God's Deliverance of the Suffering: What The Bible Says

Genesis 16:11
The LORD has given heed to your suffering.

Deuteronomy 26:5-9
My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders; and He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Nehemiah 9:25-29
They captured fortified cities and a fertile land. They took possession of houses full of every good thing, Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, Fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled and grew fat, And reveled in Your great goodness. But they became disobedient and rebelled against You, And cast Your law behind their backs And killed Your prophets who had admonished them So that they might return to You, And they committed great blasphemies. Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them, But when they cried to You in the time of their distress, You heard from heaven, and according to Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors. But as soon as they had rest, they did evil again before You; Therefore You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they ruled over them. When they cried again to You, You heard from heaven, And many times You rescued them according to Your compassion, And admonished them in order to turn them back to Your law.

Exodus 22:22-24
You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you afflict him at all, and if he does cry out to Me, I will surely hear his cry; and My anger will be kindled, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

Psalm 10:17-18
O LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror.

I Peter 2:20-24
If you do what is right and suffer for it and you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

II Thessalonians 1:4-10
We speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. This is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed-- for our testimony to you was believed.

Romans 8:16-28
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to suffering, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

I Peter 5:10
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

A Home In Gresham

Today, the East County Day Shelter Network expands. Anawim has been able to open up two more days of the day shelter, Wednesdays and Fridays. This means that the day shelter is open now five days a week!

This means showers for homeless folks in Gresham three days a week, instead of just one.

It means that the outcast in Gresham have a safe place to be five days a week.

It means that more folks from different churches have an opportunity to serve the poor.

Praise God for His provision! And we thank the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference for giving this opportunity!

Anawim's Lamentation

 

My own people laugh at me.

God has filled me with bitterness. He has given me a cup of deep sorrow to drink. He has made me grind my teeth on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust. Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is.

I cry out, "My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the LORD is lost!“ The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.

I will never forget this awful time.

Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the LORD never ends. By his mercies I have been kept from complete destruction.

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.

I say to myself, "The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!“ The LORD is wonderfully good to those who wait for him and seek him.

So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD.

Lamentation 3:14-26 (NLT)

How Jesus Anawim Works

There are equal and opposite extremes between the gospel and culture: assimilation and complete rejection. Most churches are somewhere in the midst of some compromise between these two extremes. The Amish are at one extreme, rejecting all of culture until it can be found to be acceptable to the spiritual life of the community. However, even in the Amish there are cultural assumptions that are not biblical, such as a farming lifestyle as well as clothing fashions that might be more than a hundred years old, but they aren’t two thousand years old. Even so, some churches or youth groups seem to be completely assimilated, yet if there is any preaching of God’s word, then even the most liberal churches are a compromise between the gospel and modern culture, not true assimilation.

Culture, of course, is itself a compromise between traditionalism and new ideas. Any culture, as traditional as it seems, is an evolved form from the old ways of doing things and more recent. Perhaps a culture—such as hidden societies untouched by the world—seem so ancient to us. But every culture, without exception, is touched by human innovation. The more humans that touch the culture, the more innovation, but innovation and creativity is a part of every culture.

And with every innovation, there is a traditionalist portion of a culture that is disgusted by the innovation. It is not simply a disagreement about the innovation—it is an out and out revulsion. As if the innovation is the one item that would undermine the basis of the traditional culture. Sometimes the traditionalists—those who distrust innovation—are right. Some innovations really do undermine traditional culture. Some ideas are so radical, so in opposition to where a culture has been, that the older culture would no longer be comfortable in the newer one, should the innovations really take hold. In this way do the traditionalists rise up in opposition to certain innovations. Of course, traditionalists are not opposed to all innovation—only those that undermine the basic values of their traditional culture.

And innovation does not always win the day. Culture always progresses, but not always in the direction of new innovation. In fact, radical innovation often creates a backlash of traditional values, creating a pendulum swing. Should the battle be strong enough, then a culture war develops, battle lines are drawn and the whole world is seen to be on either one side or the other.

A compromise culture is usually created near the center of the battle lines. Thus a new set of values, philosophies, systems and cultural icons are created out of the previous battle. This new cultural consensus becomes the new tradition. When the next radical innovation comes, then it is this synthesis that feels attacked and creates the new battle lines.

In church culture, it seems that the traditionalists hold sway, but this is far from true. There are many innovationalists within church culture. The traditionalists in the church often have the older resources to have a louder voice, but innovationalists also have a strong voice, however weaker it is than the traditionalists. In this manner, the church can be an active participant in both sides of the culture wars.

The traditionalists seem to be more the heart of the church, because they have been able to use the cultural trappings of the church for longer periods of time. They have traditional songs and their interpretation of Scripture has been repeated so many times that it is the assumed “correct” interpretation of Scripture. What must be remembered, however, is what the Christian innovationalists repeat ad nauseum: that the traditionalists were once the innovationalists of old. That they do not, nor ever have had, a monopoly on “truth.”

This may seem to the innovationalists that their truth is equal to the truth of the traditionalist. In a sense, that is so—they could both be equally wrong. And they probably both are. Because, as different as they seem they are fundamentally the same—they are both swayed by the repeated a priori assumptions of their party, rather than seeking for truth in a semi-objective manner, recognizing their own weaknesses as seekers of God’s values as well as their oppositional parties.

The difference between the church and the rest of the world is the third group that is neither traditionalist nor innovationalist—or, one might say, they are both. These are the group that interprets the various culture battles via the word and acts of Jesus. Not necessarily by the “Bible” in general. The Bible is to vast, too varied of opinion, too complex in values to really pinpoint. But Jesus, as a single, but powerful force in the Bible, is much easier to read and understand. When interpreted against himself alone, his words and deeds act as a single testimony that continually speak to and challenge the church, as well as the rest of the world.

And within the church are those who do not align themselves with either the traditionalists or the innovationalists, but with Jesus alone. This group would instinctively see the weaknesses of both groups and so could not stand behind either. Because they would separate themselves from the culture wars and instead, in standing with Jesus, mount a lifestyle “attack” on all sides.

The innovationalist sees the Jesus follower as traditional, because they would accept a few of the values of traditionalist that they could not accept, simply because Jesus also held those values. However, Jesus is so radical, that He is seen as innovative to all cultures. Jesus is the promoter of the undermining of all systems—whether traditional or innovational. Jesus seeks to welcome the cultures that both the traditional and the innovational rejects. And Jesus does not participate in culture wars, for He is on a crusade for love of all people, which no cultural warmonger could ever support. For all war—whether martial or cultural—is a compromise of universal love.

Thus, those who focus on Jesus alone as their Lord—not the traditional Jesus, but the radical Jesus of the gospels—act as a third group in neither the traditional nor innovational parties. And this third party is what preserves the world, keeping them from destroying each other in the latest cultural war. The third party may suffer much themselves—as they accept suffering and persecution even as Jesus did—but they never fully disappear from this world. For every Jesus follower that disappears, one or two more takes his or her place.

The Jesus follower can be seen as traditional, because Jesus is the basis of all his or her values. Thus, like a traditionalist, the Jesus-follower can seem text-based and stagnant, without interest in any real change. However, since Jesus is such a radical that He has influenced the world without the world ever really accepting Him, standing for Jesus’ values and beliefs is always innovative, always outside the box. To delve deeper into Jesus’ principles of life is to automatically be seen as the outsider, the unacceptable to both the traditionalists and the innovationalists.

This is not the only manner in which the Jesus party is an outsider. The Jesus party, in following the example and principles of Jesus, is also a pursuer of the outcast. The outcast—the “sinners”, the “poor” the “needy”—are those who are seen as unacceptable to either the traditionalist or the innovationalist. Both cultural groups for one reason or another might want to adopt an outcast group, but only to bring them into their cultural agenda. Should the outcast group reject the assumptions of either the traditionalist or the inovationalist agenda, then the outcast individual remains outcast and the outcast society remains a viable cultural entity, separate from both sides of the culture war.

At the onset, it seems that the Jesus party and the outcast group are natural allies, as they have been both rejected by the main cultural forces. However, the Jesus party and the outcast societies do not share the same hopes or values any more than the Jesus party and the two main cultural groups do. The outcast societies (every broad society has at least one, often a number of them) are the children of their own sociological and cultural forces: disenfranchisement, dehumanization, sense of victimization, and a longing for being accepted for who they are. It is this last sociological force that draws the Jesus party and the outcast together: the Jesus party have a desire to accept the unacceptable and the outcast have a need for acceptance.

Nevertheless, it is a tenuous alignment. The Jesus party sees their hope in Jesus and want the outcast to seek Jesus as they do—His live, principles and His self as the center of their being. The outcast are constantly doubtful that they are being accepted for who they are, rather than for what they could be in Jesus. And those of weaker faith in the Jesus party end up standing in one cultural party or another, finally throwing their hands up in opposition to the outcast because, in the end, they believed in change more than in Jesus. But the strongest in the faith of Jesus remain with the outcast in patience and hope, because change or love is not in their hands, but in the hands of the all-powerful Spirit.

Because of this, the mainstream culture—involved in one way or another in the culture wars—don’t know what to make of the Jesus party. On the one hand, they identify with the outcast, which makes them one with the outcast. On the other side, they provide the best examples of love and society working despite differences that any culture has ever seen. Some become so oppositional against the Jesus party that they are openly attacked. Mostly, however, the Jesus party just does their work in quiet—quietly changing the world, quietly undermining all the premises of culture war.

A quiet revolution of culture, that will never completely take over the world. It remains at the edges, where it belongs.

Anawim in Hebrew

 

Leeanne put this together.

A Very Brief Primer On Anawimic Theology, Being the Basis of All True Understaning and the True Good News To the Poor

Yeah, well, the title is longer than the post:

Jesus especially calls and ministers to the outcast of the world.
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners. Mark 4:17

God greatly rejoices when a single one who is outcast from his kingdom returns to him.
There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:7

The outcast of the world who are righteous before God will receive God’s greatest blessings.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10

The righteous should assist the outcast in any way they can, even sacrificially.
Sell your possessions and give to those in need; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven. Luke 12:33

The outcast of the world who are disciples are to be held in equal esteem in the church as any other disciple.
If you show partiality against the poor, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. James 2:9

The outcast are to rejoice in their lowly position, for they will be raised up.
Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up. James 1:9

Relationships With The Poor

This article is adapted by Amigos MCUSA from a book review by IsaacV
on the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog, available at:
http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2008/07/08/book-review-simple-spirituality-by-christopher-heuertz/#comments

Relationships that open us to God

Christopher L. Heuertz doesn't claim to offer any secrets to spiritual
success. Instead, he shares what God is teaching him through his
friends, who happen to be the poorest of the poor.

In Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World (InterVarsity
Press, 2008), Heuertz's spirituality isn't a call to close your eyes
and think about God; instead, friendships with the poor make
friendship with God possible.

Our parents were right: we are who we hang out with. Our friends shape
who we are. That's not something to run from. Humans are relational
animals. There's no such thing as autonomy; it's a delusion. The
fibers of our being, Heuertz notes, "are made for relationships" (54).
But we can choose with whom we form these friendships. Our hope is
that the church may be a place where those friendships can happen. But
what does it mean when our churches don't welcome the poor?

Are we on the side of the poor?

Or, to put it more strongly, what does it mean when we aren't begging
the beggars to worship with us? Heuertz doesn't mince words: "If our
community makes no room for those who are poor, our community loses
all credibility" (58). While Jim Wallis is trying to fight for justice
on the national scale, Heuertz offers a much more intimate vision, one
that transforms our daily lives: "We work not for justice for everyone
but instead to ensure that we're on the 'right' side of the poverty
line" (58). Are we on the side of the poor?

That's his question. This isn't a political platform for a lobby
group. Rather, it's about what side of town we live on. Who are our
neighbors, who are our friends, who sits next to us when we worship,
who eats at our table? These questions mess with our lives. They haunt
our everyday decisions. But these questions also send us to the poor,
who offer us intimacy with God. And typically God shakes up our lives
so God can offer us an unimaginably better one.

Overflowing abundance gets messy

Jesus: "I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly."
But overflowing abundance gets really messy. "We want to let God in,"
writes Heuertz, "but usually on our terms. We want to make room for
Christ to reign on the thrones of our hearts, but only a clean Christ
who doesn't make a mess of our lives" (63).

Heuertz writes, "Jesus' ministry was not to the upper class, the
educated, the elite or the most influential social figures. Jesus came
and ministered among those who were poor, with the poor and as a poor
man. His ministry was to the children, those who were begging, victims
of leprosy, the woman at the well, the woman caught in the act of
adultery, the tax collectors, the fishermen communities and those on
the margins.

Following Jesus alongside common people

"Jesus came to the common people and lived alongside them. As a
church, we must learn new ways to celebrate our faith inclusively so
that those on the margins of society will feel welcome – and so that
our love and acceptance of the other will aid in our paths to
holiness. Jesus' ministry was marked with a distinctive compassion for
the oppressed poor" (69).

I am grateful to Heuertz and his friends for showing me that such an
abundant life is possible. I can't begin to do justice to Heuertz's
storytelling; that's what makes the book a must read. Read it for the
stories of real life, of real friendship, of people we can never meet
because they are dead now. And also read it for the joy of abundant
life, the joy of Christ's resurrected life, a life broken open for
us..