The Ditch Gospel

Deut. 30:11-14; Psalm 25:1-10; Luke 10:25-37; Col. 1:3-14

Central Baptist Church, Lowesville, VA

15 July 2007

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”^[1] John F. Kennedy’s words stand emblazoned in our minds, recalling a national awakening to assume responsibility for more than individual pursuits. It is likely more than coincidence that JFK’s speech is also linked to a period launching the greatest growth in our missionary efforts as Baptists. As Baptists, our gifts to world hunger peaked extraordinarily when secular recording artists launched USA for Africa in the mid 1980’s. All along, we have known what we should do, but we seem to lag in actually getting on with God’s call to follow through with the task before us. Is it really so hard to give priority to the needs of others?

Deuteronomy reminds us that the God’s will in essence is not difficult to grasp. It may be hard to accept and incorporate into our daily living, but not to understand in concept. It is harder to accept what we know and to live according to it. Even so, we are reminded that it is not too hard, after all. We just don’t care to follow what we know. We are too insecure and unwilling to trust God’s good will. Society speaks louder in our ears than God’s message to cast our anxieties into God’s care. If God has called us to become vehicles of divine love, will our needs not be supplied by divine care?

In “The Last Mimzy,”^[2] scientists of the future send a droid into our present to restore corrupted human DNA in our future. A heroic effort has become necessary to secure the future and preservation of human life. A pair of young children must grasp and place the needs of others and before their own to provide for the preservation of life. In the background to the story lies the theme that we must all accept our corporate responsibility to preserve life in our shared world. Are we as willing as the children to set aside personal security issues to assume responsibility for our actions? In Deuteronomy’s words, are will ready to trust God’s care to enable us to follow God’s will responsibly, caring for all of God’s creation?

The psalmist recalls God’s instruction of sinners in the way of proper living. While believers would often consider ourselves as having a direct access line to God’s will, Psalm 25 speaks of Yahweh teaching sinners the proper way to live. It is not so much that believers have special knowledge. What would separate us from the world is following through on God’s instruction. It is in our humility that we learn from God, even in watching others fulfill God’s will from beyond the church walls. Why is it hard to picture myself in the shoes of another in need?

The United Nations developed a set of Millennium Development Goals. There is nothing special about the listing of goals. They are just basic human needs among the neediest on our planet. The goals set a timeline for making a difference in the state of worldwide living conditions, seeking to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. While CBF is looking at adopting these goals and has truly been working to these same ends, we are also playing catch-up to what some outside the church have begun. It is not that we do not know what to do, but we share the very human difficulty of prioritizing the needs of others above our own.

Jesus addressed the issue multiple times in his own day. The parable of the “Good Samaritan” has been quoted and cited not only in Christian religious literature, but also in secular literature and the language and imagination of our larger culture. Jesus’ message of responsibility to care for the needs of all struck a chord, for deep down we all recognize this responsibility. Likewise, we all too easily see our failure to live according to this display of responsible care. Do our lives display concern for all, or only for some “acceptable” portion of society?

Watering Malawi^[3] is about seeing others from the perspective of the ditch. It is accepting our responsibility alongside the suffering of others. This is what our children learned to do in this week’s Vacation Bible School. While studying God’s power, presence, and steadfastness, they also learned to give sacrificially of themselves to meet the needs of others for whom God also cares. We heard stories of breaking piggy banks and giving up three-quarters of a birthday check. We watched a group of sixty-three children and youth raise enough money to pay for two-and-a-half treadle pumps for village gardens in Malawi. Looking beyond their own needs and desires, they saw the needs of others and embraced them as their own. They gave simply because there was a need and they could help. When compassion calls us beyond our comfort and security do we actively respond?

Paul wrote words commending the Colossian believers for their love for all the saints. He recalled how their love was a result of their heavenly hope in Christ Jesus. It was because of this hope that they were enabled to look upon others throughout the world with God’s love. This hope bore fruit in their actions, not in their own circle of friends alone, but in the larger world around them. Hope enabled them to trust that God was truly in the business of providing for their needs. This gave them the strength to believe that they could give sacrificially to meet the needs of the saints suffering famine in Palestine. It allowed them the confidence that if God was caring for their eternal well-being, God would also provide for their immediate physical needs.

Gnostic teaching vied with the gospel by promoting knowledge devoid of applied action. Paul stresses that the gospel’s eternal hope is tied very closely to material and physical expressions in the present world. Ours is no esoterically oriented faith detached from earthly living. It is rather actively living in this world as vessels of God’s care. Faith in Christ empowers us to become the application of God’s mercy, compassion, and redemption—vessels of God’s presence within a world of need.

In Christ Jesus, we are empowered by our eternal hope. We are transferred from the realm of a dark power of selfish pursuits to enter the realm of Jesus Christ. In Him is our redemption from living out of the anxieties and fears of self-preservation into becoming vehicles of God’s grace to an entire world. Paul says that knowing God enables us to live lives that are worthy of the one we call Lord. When we know God’s love and care, we are released to love the world in expression of that care.

Our children can give sacrificially to meet the needs of others. They know that their own needs will be met. Their confidence enabled them to place the needs of Malawi villages ahead of their own desires for items of comfort. Rather than placing limits on care and provision for their needs, they trusted God’s supply to be sufficient for their own needs. Is our hope in the gospel sufficient to allow us to live according to the same confidence? Is it really so hard to look into the ditch to define “neighbor”? It is, after all, only from the perspective of the ditch that the reality of the gospel takes on the full character of God’s love.

—©2007 Christopher B. Harbin

¹ John F. Kennedy, "Inauguration Speech." January 1961, http://www.classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/printer_102.shtml.

² New Line Productions, 2007, http://www.mimzy.com.

³ http://www.WateringMalawi.org.