I remember the day I heard my first call into ministry and my heartbreak in knowing that I was terrified by the call. I was almost certain I would not be able to answer.
I was probably around ten years old, attending a Vacation Bible School at my home church. We were talking about serving “the least of these.” According to the volunteer teachers I admired and wanted to emulate, Jesus would go to any lengths to save the lost. He would leave the ninety-nine for the one stray. Jesus was kind to the broken: lepers, tax collectors, drunkards, adulterers, and the like. He shunned the religious community, who thought they were better than “the sinners” he sought after.
I, according to these giants of faith, was called to be like Jesus. There was only one problem in my childhood mind. I didn’t know anyone who fit the description of those I was supposed to help. I was surrounded by affluence and a community that confessed Jesus, down to the last person.
I could, of course, take the tactic of many of the evangelicals around me. I could be suspicious of others’ claim to know Christ and go about asking any and all, “Do you know that you know?” In other words, I could press hard on any doubts or frustrations others had in their walk of faith and ask if they truly had that “blessed assurance.”
Even as a ten-year-old, I felt something was not quite right about that approach. Yes, it is right and good to occasionally remind others that they need to have a personal relationship with God. Yet, questioning the veracity of their faith week after week seemed to me then, even though I could not articulate it, and still seems to me now that I can articulate it, psychologically abusive.
So, it was decided in my young heart that to be a faithful Christ follower, I would have to leave home. I would have to go into the mission field to find the lost, the broken, the oppressed, and the marginalized. I was not brave enough to leave, and I knew it. I was awash in shame. I could not answer the call. Then again, I was only ten.
As I continued to wrestle with my calling over the next few years, I began to notice that there were, in fact, people in need right here at home. I was still not brave enough to minister to them, but maybe one day I could be. As I grew older and explored more of the world around me, I began to notice suffering, poverty, and marginalization, and I remembered the teachings of the Titans of faith from VBS. Jesus loves everyone and will go to great lengths to help anyone in need. So be it. I was scared, but it’d find a way with God’s grace.
Many years later, I would answer the call. I searched the Scriptures myself, and what did I find? The VBS teachers were right! Jesus served the least of these. He proclaimed he was anointed for such a task (Luke 4:18-19). He was mocked as a friend of sinners (Matt 11:19). He touched lepers (Matt 8:3) and protected adulterers (John 8:7). I fell in love with his way. I felt inadequate but reluctantly decided I’d try. I was going to make my community proud. I was going to live the life they taught.
Along the way, I met others who spoke like my VBS teachers. I accumulated many, many Christian exemplars over the years. With the advent of social media, I could follow them from wherever I found myself. What a blessing, I thought. Now, I will see their witness every day.
Then, I was horrified by what I saw time and again. People I admired began to slander those they found to be “other.” Occasionally, I would have some of them questioning why I chose to serve the communities I felt called to serve. I was fortunate that the landslide narrowly missed me, the vitriol and distrust that seemed to grow exponentially during the pandemic and into the present. Some loose rocks came down the hill in my formative years, but I crested the summit before all hell broke loose.
I had reached a point in my spiritual growth where I was confident I was following Christ, even if those I admired seemed to betray the lessons I learned (not so much my VBS teachers, but those persons I collected along the way who seemed to echo the lessons of my childhood). I did not come through all this unscathed. On occasion, I questioned my call and even my faith because the very people who I thought instructed me down this path now seemed disgusted by any who would walk it. I prayed. God spoke. I set my mind, and I got to work in exercising my faith through serving others. Then, things got worse. I was resolved, but what about others wrestling?
Now, I see people arguing daily about who and how we are to serve, over what is and isn’t acceptable to preach and teach, and who is doing it best (true believers) and who is doing it worst (heretics). The body of Christ is a body of broken bones, as Thomas Merton once put it, and some within do not want to mend because mending might bring them in contact with an “other.” Would I have survived the landslide with my faith intact if the vitriol was as bad in my youth as it is now?
What of the young woman who experienced the same upbringing twenty years after me who now says she can’t believe? She fell in love with the God who cares deeply and loves severely, admonishing the would-be authorities who shunned the outcast. She was told his name was Jesus. She was fully convinced, and when she graduated high school, she got involved in all she could to help. She became an activist because of her deep convictions. Then, she was told she was wrong by the very people she thought had led her here. They labeled her with all sorts of names, just not “Christian.” She was, in their judgment, unworthy of being a part of their community.
She believed she understood who Jesus was based on the very teachings of her elders. She thought she was following Jesus by loving everyone despite the labels others might place on them. Now, they were telling her she was mistaken. Jesus, as she was now being told, only helps those who help themselves. He will only approach if you are immediately willing to conform to standards that strangely seemed cherry-picked. She agreed that Christian life means transformation and sacrifice. She knew Jesus’ call to repentance.
The only issue was that her life of helping others had taught her that very often, being the least of these meant being someone who could not help themselves. Addictions, mental illness, trauma, and the like are significant hindrances that cannot be overcome in a single moment. Bringing others to a place of change takes a lot of time. Demanding immediate change is never helpful. Walking alongside with tremendous patience is necessary. Some never get to a place of healing. But she had always thought Jesus would want her to keep trying because some did discover the grace to heal.
Those who did find restoration kept her going, at least for a little while. She thought that Jesus would understand what she discovered in helping the broken. Some don’t have the capacity for self-respect or dignity. She sincerely believed that sometimes, we have to be patient. We have to love the unlovable. For someone to find self-respect and dignity, another would first need to give them respect and dignity so that they could see they could have such for themselves. Despite all her good work, her community did not celebrate with her.
She was now being told the correct approach was to give “tough love.” Demand the other immediately accept the truth; if they are unwilling to accept the demand, tough. Yet, the people telling her this never interacted with those she served. They had never tried love in the first place. Forget about tough love. Love is tough enough. Love is patient, even to the most stubborn. Love is kind, even to the cruel. Yes, love also rejoices in the truth, as did she. But love also hopes. Love hopes that when someone cannot yet grasp the truth for themselves, that love itself will one day break through. Love takes a long road of sacrifice for the sake of others—no quick solutions.
She also knew from her own experience that she was not perfect. She struggled with her addictions. She would often discover reasons to repent. How could she demand from others what she knew she couldn’t always accomplish herself? She had Christ, and he was gracious. This was not an excuse to live however she wanted. Her life was testament enough that she was more than willing to sacrifice herself. She just recognized her own need for continued grace. So, she thought it only fair to offer the same to others.
In the end, she knew deep down that for many to come to know and love Christ the way she did, they needed to be shown much mercy, kindness, compassion, and empathy. She would promote truth, but she truly trusted the Holy Spirit could do the work of convicting. She would gently share the truth, as much as she knew, at least because she was still learning. She could not demand others to fit a standard immediately that she was still learning to live into day by day.
The people she looked up to and those who supported her on many missions began to rant about the people she served. Hurt, she asked them what she was supposed to think now. WWJD? The response: he would certainly not do what she was doing. She was an enabler. She was too kind. She was not bold enough to give the downtrodden the ultimatums needed to save their souls. She didn’t understand tough love.
So, tragically, she was convinced again by her mentors about Jesus. She believed them. Whoever she fell in love with, Jesus was not his name. She wasn’t sure who Jesus Christ was anymore, but he must be like those who said they followed him. They shunned those she served, and because she was not willing to abandon them, she also allowed herself to be shunned. She was evangelized right out of the faith. They preached at her. She listened, and she was preached out of the church. The last time she was preached out of the church, it was because she was sent out to serve. Now, she felt she was no longer welcome in the community of believers.
She still loves the idea of Love personified. She believes that if Love is not the most significant force in all of reality, it should be. She loves the call to the least of these. She hopes, but now doubts, that there is power to transform through love. She thought Jesus was the one who shaped her heart from stone to flesh, but apparently, he was not who she thought he was. So, she grieved as she let go of Christ. But could it be that this Christ she was walking away from was a false Jesus?
Perhaps the one she loves is still Jesus. She just doesn’t know him by that name anymore. Perhaps she has never really rejected Christ, but a false god she knows deep down to be just that. She loves Love; she just doesn’t call him Jesus anymore because she was told that the one she loves was not Jesus. Some try to say to her that not all in the church are like those who attacked her, but, at least for now, she is still grieving. She doesn’t want to be angry but wrestles with what she feels was a childhood of lies. The Jesus some taught her was no more real to them than the Santa they would hire to entertain the church at Christmas. Fundamentally, she still holds her convictions; she just doesn’t know what to call them.
Yes, we are to confess his name (Acts 4:12), but there is more to names than the words we call one another. To act in the “name of Jesus” is to act in his character. She has not betrayed that, even though she lies awake at night wondering if her detractors are correct and that she is now condemned because she doesn’t follow their Jesus.
I wonder how many young people still love Jesus but have forgotten his name because they were told he was someone other than the one they fell in love with. There are many Christs taught today. Maybe she just rejected a false one. (Matt 24:24).
If I could talk to her, I’d tell her not to give up on Jesus. I would say to her she’s not alone. I’d tell her you can never be too kind, gentle, or patient. There are no prohibitions or limitations, despite what you are told. Yet, you can be too judgmental, too demanding, too self-righteous.
“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.” -Gal 5:22-23
Keep the faith. Love radically. Stay close to Christ, and tell the naysayers who question your mission to go kick rocks… in the name of Jesus.
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