Tag Archives: Prejudice

Chapter-a-Day

“Because You Were Foreigners”

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https://open.spotify.com/episode/197CLi9z4WqJ7VPm9awLgX?si=39wNyYaNSOedb18SahiMHQ

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 (NIV)

I dropped my car off to be serviced yesterday. I was given a ride home and had a very enjoyable conversation with the young man who was tasked with driving me. He was raised in a very different place and culture and was obviously getting used to the quirks of living in a community built by Dutch settlers. He asked if I was from Pella.

I laughed.

With the last name Vander Well, I told him that he had made a safe assumption. Then I informed him that when I moved into the community over 20 years ago, it was obvious that everyone who was from Pella knew that Vander Well is not a Pella Dutch name. My great-grandfather settled in northwest Iowa.

I am of the third generation of a Dutch immigrant in America. I live in a community settled and created by Dutch immigrants. As I’ve studied the history of the great Dutch migration in the 19th century and the history of our community, I’ve discovered a double-edged sword.

On one hand, there is a lot for which to be grateful. There is a legacy of faith, industriousness, frugality, and pride. These are the foundation of an amazing community and heritage we perpetually honor and celebrate. On the other edge of the sword is self-righteousness religiosity, legalism, judgement, and prejudice. I’ve heard many painful stories. Individuals outcast and ostracized. Divisions leading to hatred and resentment. Outsiders unwelcome.

Welcome to humanity.

Moses is leading a similarly human people, which is why in yesterday’s chapter he reminded them three times that God’s choosing them and giving them the Promised Land was not because they earned it or deserved it. Quite the opposite, they had perpetually proven themselves stubborn, whiny, ungrateful, disobedient, and faithless. Which is why today’s chapter is so powerful.

God tells Moses to chisel out two stone tablets to replace the ones he’d smashed. It’s God saying, “Come back up the mountain. I’ll make you a copy of the Ten Words. Oh, and bring a box, an ark, to provide a womb for my Words.”

Second chances. Their brokenness and failure does not negate God’s love, His covenant, or His gracious faithfulness. He is going with them. He will live among them, smack-dab in the middle of their camp. He will fulfill His plans for them, work His purposes through them, and deliver on His promises to give them possession of the land. All this despite them being stubborn, whiny, ungrateful, disobedient, and faithless.

This is the gospel before the Gospel.

The chapter then shifts. In light of God’s grace and mercy what does He ask of His people?

This is the heart of God and the heartbeat of His Great Story. This chapter is what Jesus channels and quotes repeatedly.

Circumcise your hearts. This isn’t about religious observation, but about transformation of spirit that leads to grateful love of God and the tangible love of others.

Love God. Love others. Jesus said those two commands summed up the whole of the Law of Moses.

Then God reminds His people – again – that if they are going to truly love others they need to love the ones He loves. The orphan. The widow. The outcast. The foreigner. The immigrant. The outsider.

Moses is building on zachor – moral memory – that flowed through yesterday’s chapter. God whispers: “Remember your chains. Remember your story – your history – being foreigners and slaves in the land of another people. Treat foreigners among you with the love, grace, and hospitality you wished Egypt had shown you. Be different. Follow my ways, not the ways of the world.”

As I meditated on these things in the quiet this morning, I was amazed at how much it resonated with our current culture and headlines. Borders, immigration, ICE raids, deportations, foreigners, and migrant workers fill never ending news cycles. Ancient Hebrews. 19th century Dutch settlers. 21st century foreigners and immigrants. What goes around comes around.

Welcome to humanity.

I don’t control national policy. I live far from my country’s borders. But, I can take to heart what God asks of me. The very thing He asked of His people through Moses. Love Him. Love others. Especially those who aren’t like me.

As we pulled into the driveway of our home, I thanked my young chauffeur sincerely. I wished him well. He was from a very different place, a very different people, and a very different heritage. He was a fine young man. I liked him a lot. He’s going to do really well here in our community. We’re fortunate he’s here, even if his name makes it obvious that he’s not from around here.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
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Chapter-a-Day

The Good Form of Sorrow and Shame

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Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
2 Corinthians 7:10 (NIV)

Wendy and I have been shocked in recent weeks as we continue to read about the continued rise of antisemitism and the hatred and vitriol spewing out of the mouths and social media posts of others. It breaks my heart and leaves me scratching my head.

A few years ago my friend and I were planning. production of a play called Freud’s Last Session (It was made into a motion picture starring Anthony Hopkins, and I highly recommend it). It’s a historic “what if” play that imagines Sigmund Freud inviting a young Oxford don named C.S. Lewis to his office in London for a conversation just before his death. For reasons that similarly broke my heart and left me scratching my head, the production was black-balled. Nevertheless, we’d had the script memorized and had been working it for some time.

Amidst the debate, the subject of shame arises. Lewis argues that shame can be a good thing and he wishes the world experienced more of it. I remember chewing on this line long and hard. As an Enneagram Type Four, the toxic version of shame has always been a core struggle of mine. The toxic version of shame is a deep sense of being flawed and worthless that leads to all sorts of unhealthy places. But Lewis wasn’t talking about that type of shame.

Today’s chapter is unique in that it addresses events between Paul and the believers in Corinth that are lost to history. He speaks of a letter he wrote to them in which he frankly addressed a matter between individuals within the gathering of believers. Paul states that it was a matter of justice. We’ll never know for sure what it was. What we do know from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is that there were all sorts of troubles within the local gathering. Paul was also frank with them in that letter.

Paul reports that Titus, with whom Paul appears to have sent the letter, had returned. He reported to Paul that his letter produced a sense of “godly sorrow” within the believers. He then contrasts that “godly sorrow,” much like what the character of C.S. Lewis meant by “good shame” in Freud’s Last Session, leads to a positive change which leads to healthy places and salvation. “Worldly sorrow,” he states, leads to unhealthy places and death.

And this brings me back to the hatred I witness in others. It causes Lewis’ line wishing for more “good shame” to resonate in my heart and mind. I love that the believers in Corinth responded to Paul’s letter in the right way, and that it led to good things. It reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the sower whose seed falls on different types of soil and results in vastly different outcomes. I pray for Jesus’ message of love to find good soil in the world and bear fruit. History is filled with examples of the unhealthy and murderous place that hatred and prejudice lead. The world could use some sorrow that leads to positive change.

I will be traveling much of the next two weeks. I plan to return June 9th. Don’t forget there’s an entire archive of posts indexed by book if you would like a fix while I’m away! 👇🏼 Cheers!

https://tomvanderwell.com/2019/09/02/chapter-a-day-posts-by-book/

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

The Revival I Missed

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The Revival I Missed (CaD Matt 8) – Wayfarer

“I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Matthew 8:11-12 (NIV)

At the time I was in high school ours was the most racially diverse school in the state of Iowa. This was not only true because of desegregation, but also because of the large number of Asian refugees who entered the state in the 1970s after the war in Vietnam. Add to these the large racial population differences the other social breakdowns of jocks, geeks, burnouts, band nerds, and the like that were common in the day. It was diverse community, though I remember there being relatively little conflict.

I spent most of my high school years in student leadership so I connected with and communicated with kids from all the various constituencies in our school. From an activity perspective I was at the heart of things a Fine Arts Loser largely involved in theatre, show choir, and choir. Socially, most of my high school years were spent as part of a tight-knit group of Jesus Freaks. We had a holy huddle that stuck together socially both inside and outside of school.

During those years a revival broke out within our student body. It happened through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and a number of jocks in our school became followers of Jesus. It’s hard to communicate how this reverberated throughout the school. There were some radical conversions of individuals I never would have expected to become believers.

What was fascinating about this event is that I and my friends in our holy huddle had nothing to do with it. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. Here we were staying in our lane, sticking together like a herd of scared deer trying to protect ourselves from prowling lions, and assuming that certain individuals would never, ever, in a million years consider believing in Jesus. Think Peter and the boys learning that their greatest enemy, Saul/Paul, had become a believer. It felt a little like that. So, I and my posse were really not a part of the spiritual revival, at all.

This was not lost on me.

In today’s chapter, we are still at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He spent 40 days fasting and being tempted. He was baptized by John. He delivered His message on the mountain. Things are still in the launch period of Jesus’ Miraculous Mystery Ministry Tour. Along comes a Roman Centurion whose servant is sick.

STOP.

It’s easy to gloss over the 80,000 pound elephant in the room. Romans were hated. Romans were the oppressors. Romans were the enemy of Jesus’ tribe and occupiers of their land. Romans were despised, godless, violent, and merciless usurpers. Jesus’ tribe was waiting for the Messiah to arrive and wipe the Romans out in a holy bloodbath. It’s hard for a casual, modern reader to understand the social and cultural context of this Roman Centurion approaching Jesus.

Think a Russian military general approaching a Ukranian in occupied territory.

Think a German SS officer coming to a Frenchman in occupied Paris during World War II.

Think a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan walking into a civil rights meeting to talk to Martin Luther King Jr.

Think Donald Trump walking into a local DNC resistance meeting.

What’s fascinating about this episode is that Jesus not only graciously accepts the Centurion and heals His “enemy’s” servant, but that Jesus then makes clear that this is just the first tremor of a massive, tectonic spiritual shift that Jesus is bringing. This is the tremor. The events of the entire book of Acts is the earthquake.

Jesus explains that individuals like this Roman Centurion (vile, hated, despised, enemy) will be seated at “the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus’ tribe considered this feast to be an exclusive, members only event for holy huddle members only. Jesus goes on to make clear that in the coming spiritual earthquake, those who are considered enemies will take a seat at God’s feast while those in the holy huddle won’t get past the doorman.

I’ve never forgotten that revival in my high school, nor have I forgotten that the only joy I experienced with it was to watch it happen from the cheap seats. I was too busy being a faithful member of the tribe. I was sequestered in my holy huddle assuming everyone outside of our huddle was an enemy to be avoided, if not feared and/or despised. How badly I missed Jesus’ entire Message.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself committed to learning from that lesson even though it is over 40 years later. Jesus’ core message was about the last being first, His love for the “least,” and God’s Kingdom operating opposite the hierarchical socio-economic caste system of this world. In God’s Kingdom,

I am to generously give if I want to receive.
I am to bless those who curse me.
I am to love my enemy, and pray for those who persecute me.
I am to rejoice in my suffering, especially being the object of hatred.
I am to die to myself if I want to experience real life.

And, I need to be willing to step out of my holy huddle like Peter stepping out of the boat to walk to Jesus on the water, if I want to be part of what God’s Spirit is doing.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

“Those People”

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“Those People” (CaD Acts 22) – Wayfarer

The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
Acts 22:22 (NIV)

I gave a message to our local gathering of Jesus’ followers yesterday. We’re in an interesting and challenging series of messages in which we’re exploring how we react and respond when our lives get interrupted. This can take the form of life itself interrupting with challenges, struggles, trials, and tragedies. It can also be what happens when Jesus interrupts as He did multiple times to multiple people after the resurrection in John chapters 20 and 21.

In today’s chapter, Paul is being escorted by Roman soldiers to the Roman barracks for his own safety. The riotous crowd of his fellow Jews were following, screaming death threats, and threatening to stone Paul. In a courageous act, Paul asks the Roman soldiers to let him address the crowd.

Paul starts by providing his religious resume. Paul was raised and educated in Jerusalem and was a student of a man considered the greatest teacher of the time. He was a card-carrying member of the most powerful theological sect and had been the most zealous hunter and prosecutor of Jesus’ followers.

Then Jesus interrupted his trip to Damascus.

What’s interesting about this version of Paul’s story is that he gives us an additional detail that Luke failed to mention when he reports the story back in Chapter 9. After his conversion, Paul went back to Jerusalem. He went back to the Temple to pray. We don’t know where this event was on the timeline of Paul’s life. While praying, Paul fell into a trance and God told him to leave Jerusalem because the Jews there wouldn’t accept his story. Instead, God tells him, “I will send you far away to the (non-Jewish) Gentiles.”

With this statement, the crowd immediately erupts back into their murderous rage.

The good religious Jews of this time were prejudiced against those who were not Jewish. Keep in mind that the Law of Moses specifically commanded them to love foreigners living among them as they love themselves (Lev 19:34). Like good lawyers, they found ways to twist the Law to justify doing the opposite. Even the Jews who had become disciples of Jesus struggled with accepting Gentiles as equals.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my own prejudices. Yes, I have them. I suspect we all do to one degree or another. I once gave a message and asked my listeners to close their eyes. I then asked them who came to mind when I said the words “those people.” I had more than one person tell me that day that they had to confess their own prejudices after that.

It’s easy for me to point the finger at the Jews of Jerusalem whose racism against anyone not Jewish is glaring in the story. As a disciple of Jesus, I’m commanded to actually obey the command to love others as I love myself without loopholes, addendums, or exemptions. I can’t honestly Confess “Jesus is Lord” unless I honestly confess and repent of my own prejudices against those who pop to mind when I consider “those people.”

When Jesus interrupted Paul’s life, he was required to learn to love and embrace the very people he’d been systemically taught to ignore and even despise. Jesus asks the same of me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Game Changer

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Game Changer (CaD Acts 10) – Wayfarer

He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.
Acts 10:28 (NIV)

When I was in high school, our school had the most diverse student population in the state of Iowa. At least, that’s what I remember being told. Between desegregation and the wave of Asian immigrants who entered the state after the Vietnam War, we had a mix of three very distinct ethnic groups. Layer on top of that mix the fact that the white kids had very distinct social groups of nerds, jocks, burnouts, etc.

Our educators created a group made up of leaders within all of these ethnic and social groups. The idea was for the leaders to get to know each other, talk to each other, and share with each other their stories and experiences. As a teenager, this experience was pretty amazing. It taught me a lot about empathy and respect for others.

I believe it is hard for a modern reader to comprehend the level of religious, cultural, and ethnic separation that existed between first-century Jews and the non-Jewish (aka Gentiles) around them. God had been clear in the Law of Moses that His people were not supposed to mistreat foreigners living among them but rather to bless them. Over time, it became less about blessing and not mistreating and simply became segregation. In today’s chapter, Peter himself says that it was inappropriate to associate with anyone who wasn’t a Jew.

Jesus had already laid down both the teaching and the example that His Message was for all people. He’d commanded the disciples to take His Message to all nations and to the ends of the earth. We’re now several years into the Jesus Movement and it’s still primarily operating as a Jewish sect centered in the Jewish capital of Jerusalem.

In telling the history of those early years, Dr. Luke chose to confine the story to some of the most pertinent events. The acceptance of, and mission to, Gentiles will be a radical game changer for the devout Jews who have, to this point, made up the core of those in the Jesus Movement. It will create huge rifts and there will be a tremendous struggle for Jewish believers to let go of the cultural divide they’ve lived and believed in their entire lives.

In setting us up for this tectonic shift, Luke shares two key events.

The first was the radical conversion of Saul, who became the greatest and most zealous proponent of taking Jesus’ Message to the Gentiles. Being educated and well-connected in the Jewish establishment, Paul will also leverage his clout and former standing to give Jewish believers an example to follow as well as comfort in the shift.

The second key event happens in today’s chapter. Peter, the undisputed leader of the Twelve, is given a vision and then a divine appointment with a Gentile. Not only was Cornelius a Gentile, but he was also a Roman Centurion who was reviled by zealous and patriotic Jews living under Roman occupation. God makes it clear to Peter that the old Jewish rules of “clean” and “unclean” food and people no longer apply. Jesus’ Message and the indwelling Holy Spirit are for people of every tribe, nation, and language.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about the cultural divides that still exist, even in my own fairly heterogeneous small town in Iowa. My job is to love others in my circles of influence, but that includes all of those with whom I have contact. Even in a small community, I confess that it is easy to stick with my peeps. How many people do I have the opportunity to engage, but choose not to because it’s uncomfortable breaking out of the normal, daily, cultural routine?

I can do better.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

No Signs Needed

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No Sign Needed (CaD Jhn 4) – Wayfarer

And because of [Jesus’] words many more became believers.
John 4:41 (NIV)

For the past four months, since the heinous events of October 7, 2023, the headlines have been dominated by the intense conflict between the terrorists of Hamas and Israel. We have seen heated and sometimes violent demonstrations around the world. We have witnessed the impassioned feelings on both sides of the conflict. What many fail to understand is that the conflict between people groups in this region can be traced back thousands of years. They were as real for people in Jesus’ day as they are today.

In the first three chapters of John’s version of Jesus’ story, he has made a point of the “signs,” or miracles, that Jesus performed. He went on to describe the religious leaders for whom no “sign” was good enough as they demanded a bigger, better, more magnificent miracle, while the crowds who saw Jesus’ miracles/signs at the Temple during the Passover festival believed because of them.

For the largely Jewish audience that John was addressing when he wrote his account, today’s chapter takes a shocking twist. Jesus leaves the region near Jerusalem and heads back north to His home region of Galilee. To get from one to the other in a straight line, Jesus had to travel through a region called Samaria. This was an issue.

The people in the Samaritan region were Jews who hundreds of years before Jesus had intermarried with non-Jewish inhabitants during the time when the northern kingdom had been taken into exile by Assyria. To Jesus’ people, the Samaritans were half-breeds (or mud-bloods if you’re into the whole Harry Potter nomenclature). Good Jews would walk miles out of their way to avoid walking through Samaria. I can’t help but think about the delineations drawn today between Israel and Palestinian regions and the antipathy between them. Jesus was like a Jew walking into and through Gaza or the West Bank.

Jesus not only leads His disciples directly through Samaria, but He strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman. It was socially unacceptable for a Jewish man of Jesus’ day to speak to any woman in public. Jesus strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman. If Jesus was playing poker with the cultural rules of His day, His conversation with the Samaritan woman was Him going “all in.”

I find it fascinating that John shares this episode so early in his version of Jesus’ story. John’s audience was well aware that the Jesus movement had torn down traditional social and cultural distinctions between men and women, Jews and non-Jews, along with slaves and slave owners. In writing about Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, their two-day stay with the Samaritans there, and the Samaritans’ belief in Jesus, John was providing his readers with the reason that Jesus’ followers were so revolutionary in crossing such entrenched social mores. It’s what Jesus did Himself, and the example Jesus commanded them to follow.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I couldn’t fail to notice one small detail that I find of profound importance. John has already established how important Jesus’ “signs” and miracles were in leading His Jewish audience to believe in Him. When it came to the Samaritan woman and her people, there were no miracles worked. There was no “sign.” Instead, John specifically states that these socially unacceptable half-breed deplorables believed Jesus simply at His word.

I’m reminded this morning that as much as the world has changed since Jesus’ two-day stay in Samaria, the human condition hasn’t changed. People groups still hate one another with generationally perpetuated hard hearts and homicidal intensity. Individuals still seek “signs” from God as a prerequisite to belief. I find in the despised Samaritans an example I hope I emulate every day on this chapter-a-day journey: Simply taking Jesus at His word without the need for any other signs.

I couldn’t help but think of the episode John will share in the final chapters of his account. The risen Jesus invites Thomas to touch His wounds and verify that it was really Him. After Thomas proclaims his belief, Jesus responds “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

God, make me less like Doubting Thomas and more like the Samaritans.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Two Guys Alone in a Mall

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Two Guys Alone in a Mall (CaD Matt 11) – Wayfarer

When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Matthew 11:2-3 (NIV)

When I was in high school, there was a recording artist named Steve Taylor who I avidly listened to along with almost all of my friends. He wasn’t an A-list celebrity. He was more of a niche artist. Some might even say that he was an acquired taste. Nevertheless, he was a “famous” recording artist and we devoured every song on every album. His stuff was edgy, counter-cultural, and he pushed at a lot of issues and causes in his lyrics that resonated with me and my peer group.

In college, I worked evenings and weekends at a bookstore in the local mall. Despite the category of “book store,” the store sold a lot of music and gifts.

One Saturday in January, the mall was completely dead as is normal for shopping malls in the frigid midwest after the holidays. On this particular Saturday, Steve Taylor was scheduled to spend the afternoon signing albums for fans in my bookstore. I was the only person on duty in the store that day. I seem to remember that only one or two customers came into the store that afternoon. It was just me and Steve Taylor standing around and hanging out for an entire afternoon.

Steve Taylor wasn’t what I expected. He wasn’t as good-looking as the album covers made him out to be. He was witty and right-brained, but he didn’t have the cynical, even caustic spirit I expected him to have based on his lyrics and music. He had less ego than I expected for someone who, in my estimation, was a famous artist. I expected him to be annoyed that no fans showed up wanting to see him and have him sign their albums. He seemed not to care at all. He just hung out with me. We talked, we laughed, and we got to know each other a little bit. It was two guys spending an enjoyable winter afternoon in the quiet bookstore of an abandoned shopping mall.

Like many children of my generation, I grew up going to Sunday School every Sunday and going to Vacation Bible School every summer. All of those experiences taught me about Jesus from the perspective of the United Methodist Church’s institutional education system. I learned a lot of the stories that I continue to read in my chapter-a-day journey. A lot of what I learned was helpful and instructive.

I was 14 when I asked Jesus to come into my heart and life. In a simple, fumbling prayer I personally surrendered my life and asked Him to be Lord of it. At that moment, I had a divine experience. In a way, it was the first time I personally met the Jesus I’d heard so much about. Like any relationship, it has been a process of learning, knowing, and being known. There were even some things I had to unlearn. There were things that were taught me by the institutional education system, all with the best of intentions, that gave me false perceptions of who I’ve found Jesus to be in my relationship with Him.

In today’s chapter, I found it fascinating that even John the Baptist questioned whether Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus certainly wasn’t immediately ushering in the Judgement Day that John had prophesied to the crowds. It was clear that Jesus’ teaching and ministry had not met John’s expectations or preconceived notions. John had to send his disciples to ask, “Did I get this all wrong?”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself looking back on a 40-year relationship with Jesus. The Jesus I’ve come to know as I’ve spent nearly 15,000 days asking, seeking, praying, searching, listening, obeying, and following is so much more than the two-dimensional character on my Sunday School handout. Like any relationship, I continue to peel back layers of knowing and being known. There have been moments when I foolishly and proudly thought I fully knew Jesus; There were moments that I thought I had Him “nailed down” (pun intended). If even John the Baptist had moments of needing a realignment of knowing, why wouldn’t I?

From my current waypoint on the journey, I’m quite convinced that I haven’t even scratched the surface. The more I jettison preconceived notions and approach the chapter each morning with an open heart and mind, the more I receive, the more I find, and the more I experience the door opening to new discoveries.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“All People”

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"All People" (CaD John 12) – Wayfarer

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.”
John 12:20-21 (NIV)

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
John 12:35 (NIV)

I recently read an interview with a social scientist in the Wall Street Journal who has spent his academic career studying the blending of people groups within a culture. With the current cultural conversation around prejudice and racism, he raised some interesting facts that no one is talking about. Leading up-to World War two, ethnic groups in America kept to themselves. Italian, Irish, Dutch, German, and the like congregated together in neighborhoods and/or small towns. Prejudice and conflict between ethnicities was strong. Even in my small town of Pella, Iowa there once was a time when a neighborhood on the south side, known as “South Pella” was predominantly Irish amidst our town of Dutch immigrants.

Then after the war, in which different ethnicities fought together side-by-side and gained respect for one another, people began to intermarry. Ethnic prejudice is relatively non-existent today compared to what it was. The “melting pot” blended ethnicities. Now, the scholar says, the number of bi-racial couples has been rising steadily for decades. Some 20% of our population no longer fit into the categories of White, Black, Hispanic, or Native American because they are the offspring of bi-racial couples for which we have no applicable choices on the census form. With each subsequent generation the number of mixed race individuals will grow. Races, he believes, will melt together just as ethnicities have done. It’s already happening, though no one is talking about it.

A modern reader can scarcely understand how racial, gender, and religious prejudice were a way of life in Jesus day. One of the things that made Jesus a “radical” in the eyes of the religious leaders was His intentional crossing of every social boundary. Jesus crossed both ethnic and gender lines when he spoke to the Samaritan woman. He then taught and performed miracles in Samaria at a time when good Jews typically went out of their way to travel around Samaria because the hatred between Jews and Samaritans ran so deep. Jesus’ ministry among the Samaritans threatened the orthodox ethnic prejudice that was part of the culture of the day. Jesus healed a Roman Centurion’s son when Roman were the hated, occupying enemy. Jesus touched lepers. Jesus partied with tax collectors and unrighteous sinners that any good, religious Jew would self-righteously avoid.

In today’s chapter, John slips in an interesting fact. It’s the last week of Jesus’ earthly life, a group of Greeks ask Jesus for an audience. Greeks were another racial group that good Jews avoided since they regarded them as dirty and inferior. Jesus, however, welcomed them, though John does not share any of the conversation He had with them. The fact that Jesus welcomed them is important to John’s first century readers because the number one conflict in the early Jesus Movement was the long-standing prejudice between Jews and non-Jewish Greek “gentiles.” John was addressing those who might say, “Jesus never hung out with Greek gentiles, so why should we?”

John is also connecting the welcoming of the Greeks to something Jesus says later in the chapter: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” In drawing “all people,” Jesus boldly sets forth His mission to bring love, salvation, and redemption to anyone who believes regardless of DNA, gender, skin color, ethnicity, social status, economic status, family of origin, tragic mistakes or messed up life.

The Greek word that John uses for “lifted up” is hypsoō which has multiple definitions. It means literally “lifted up” (as on the cross) and also means “exalted” (as in resurrected and glorified). How fascinating that “exaltation” comes through suffering, just as Jesus said in today’s chapter: “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

In the quiet this morning, I’m feeling both inspired and challenged. I’m inspired by Jesus’ example, and His mission. John would also write the book of Revelation in which he is given a glimpse of eternity. He describes people “of every tribe and people and language and nation” gathered together to “exalt” the glorified Christ.

Or, as U2 describe it:

I believe in the Kingdom come,
when all the colors bleed into One.

At the same time, I am challenged to reclaim Jesus’ example of crossing any and every social boundary, excluding no one in channeling God’s love, and to exhort fellow believers in my circles of influence to do the same…until, together, all colors cross into a new reality and bleed into One.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day, Wayfarer Podcast

“Jesus People Very Nice”

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“Jesus People Very Nice” (CaD Ex 23) – Wayfarer

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9 (NIV)

My Vander Well family in America is here because of one ancestor, Walter Vander Well (born Wouter van der Wel) who came to the States from South Holland and settled in northwest Iowa in the 1880s. He was part of multiple waves of Dutch immigrants who settled across Michigan and Iowa, founding rural towns like the one Wendy and I call home today. Five generations later there’s a small army of Walter’s descendants spread across the continent from Michigan to Iowa, Canada, and all the way to the west coast.

Immigration is a fascinating thing. Wendy and I were privileged to see a play at London’s National Theatre back in 2009. It was called England People Very Nice by Richard Bean. The setting of the play is a poor tenement building in London and a neighborhood pub. It humorously chronicles the multiple waves of immigrants to flood into Britain over time from French, to Irish, to Jewish, and Bangladeshi. Each wave lands in the low-rent tenement building and raises the ire of the locals in the pub. The previous wave who was hated by the locals, now find themselves being the locals hating the next wave of immigrants. It continues to stir conversation for Wendy and me in light of the immigration issues of our day.

I have observed this same pattern in the experience of my Dutch ancestors who initially struggled to acclimate to life in America. The Dutch huddled together in small communities and clung to their Dutch neighbors, language, and way of life. This often fueled local resentment towards them. My grandparents were both the first generation born in the States and they both spoke Dutch fluently. They refused to teach my father and his brother because of prejudice against the Germanic sounding language during World War II. Our little town, both steeped in its Dutch heritage and proud of its successful American experience, is now sometimes criticized (a la England People Very Nice) of being closed to aliens moving in.

In today’s chapter, God continues to provide the ancient Hebrews with specific rules for life. God repeats the rule mentioned in yesterday’s chapter about treating foreigners living among them with deference. Fascinating that it’s mentioned twice in such proximity to one another in the text. It leads me to wonder if the repetition speaks to the importance God places on it, or the knowledge that it will a tough one to obey given human nature. I personally conclude that it’s a case of “both, and.”

As I mulled this over in the quiet this morning I couldn’t help but think, once again, beyond the letter of the law in the text, to the Spirit of the law to which Jesus pointed time and time again. Far from being obedient to the command, Jesus’ people separated themselves from the aliens living among them. They treated foreigners and those of mixed-race, like the Samaritan people, as inferior. They created systemic social and religious barriers much like the ones we are addressing in our own culture today.

When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, when He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, and when He commanded His followers to take His message to Samaria, He was addressing systemic racial prejudice. Jesus was pointing His own people back to the heart of God that motivated the law repeated twice in yesterday’s chapter and today’s. He was, essentially, pointing to His own law of love: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Isn’t that what God says in the text? “You’ve been an alien in a foreign land. You know what it’s like. You’ve been the victim of prejudice and hate. So treat the aliens living among you with loving-kindness the way you wished you’d been treated in Egypt.”

Jesus’ followers did just that and “turned the world upside-down.“

I’m reminded this morning that Jesus was not about adherence to textual rules. Jesus was about following God’s Spirit to speak, act, and relate to others in accordance with God’s heart. As a follower of Jesus, I’m called to do just that in my own world and my own culture. That’s what I want to do. That’s who I want to be, increasingly, this day and each day of this earthly journey.

Of course, that requires me to act differently than human nature has led people to behave in ancient Judea, in London tenement houses, and in Dutch-settlements in America, along with almost every other people group on the earth. May I speak and behave in such a way, with anyone with whom I interact, regardless of what they look like or where they are from, that it would be said of me: “Jesus’ people very nice.”

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Of Tribe and Time

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Of Tribe and Time (CaD Ex 1) – Wayfarer

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
Exodus 1:8-10 (NRSVCE)

When it comes to a film, the first shot the director gives you is always an important one. In movie terms it’s called the “establishing shot” and most casual viewers don’t realize how important it is to provide you with the setting, the environment, and the emotion. In many cases, the establishing shot will foreshadow the entire theme of the movie with one quick visual. For those interested, here’s a quick look at some of the best of all time…

Likewise, great authors provide readers with a literary version of an establishing shot. The opening prologue or chapter lay out the scene for the reader.

In today’s chapter, the author of Exodus establishes the scene for the story and the journey on which I am about to embark. At the end of Genesis, Jacob (a.k.a. Israel) and his 70 descendants and their families, flocks, and herds had migrated and settled in the area of Egypt to escape a famine. His long-lost-son, Joseph was Pharaoh’s right-hand and had welcomed them and provided for them.

Exodus now picks up the story, and in the establishing shot, we find that Israel’s descendants have settled in Egypt and have been fruitful in multiple ways. His sons and grandsons are growing their families, having lots of babies, and each is becoming his own tribe. Between Genesis chapter 50 and Exodus chapter 1 we’ve gone from one Hebrew tribe to twelve growing tribes. The problem is, political winds have shifted.

In ancient cultures (we’re talking about 3500 years ago) the world was a harsh, violent, lawless and brutal place. It was tribal. You were born into a tribe, your tribe protected you, and life was about surviving against other tribes. Some tribes, like Egypt, had successfully become nations but every nation and every tribe was focused on protecting themselves against the threat of other tribes bent on conquest.

In Egypt, the new Pharaoh (that is, Egyptian ruler) and his administration take stock of the fact that Israel’s tribe has become tribes, and they have slowly proliferated within Egypt’s kingdom and territory. That is a threat. Remember, it’s a tribe vs. tribe world. Having that many people from a foreign tribe living in their kingdom was scary. It’s one thing to protect yourself from an attack from the outside. It’s another thing if a tribe living among you goes rogue. From a political perspective, Pharaoh had to address the threat. So, he moves to persecute the Hebrew people living among them and to limit their population growth.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself mulling over both the differences and similarities in our world. It’s that point of tension between two extremes. On one hand, the world has changed drastically in 3500 years and that’s the reason many 21st century readers struggle mightily with the brutality and violence of the ancient stories of the Great Story. If I want to understand the Great Story, I have to be willing to embrace that I will never fully understand ancient history yet embrace the understanding that it has value in the context of a larger eternal narrative.

On the other hand, I also find myself muttering that there is “nothing is new under the sun,” and the more things change the more they stay the same. In China, the government is persecuting people groups and religious groups within their population to try and stop their proliferation. They also have, over recent decades, infamously adopted birth control measures eerily similar to Pharaoh (e.g. allow the girls to live, but not the boys) in an effort to control the political and economic threat they feel from population growth. It also strikes me, as I mull things over, that the same tribalism at the root of the Egypt/Hebrew conflict presented in today’s chapter is at the root of everything from benign sports rivalries to toxic racial, social, nationalist, and religious prejudice. I also think of gangs, cartels, crime organizations, religious denominations, and political parties. Humans are still tribal in a myriad of ways.

When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, told the story of the Good Samaritan, healed the child of a Roman Centurion, and sent His apostles to “ends of the earth” He was pushing His followers beyond their tribe. He prescribed a different type of conquest in which tribal boundaries are breached with love and proliferate generosity, understanding, forgiveness, repentance, and redemption. That’s the tribe with whom I ultimately wish to be associated.