Godly Deliverance - by Doug Hartman
The book of Lamentations exudes a powerful, prolonged cry for the city. Likely written just after Jerusalem was completely destroyed by the mighty Babylonian army, the book is filled with powerful images describing the chaos and devastation of that time. The young and old both had fallen to the sword and disease. Yet, the author said, it was better to be among the dead than the living. Surrounded by the aura of death and despair, people grew desperate. Food was scarce, and people began to waste away. Compassionate mothers, the author laments, despaired to the point where they ate their own children. Finally, the city's defenses fell to the enemy, and greater horrors ensued. When the Babylonians left, the walls were torn down and burned, the temple destroyed, the sacred objects taken, the homes turned to rubble, and the bodies of victims littered the streets. Survivors of the war who were not carted off to exile as slaves were left to fend for themselves amidst the rubble and debris. Zion, the crown city of Israel and the dwelling place of God in his temple, lay in ruin.
The city and its inhabitants would remain in virtually the same condition for over 100 years. God brought Ezra and Nehemiah back, and they lead the effort to restore Zion to some semblance of her former glory. But Lamentations knows nothing of the later restoration. Here there is only the groan of a people who experienced complete devastation. Amazingly, in the midst of their devastation, the cries of the survivors turned into calls for deliverance. They looked to the Lord and longed for his presence, grasping to the hope that God would heal their city.
Though the circumstances are much different, it is easy to identify with the pain and despair voiced in Lamentations while living and working in inner-city America. War did not bring about the conditions here, but the results are similarly bleak. Homes and buildings have fallen into disrepair. The streets fill with clutter and debris. The aura of death which the author of Lamentations described is present here. Senseless violence robs us of those we love. Mostly, one senses the deflating effects of hopelessness. There is no easy solution and no magical cure. The Light at the end of the tunnel is so distant and unattainable for many people that it turns into a mocking reminder of what you cannot have.
I think there is a necessary place for Lamentations. The "feel-good" gospel where people are immune from life's circumstances has little meaning in the middle of a war zone. There is a surprising amount of the Scripture dedicated to laments. The editors of the NASB Study Bible comment, "A large number of the Psalms are lament poems, and every prophetic book except Haggai includes one or more examples of the lament genre" (pg. 1145). Men and women of great faith voiced their pain and despair to God, and those cries are now an essential part of God's Word. The need to give voice and expression to pain and loss can be a sign of great faith, a manifestation of the image of God. And sometimes our laments can lead us beyond despair to a place where hope is found and deliverance is sought. "Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and bitterness," the author of Lamentations wrote. "The LORD's loving-kindnesses never cease, his compassions never fail."
It is amazing to me how God responded to the cries of his people. Simply and profoundly, God responded with the Incarnation. He brought deliverance and salvation to his people, but he did so by entering into the world he purposed to rescue. The cries and laments of Zion were answered by divine cries, voiced through a human being who experienced life and pain and joy as one of us. The promised child of Isaiah is Immanuel, the God who is with us. Before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he first experienced life in its fullness, including pain.
We talk about these things often enough around Christmastime, but it seems like much of the force and power of it gets lost. How God chose to deliver us has meaning beyond the feel-good "holiday" spirit. God's deliverance was intensely personal. God did not send a fax, an email, or a radio broadcast, assuming that was good enough. Jesus' life and death were limited historical events, so relatively few people heard the message and even fewer believed. Are God's methods too limited and ineffective? Would not the message have gone to a much larger audience if God appeared via satellite to the whole world? Could he have not easily fulfilled the Great Commission in an instant? But God must have had different priorities. God became an individual person, living and pouring out his life among his people. "He came to his own," John wrote in his Gospel (1:11). Before John proclaimed the message, he first had heard with his own ears, seen with his own eyes, and touched with his own hands (1 John 1:1-2). Like the other apostles, he had experienced God's deliverance in the form of Jesus' presence. That personal experience with Immanuel led John and the other disciples to a powerful conviction about him.
The apostles and other disciples continued that intensely personal "method" as they took the message to the world. We minister differently when we use the Incarnation as our model. We understand people's cries and struggles more intuitively and so respond more humanely. We identify with their joys and pain, because they most likely have become our own. Instead of conjuring up feelings we don't know or have, we can empathize with them naturally and profoundly. And we become much more effective advocates for them as situations arise.
When Urban Connections first began, we were strongly encouraged to adopt the "Incarnational-approach" to ministry in the inner-city. If we want to minister there, we ought to live there. As we begin a new year of ministry, I am thankful that we do so among the amazing people of inner-city Columbus. Even with the pain and hardship, I would not want to be anywhere else.

God's Future - by Doug Hartman
Christianity is an eschatological faith. Eschatology is one of those imposing theological words, but it means the study of the "end" times. Anything to do with the "end times" can be easily misleading with TV preachers jabbering about armies invading the Holy Land. However, eschatology is important and desperately needs rescuing. When Jesus talked of the Kingdom of God and of himself as the Son of Man, he was placing his life firmly within an eschatological or "future" context. In essence, Jesus presented himself as a glimpse of God's future. Christianity, then, is figuring out what it means to live in light of that Future.
Eschatology has certainly been understood in a variety of ways. Some understandings are helpful, instructive, even compelling. Others are not. That distinction is important, because if God's future is anything in Scripture, it is instructive, motivational, and compelling. Thinking of God's Kingdom and eschatology as "God's future" (an idea I first heard from author Tom Sine) has proved helpful. Perhaps it helps to move us beyond our modern preconceptions and distractions, allowing the many pictures in Scripture of God's future to speak and to inspire in fresh, new ways. We can put aside our speculations about battles and dates. Instead we find ourselves asking, "What does God's future look like?" That question, I believe, has incredible potential.
The writings of Isaiah give us extraordinary, vivid pictures of God's future. Facing brutal nations and rebellious, stubborn people, Isaiah knew a time of reckoning was coming. He saw the results: whole cities and countries destroyed by their own brutality, rotten from within by their own sin, now lying in waste and devastated by war. That picture is shocking, perhaps, but not all that remarkable. War and sin are not exceptional in our world. It's expected. We're accustomed to it. But God had just begun. Isaiah also saw streets restored, walls rebuilt, and sinful people with renewed hearts (61:4-7, 58:12-14). He saw prisoners of war and exiles in distant lands home. He saw those enslaved or imprisoned for their debts restored and living in freedom (61:1-4). God promised them a land where they could live and sustain themselves without being afraid of theft or having their homes plundered (60:10-22).
God would comfort his wounded people, but God's future is greater than an emotional change. Their grief would be turned to joy, but that which had caused their grief would also change. God would not free captives yet allow the conditions that created the captivity to persist. God promised that under his rule the social and political systems perpetuating the injustice would be broken. In God's Future, the instruments of humanity's pride (our economic extravagance, our military supremacy, and our political capital) will be torn down (2:12-18). The nations themselves (including Israel's enemies) would also be changed. Instead of warring against his people, they would join Israel in worship and study on God's holy mountain (2:4). War itself will be abolished (2:4). As authors Glen Stassen and David Gushee comment in Kingdom Ethics, "the later Prophets are redolent with a deep yearning for salvation, in the deepest and most holistic sense of that word...salvation is coming—for Israel and ultimately for the world, for societies, for families, and for individuals..." (pg. 29). Isaiah's vision of God's future was thoroughly spiritual, political, economic, personal, and social.
As Isaiah saw God bring the end of war and the unity of all peoples under God's rule, he turns his attention to his own people, living millennia from that future. "Come," he said, "let us walk in the light of the LORD!" (2:5). When we begin to see God's future, it will inevitably lead the faithful to a transformed way of life in the present. Seeing the God who loves justice, we will fight for fairness and equality in our justice system. Seeing the deceitfulness of riches, we will reject greed and selfish ambition, developing generosity and vulnerability towards those in need. Seeing whole, restored cities, we will work to rebuild the streets and to create opportunity in broken communities. Seeing the end of war and the world at peace, we will struggle for peace and stand against violence in our communities and in our world. Seeing the Defender of the defenseless, we will become advocates for those who are so easily overlooked and trampled upon. Seeing all of creation renewed, we will learn not to hoard our resources and to trust in the abundance of God's provisions. As we see the supremacy of God's ways, we will begin to live that way now.
The practical ones among us must object at some point. We live in a fallen world...Is God's future even possible for us now? We had a similar discussion with our teenagers recently. As we talked about Christianity not only as a thing of the future but as a changed way of living in the present, the subject of violence came center-stage. Respond to an insult or attack without violence? The idea evoked laughter and smirks. For youth reared in a culture obsessed with violence, that "practical" application of God's future seemed absurd. It is not hard to come to that conclusion. When Scripture calls us to make up for what others lack by giving of our excess, to respond to our nation's enemies not with violence but with love, to invite someone with no home to stay in ours, or to give away rights to wealth and position for the benefit of others, God's Future seems unrealistic, perhaps even impossible.
Yet to live in light of what may seem absurd in the present is the call of faith. We know the definition of faith in Hebrews: "the evidence of things hoped for, the certainty of things not seen" (11:1). We may not usually apply this verse in such radical ways, but the context certainly presses us to do so. We are given example after example of people whose vision of God's Future decisively changed their everyday life. Some abandoned their homes and livelihoods. Many endured mockery and insult. Others were tortured and killed. The community that received this letter had suffered, too: their homes were plundered for aiding people in prison (10:32-34). Living for God's Future is not without sacrifice. Jesus, the culmination of the list, endured the shame of crucifixion. Yet Jesus defied the abuse and humiliation, Hebrews says, "for the joy set before him" (12:2). He had a vision of God's future.
I am not a simpleton. Living a radical Christian ethic is not easy to do or even to understand. It's no different the ‘hood. For inner-city teenagers to respond to violence with peace is a tremendous challenge. It's a cosmic clash of the world's ways with God's future. But Jesus demanded and exemplified that kind of faith, and we dare not change the message. As a Christian community, I think we must continually challenge ourselves to think about, live, and proclaim the way of God's Future.

Our Place - by Cathy Alexander
During spring break Burt Manchester, Tim Baumgartner, Doug Hartman and I piled in a car on a mid-west excursion to see ministries in Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit. Our goal was to learn about "Leadership Development" programs. These programs are meant to mentor kids for several years in a row. We are starting a leadership development program by this fall and we wanted to take in some programs to see what we could learn.
I can't speak for the gentlemen that I traveled with, but I can speak to what I felt after this trip. First of all, it was a good experience (even being almost 7 months pregnant) to travel with these men. We had fun (and teased each other mercilessly) but it is good to be with people who have common vision. It was also good to visit these ministries and gain insight on the programs.
Although I've thought we needed it for a long time, I'm more excited about this new program than when we left. Building up a small, chosen group of kids in all areas of life will be amazing and I can't wait to get started. This is the kind of mentoring that changes lives, families and communities.
But our ministry is different from some we saw on our trip. We have a different vision for our neighborhood. We are NOT solely a ministry to kids. We love our kids, but my love is really for my neighborhood. I want to reach the kids, see them live their lives for Christ and choose a path that is different from those around them, but I also want to reach the moms in our neighborhood, helping them feel supported and loved. I worry about the kids when they're outside at times that they should be in school - but I also worry about the people that hang out on my street without jobs (or at least legal ones). My heart breaks for the prostitutes who show such boldness but must feel such brokenness. I'm saddened by the number of boarded up businesses on Main Street. I'm irritated by the boarded up houses owned by the city that the city ignores. I'm really angered by owners that fix up the surface of a bad house and sell it for way more than it's worth.
Some of those we visited were clear about stating that they were a ministry to the kids to see the kids reached for Christ. Let me tell you that I want to be just as clear that I am not in this ministry for the kids. I love this neighborhood, I love the old man across the street that waves to me every day and plays golf on his 40 foot-wide lawn. I love Hope Christian, our little church in the neighborhood full of people that live here. I love that some businesses are willing to support us because they agree with what we're about (notice the "Bexley Copy Shop" logo on page 2 - they've agreed to be one of our corporate sponsors!!) I love living just blocks from other Christians who love it here, but next door to people who sometimes wish they could find a way out. I really love helping them to see value in themselves and in this neighborhood so that they'll wish for home-ownership and be determined to make this neighborhood a wholly valuable place.
That word "wholly" has really gained value in my mind lately. As the leadership of our ministry talks together about our vision, I'm excited that all of us agree that this is so much bigger than the kids. This is about our neighbors: whole people with problems that are complex. We see our neighborhood as one which could be characterized by stability, justice, hope and love instead of crime, poverty, brokenness and anger. I'm grateful to be on staff here, working with people who see the wholeness of others and the need for wholeness in solutions. That means addressing issues in all areas of life - spiritual, economic, educational, health & safety, civic and interpersonal. It's a huge undertaking, but I couldn't be happier to work in this community and with the people that come here to see our vision come into reality.

- by Doug Hartman
When Jesus appeared on the scene, he proclaimed that the Kingdom of God had come near. The Kingdom was center point of his message, specifically mentioned in his teachings and stories over 40 times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. (The modern church's focus, eternal life, which we usually understand to only mean life after death, is mentioned only 3 times in Matthew.) The Kingdom is not simply about life after death. This is obvious from Jesus' teachings: adultery, divorce, insulting one another and revenge -- these will probably not be huge temptations when the new heaven and new earth come. No, Jesus came to initiate and draw his followers into a new, alternative way of life in the present, a way defined and transformed by God's rule.
I think most Christians would agree with this idea. But in an age where we can read about Jesus bringing good news of the kingdom to the poor, then ignore the poor, we have a problem. When we read Jesus words about loving our enemies, then bomb ours, we have missed something. There is a radical element to Jesus' teaching that is ignored, forgotten or sorely neglected by our contemporary practices of Christianity. When someone starts taking Jesus' teachings seriously, we get nervous. And maybe we should. For most of us, Christianity is a very comfortable faith. I think we need to take a fresh look at God's Word and relearn many of the Scriptures we often take for granted. Dare we accept Jesus on his terms?
It is no accident that Jesus comes across in the Gospels as an advocate for the poor and powerless. In the strange new world of the Kingdom, as theologian Karl Barth said, "...the publicans and the harlots will go before your impeccably elegant and righteous folk of good society" (The Word of God and the Word of Man, pg. 40). But Jesus was more than a social activist; he actually spoke as one of the poor. Jesus came from a poor family (cf. Luke 2:24), and his situation did not improve with age. For example, he ate freely from the stalks of grain in another man's field, a concession for the poor in the Law of Moses. When speaking with a potential disciple, Jesus told the man that, even though foxes had homes and birds had nests, he had no place to lay his head. The Son of God was homeless. When questioned about paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus had to borrow a coin to make his point. And he sent Peter fishing to pay the temple tax (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, pg. 93-94).
It is easy to approach those in poverty as if the situation were their fault. How did they get themselves into this mess, we wonder. Jesus' response should make us think again. He brought healing and wholeness, not condemnation, to the poor. He saw value in these men and women, the image of God in a most distressing form. Jesus understood and presented his ministry in the context of the poor (see Luke 4:18, Matt. 11:5, Mark 2:17). To those who would accept it, he brought deliverance in the form of God's rule. And by his grace, they became active participants in a new kind of rule. It is no wonder that "outcasts" of society flocked to Jesus. Since the modern church does not primarily consist of the poor and the outcasts, could it be that these Scriptures just do not make sense to our ears? What does it mean to call this man our King?
For the early Christ-followers this issue was clear, because not all of them were poor. Several wealthy individuals managed to cram the camel through the eye of a needle and join Jesus and his followers in seeking a new way of life together. But Jesus made the conditions and sacrifices clear first. Some, like the rich young ruler (Luke 18), couldn't accept them and walked away. Others, like Levi (Luke 5), Joanna (Luke 8:3), and Zaccheus (Luke 19), accepted Jesus on his terms, and the kingdom of God came to them, too. We often want powerful and wealthy people to be apart of the church, so instead of losing them, we compromise Jesus' teachings.
The practices of the early church embody Jesus' teachings on Kingdom economics: Luke records their determination and commitment to care for one another, even if it required selling personal property to meet the need (Acts 2:44-45, 4:34-35). Barnabas (Acts 4:36-37) was a positive example of this practice; Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) were negative ones. The apostle Paul was a firm supporter and practitioner of this kingdom ethic: he organized collections to aid the brothers in need back in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1-4, 2 Cor. 8-9) and assured the Jerusalem leadership that he was "eager" to remember the poor (Gal. 2:10). We often talk about Paul's teaching on the Lord's Table (that we should examine ourselves & remember Jesus), but we miss the context. Paul's criticism centered on the abuse and neglect of the poor believers by the wealthy (1 Cor. 11:20-22). This abuse was happening during a celebration (communion) meant to remind them of their poor Savior! If we read the Scriptures carefully, we can see that the early Christ-followers did not respond in exactly the same way to Jesus' teachings. Yet in their various responses, their new orientation to others is clear.
Rebirth in the Bible is always closely linked with the practice of redistributing our resources. Caring for others in need is not some sort of special gift, but a basic sign that God's love is present in our community (1 John 3:17). It is the essence of true religion, James wrote, not a special calling (1:27). We are born again into a family where people need the excesses we tend to hoard. This is not to be done grudgingly or out of compulsion, as Paul argued, but with joy and excitement (2 Cor. 9:7). Rebirth is about changing our devotion. We forget about Mammon and selfish ambition, and we find ourselves newly awakened to God and others. Love of God and other people are the marks of the kingdom!
What does it mean for the contemporary church when we have no place for the poor? How do we develop a commitment to the humanity and dignity of people struggling to live in poverty? How do we reach out to those we have often separated ourselves from? For some it may mean selling everything and discovering anew what it means to follow Jesus. For others it may begin by encountering afresh those in need: sitting with them, hearing their stories, seeing their humanity. For others it may mean throwing a party for the poor and others disregarded by our society (see Luke 14:12-14!). We need to ask these questions though. We need to ask ourselves what it means to follow the homeless King Jesus.

- by Doug Hartman
I love the writings of the Hebrew prophets. They are profound, immensely challenging and inspirational. They can also be heart-rending and even frightening! We don’t tend to talk about or read them much in contemporary American Christianity, and I think we miss out because of that omission. These men and women spoke out bravely for the Lord their God in spite of the fact that their message was often unwelcome and unacceptable. Ahab, one of the most notorious kings of Israel, denounced Elijah the prophet as "the troubler of Israel" (1 Kings 18:17). The later prophets probably adopted that spiteful remark and redeemed it as a badge of honor.
In his incredible work, The Prophets, Abraham Heschel began by describing common characteristics of the Hebrew prophets. We perhaps think of the prophets as preachers, iconoclasts, poets, religious purists, "trouble-makers". Those descriptions are certainly true: the prophets vehemently attacked "religious" or "moral" compromises like worship of foreign gods, idolatry, and the people’s obvious neglect of their relationship with God. But Heschel argued that they were equally scandalized by everyday issues like the abuse of "widows and orphans," and "the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place" (pg. 3). So, we must understand that the prophets were just as much advocates for social, judicial, and economic justice as they were religious devotion. Heschel wrote, "...the prophets take us to the slums...and rave as if the whole world were a slum" (pg. 3).
In modern Western culture, it is odd (and perhaps inappropriate) for the prophets to mix "secular" and "religious" issues like that. But to them, corruption in the judicial system or oppression of the poor revealed as much about their society’s lack of religious integrity as did the worship of idols in the Temple at Jerusalem. All of contemporary life passed before their gaze, and the prophets displayed a keen sensitivity to evil and corruption in all its forms. They define for us what it means to be "wholistic".
Ancient authors often wrote about their countries in glowing prose: glorying in their military triumphs; praising the wealth and prestige of their kings and rulers; reveling in their artistic, civil, and cultural achievements. You will hear none of this from the Hebrew Prophets. They condemned what others would think of as praiseworthy: "Their land is full of silver and gold - there is no end to their treasures! Their land is full of horses - there is no end to their chariots!" (Isa. 2:7). The prophets critiqued ruthlessly, condemning the corruption and faithlessness of God’s people; the incompetence and wickedness of their rulers and military leaders; and the brutality and greed of other nations.
The ancient Israelites baulked at the prophets’ stern message. They accused the prophets of being unpatriotic and malicious. "Unable to bear his words," the priests and king branded Amos as a conspirator and a seditionist and threw him out of town (7:10-13). This was common: many were severely persecuted, some even losing their lives. But were the prophets right? Were religious and social conditions in ancient Israel really as horrendous as they made it out to be? Were the prophets just exaggerating? To a certain degree, this is true (see Heschel’s discussion: Few are Guilty, All are Responsible, pg. 17-19). But, more importantly, what "seems to be an exaggeration" to us, he said, is "only a deeper penetration" (pg. 17). The prophets saw the wreckage of human society, that which others found convenient to ignore.
What we also cannot forget is that behind the prophets’ words stood a God who was enraged at the conduct of his people. To us what may seem be a "tolerable" amount of corruption apparently is weighed differently on God’s scale. Heschel argued that the problem (then and now) is not necessarily a commitment to justice, but a lack of vision: humanity does not have a realistic sense of "the monstrosity of injustice" (pg. 260). "The human mind," he wrote, "seems to have no sense for the true dimension of man’s cruelty to man. God’s anger is fierce because man’s cruelty is infernal" (Heschel, pg. 101). If it is true that God is enraged and provoked to wrath by what to us seems to be acceptable and common social, religious, and economic practices, then it behooves us to reevaluate our sense of what is "acceptable" and "normal".
It is not difficult to see the prophets’ "breathless impatience with injustice" (pg. 4). Their words reveal a God who is outraged by injustice. God’s responses and condemnations are incredibly personal, which tells us his anger is not provoked by some arbitrary violation. No, God’s concern for justice is personal, rooted in his love and compassion for those who are victimized by other people’s selfishness and greed. It is easy to dismiss justice as an impossible ideal, but God’s intolerance and anger here must lead us to a different conclusion. Justice here is not unattainable, simply inconvenient.
Justice is not something that we talk much about or practice consistently in contemporary American Christianity, but its importance to God is hard to miss in the Scriptures. Isaiah put it this way: "Like the blind we grope along the wall...so justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance...the LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene" (59:10-16). Pervasive injustice angers God, but humanity’s indifference to the victims of injustice is appalling to him. The prophets were trouble-makers perhaps, but sometimes we need to be troubled. These men and women were outraged by their society’s indifference to the plight of their fellow human beings, to their rulers’ callous greed, to all the other everyday atrocities of our world. Where are those voices today, crying out against our cruelty and indifference? Are we willing to hear them?
We need to hear the prophets’ cries of protested against the injustices of their world. Even better, we need to develop a sensitivity to injustices of our own day and listen to its victims. It can be a healthy thing to feel the singe of God’s burning anger towards injustice. Behind every pronouncement of doom and stinging critique in the prophets was a deep, compassionate love for humanity, an "exhortation to repentance" (Heschel, pg. 14). A godly intolerance of injustice is not a bad thing. It reminds us how we all could be more truly human.