Friday, March 20, 2009

saying goodbye is scary.

today i sent a long-time church friend off to country X. She wasnt a very close friend, not to mention she only started coming back to church not long ago. and i regret not catching up with her enough, to make her more comfortable in church once again, and just hanging out because somehow, even after years of change and growth, i feel like she's family.
and in such long-lost friend cases, usually people would move on without thinking of much, just like in slumdog millionaire, how the brother treated latika as dead, as a long lost friend, and moved on with his life.
but no, when i reflected and remember how i used to talk with her online, even after she left church, the occasional HIs and casual chit chat, there was something in me that urged me to it, time and again. i have a soft spot for my friends who knew God once, i think. and now she's (i think) in country X, going to start life all over again for the next ___ years. leaving her troubles, problems, worries and everything for now, and moving on as well.
when she told me how she kept photos of the last event we had together as memories, my heart kind of broke. it was barely a few months of reunion after years, and only one encounter of going out together, and she was already feeling like there is something to remember here amongst the church people..
i really dont know what probed me to do it, but i really went down to the airport so early this morning (of course i arranged for a car ride, thanks alan!). i dont know if its a kind of guilt i felt, or the times when i held many grudges and anger against her when i was still much younger and kinda hated her in the past (she was my childhood arch enemy), and forgot, but never forgave her.
Or perhaps God is really giving me a portion of his heart recently. i've realised slowly that im able to feel for individuals lately... i felt a friend's heart broke and her fears when she was praying. i felt another friend's sorrow and loneliness in a mission trip when she was sick and had to be "quarantined". i felt compassion for a nation. i talked more to someone in church who was constantly neglected.. i sat down and prayed with another who had issues with his future. i sat to eat with a once backslided friend who STILL feels neglected. i used my failing example as a gauge for my parent's. i havent done such stuff before! it is truly the spirit that leads and enables! and slowly but subtly, i think i've been making small but deliberate effort to feed the hungry, clothe the naked. to sit and eat with the rejected, lonely and outcasted. slowly but subtly, my eyes are being opened to things and needs i've never seen before. perhaps God has given me this 'tainted identity' now for his greater purpose? perhaps he has plans that are subtly forming up and solidifying.

i did a search on "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" and i found verses from matt, luke and mark. but i shall use the one from matt because of the additional phrase that i highlighted. by the way, jesus was eating with the sinners and despised people of society.

Matt 9: 11-13
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

firstly, Jesus didnt come to screw the sinners up. no, he came to lead them to repentance, which is by no means a painful trial in which you confess everything and make yourself worthy to repeat all the bad sins again, no. repentance simply means, finding the way back to God. therefore, Jesus' ministry was specifically to call the sinners.

in modern day context, 'sinners' has become too serious a word. we despise such people and they are condemned, assiociated with vices like sex, drugs, rock and roll, and so on. but no, the 'sinners' here simply referred to people who were more lost than anything else. the sick, not the healthy, who needs healing in his soul/heart.

this verse struck me hard in more than just one way. it was really jesus' mission to save the lost, heal the sick. specifically, the rejected, neglected and outcasts of society. it could have been anything else! to save the world. to heal all the sick. but it was specifically that! just to the lost!

and in the church, shouldnt we be making a more deliberate effort to reach to the outcasts? in a book i've read, it is researched that the more left-out people in church dont stay, simply because the support and love they need isnt coming from the church. the church today is a big, cool clique. they are nice and friendly and loving to each other, but not active in doing exactly what jesus did. to deliberately sit with the sinners and lost ones. the diseased ones that are lonely and outcasted.
what is the church for when the very people who need help isnt receiving it?
more so, even as my own life has been tainted, i think i've been able to feel and identify how the outcast in the church feels. but its ok, im not affected. its just that now im able to understand the lost better.
a new perspective hit me, Jesus as the "church rebel". he didnt conform to the elite-ness of the pharises and just won debates by word of mouth, but he practically LIVED it out. MADE HIMSELF UNCOMFORTABLE. LAID DOWN HIS RIGHTS FOR OTHERS. because he had compassion for the lost. and because he had compassion for the lost, he himself became one of them.

"i desire mercy, not sacrifice" it is written in the old testament, in Hosea 6:6 (read all of Hosea 6 to have better contextual knowledge).

Jesus asked the pharises of that day to meditate on what it meant. Do you believe scripture still speaks today? Mercy, not sacrifice. him who has ears, let him hear.

Dear friend, though you wont know this blog, in a very strange way, i feel this sense of loss. like a new friendship picked up for one day, before it being put on hold again. such touch-and-go feelings, i just pray and release you to God's care. i could only do that much, to send you off haha. please take care, and have a great time at country X. and we're always keeping you in prayer!


Posted by keithc at 9:14 AM