ST. PHILIP’S CHURCH
February 10, 2008
Suzy McCall - Founder and Director of LAMB in Honduras.
“You asked for a loving God: you have
one . . . not a senile benevolence
that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold
philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host
who
feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the CONSUMING
FIRE HIMSELF, THE LOVE THAT MADE THE WORLDS.”
C. S. Lewis
These words by C. S. Lewis can prepare
and fortify us for the season
of Lent. As we go into the desert, with Jesus, to confront our sin,
to confront
the sin of our society, of our culture, to face the devil himself,
we will,
indeed need more than a benevolent philanthropist or a good lawyer.
As
Jesus went into the desert led by the Spirit , He did not rely upon
religiosity
or doctrine or even fellowship as He came face-to-face with His
enemy.
Humanly speaking, he was alone, hungry and windbeaten, but His
fasting
and His obedience and His faith in the Word of His Father had turned
Him
into a consuming fire. Satan had to flee.
Who among us does not need this fire? To consume our guilt, our
pain, our fears and doubts, our bitterness; Only the pure and holy
love of
Jesus burns through such obstacles to grace. And what else is this
fire meant
to consume? In today’s reading from Isaiah we are introduced to
God’s
chosen fast for us: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to let the
oppressed go
free, to break every yoke, to share bread with the hungry, bring the
homeless
poor into our homes, cover the naked, and reveal our true selves to
one
another. God’s consuming fire, personified in Jesus, seeks out
injustice,
oppression, poverty, hunger, loneliness and selfishness – and
reduces them
to ashes through His people, the Church. Deuteronomy: “For the Lord
your
God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
What might our world look like if every Christian, instead of giving
up chocolate or American Idol for Lent, decided instead to
consistently
confront injustice on a certain front, and refuse to rest until that
injustice was
reduced to ashes? William Wilberforce set his heart against slavery,
and
spent himself in the battle. Amy Carmichael set her heart against
child
prostitution in India, and saved thousands of children from a life
of sexual
abuse in the temples. The binding of women’s feet, the burning of
widows,
child sacrifice, slavery, discrimination – our history contains
story after story
of men and women who joined God in His fast, who allowed themselves
to
be His consuming fire so that others might live freely. These men
and
women were not satisfied with compromise, or acceptable risk, or
general
consensus – where the Lord pointed His finger, the thing had to be
annihilated, reduced to ashes.
Right now in Honduras, the Lord is pointing His finger at a problem
which has become an international abomination. We are losing 100
children
EVERY DAY. They are leaving our country. Teenagers are being lured
away with promises of jobs. Younger children are simply picked up
and
carried off – all of them carried away to the multibillionaire
dollar sex and
pornography business which has the “civilized world” in its grip.
Two
MILLION children are currently being exploited – in brothels, on the
internet, in publications – they are being bought and sold in Asia,
Europe,
Africa and yes, right here in the United States of America. Children
who
should be at home with their families, in school, playing,
laughing,enjoying
their childhood. Instead they are on the market, and I wonder if and
when
God’s Church will rise up like a consuming fire to reduce this
business to
ashes.
Two weeks before Christmas, a woman was walking down the streets
of Tegucigalpa, Honduras with her 4-mo-old baby girl in her arms.
Four
people approached her and violently ripped the baby away. She will
never
see her daughter again. That precious life was placed on the market.
In
Darfur, Sudan children are thrown across saddles like animals, bound
with
ropes, and carried off to be sold as servants, soldier, or for
sexual pleasure.
What has happened, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”? The author
of
Hebrews writes, “Therefore let us be grateful for receving a kingdom
that
cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship,
with
reverence and awe, for God is a consuming fire.” When we worship
God,
we are inviting His love, like a fire, to establish His Kingdom on
earth.
Amy Carmichael served in India for 56
years without a furlough. She
was dragged into court many times for rescuing children from a life
of
temple prostitution. She wrote prolifically, describing the social
and
political struggles, the stories of her children, the God she loved
who never
abandoned her. A great woman who did a great work? She would say
that
she was, instead, the servant of a great God. She did not consider
it
foolishness to risk everything for the sake of one child, and often
did so.
She risked her life, the reputation of her ministry, the lives of
her coworkers
over and over and over again. She understood and embraced something
which many of us have forgotten: Every single life is important to
God.
There is not one person on the face of the earth whom He does not
love like
a consuming fire. What about our own Antonia, the sickly,
microcephalic 5-
yr-old in our nursery in Tegucigalpa? Or Dilcia, whom we found on a
dirt
floor in a mountain cabin, naked and malnourished? Or Darwin, still
on our
streets, selling himself for money to buy drugs. Or Dennis,
abandoned by
his 14-yr-old mother, or Jennifer, left as an infant on the trash
heap? Are
these children worthy of God’s fast? Is God’s consuming fire for
them?
Does He love them as fiercely as He loves us? Do we love them with
the
same love we feel for our own children, our own lives?
In the desert, Jesus turned His back on position, wealth and power.
His choice was costly, by earthly standards, and will be so for us
as well,
should we choose to follow Him. Lilias Trotter, missionary to North
Africa,
wrote: “Measure thy life by loss and not by gain, not by the wine
drunk,
but by the wine poured forth, for love’s strength standeth in love’s
sacrifice, and he who suffers most has most to give.” Loving as
Jesus does
requires real sacrifice, but great victories are won in the Name of
Love.
As we enter this Lenten season, let us
consider the fast which God has
chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to break every yoke, to
feed the
hungry and invite the homeless into our homes. And let us consider
making
this fast endure until our own selfishness, and some of the world’s
injustice,
is reduced to ashes forever. Whom will we seek this Lent?: God, the
smiling dinner host, the senile benefactor, the conscientious
magistrate? Or
Jesus, the embodiment of Love, pure and holy, our Consuming Fire.
Let us pray, with the Franciscans, this
prayer of commitment:
“May God bless us with discomfort at
easy answers, half truths, and
superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our
hearts. May
God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation
of people,
so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless
us
with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection,
starvation,
and war, so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and to
turn
their pain into joy. And may God bless us with enough foolishness
to
believe that can make a difference in this world, so that we can
do what
others claim cannot be done. AMEN.
© Suzy McCall. All Rights reserved.
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