have no compassion for people in distress. That isn’t what they are experiencing day after day. Life seems to be stacked against them. Perhaps they don’t have the skills to find a job that will pay a living wage. So they eke out a meagre existence on welfare.
If they take part time work, the income is deducted from their welfare cheque. The government offers financial aid to get the training needed for a better paying job. But if they accept that offer, they no longer qualify for subsidized housing and they are worse off than before. What are they to do?
Some do escape from the welfare trap. That possibility exists for many more, but it looks hopeless who are caught there.
If they could just win the lottery that would give them a way out. Except it doesn’t; the lottery is just another trap. Those who win big are usually back where they started within two years.
The real problem is not a lack of education or a lack of money. Those problems are real, but the underlying problem is a lack of hope. Well-meaning people can’t inspire hope in the poor by telling them that there is work for anyone who really wants to work. All the listener feels from that is condemnation. Neither does it help to label them as lazy or stupid.
A baby watches big people walk around on two legs. Eventually she gets the courage to try it for herself, and she falls. The next day she tries again, and falls again. But she sees the big people doing it and wants so badly to do it herself that she keeps trying. Soon she can stand by herself. Then she takes a step or two, and falls once more. But she keeps trying and pretty soon she can walk; before long she is running.
That is the way life works. Winning the lottery does not instantly make one capable of walking, in whatever metaphorical context one may wish to apply it. None of the people who appear to be so successful in life got there without a shaky start. Everyone began with baby steps.
That is the way that God works in the life of a newborn Christian. Jesus told the disciples “ I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12-13). The Holy Spirit does not dump the whole load on us and tell us the shape up; he gently guides us step by step, allowing us to concentrate on making the next step and giving us a gentle assurance that we are moving in the right direction.
This is the kind of help needed by those who feel trapped in a dead-end street. First, they need to grasp the hope that it is possible to get out of there. Then they need the courage to take just one step. Even if that step doesn’t get them very far, they need to feel that they have accomplished one little thing and that will give them the courage to take one more step. In time their steps become more confident, leading to possibilities they thought were forever beyond their grasp.
As Christians we have a reputation for thinking that the misfortunes of the poor are entirely their own fault, for lacking compassion. I’m afraid many of us have earned that reputation. Perhaps we need to begin making baby steps toward an attitude that inspires hope in others.
Two sisters from a dysfunctional home. Both married at 15, now in their sixties. Let’s call them Kathleen and Karen to keep things straight.
Kathleen’s husband was prone to drunken rages and she bore the brunt of those rages. She finally left, feeling her life was in danger, and took their children with her. She was divorced at 21, lived with several other men, had one more child.
One of those men sexually abused her daughter. The daughter died of cancer at the age of sixteen, her oldest brother came to the funeral handcuffed to a police officer. All the boys had scrapes with the law. None of them ever married, but all have children. Kathleen is unable to have any contact with the children of one of her sons. Neither is he.
Kathleen has lived on welfare most of her life. Her life is a shambles, yet she talks freely of how God has sustained her and occasionally goes to church. She feels she has done the best she could under the circumstances. Her only friends are people in the same circumstances as she is, or worse.
Karen is still married; her husband has provided well for them. They have two daughters, both happily married. Not long ago Karen was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her daughters and sons-in-law rallied around, providing rides to all her appointments and supporting her in every way. She is cancer free, now, but her husband is undergoing cancer treatment. Once again the family is there for them.
Karen never talks about God, but somewhere she got the idea that her life could be different from the life of her parents. Kathleen seemingly never did.
We wonder what made the difference. Could it be the three years that Karen spent in the home of her aunt and uncle before she started school? That wasn’t perhaps the best of homes, but it was light years better than her parents home. The acceptance she felt from her husband’s family must have helped, too.
Still, it is one thing to see that your life can be better than the life of the family you grew up in, It is quite another thing to make that difference happen. Karen was determined, she did what she could to make it happen.
We look at people like Kathleen and say “Don’t they know any better?” I don’t believe they do. I’m sure they have an inkling that things should be different, they wish things could be different, but they have no support, no one to turn to, if they would want to change. What are we to do?
Telling them about faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ is an important part of the answer. But is faith enough? Let’s paraphrase James:
“If a neighbour be forsaken, and destitute of love and affection, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye encouraged and filled with love; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to emotional wholeness; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (Adapted from James 2:15-17).
I worked in Delisle today, sitting in a cubbyhole office in the vet clinic, hunched over a computer trying to get financial records up to date. About One o’clock my stomach finally got through to me that it was time to eat and I walked over to the nearby snack shack. The waitress soon brought me my usual meal of poutine, cookies and Diet Pepsi and I sat down to eat.
A young lady came in, ordered an ice cream cone, ate it while visiting with an older lady at another table. Then she decided she needed a little more to eat. I had overheard her talk about biking across Canada so I started asking questions. She sat down at my table and started answering.
She started out from Vancouver 15 days ago and is trying to average 120 km a day on her bicycle. Her destination is St. Johns, Newfoundland and she hopes to be there in another 2 months. The mountains were slower travelling, her best day so far was 140 km. She is travelling alone, sometimes camping for night, sometimes staying with friends. Tonight she plans to be with a friend of a friend in Saskatoon. At the end of her journey she will fly back to Vancouver and look for work in one of the smaller cities in the mountains of B.C. She is a nurse. I admire her courage and spirit of adventure and I believe she will make it.
Back in 1967, Canada’s centennial year, I was living in a small town beside the Trans-Canada Highway in Southern Saskatchewan. Many people making the cross Canada trek passed through our town that summer, some on foot, some on bicycle, some on roller skates, some on horseback.
A few years later Terry Fox attempted the trip from east to west running on an artificial leg. He had lost his leg from cancer and was raising money for cancer research. There is a monument to Terry Fox beside the highway at Thunder Bay where he had to abandon the trek because his cancer had returned. Rick Hanson made the trip by wheelchair a year or two later, raising money for spinal cord research. Both of these were being accompanied by a support crew of family or friends.
I had to wonder about an attractive young lady making this trip on her own. But don’t we all make our pilgrimage through this life on our own? As the song Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley says “Nobody else can walk it for you, You’ve got to walk it by yourself.”
This young lady knows of others who are making the same trip this summer, she says there is one couple not far behind her. We have company on our Christian pilgrimage through life, they offer encouragement and help when they can, but we’ve got to make this pilgrimage on our own determination. There are people along the way who will offer us shelter, nourishment and a chance to recharge our inner batteries, but then we have to keep on going. We don’t know when our journey will end, but every morning we are one day closer to our destination and it will be worth all the troubles of the way.
