A Day of Worship

Today was good. I learned...or realized, rather. We led a church service this morning, where the only other attendees were Glenn and Janet Newcomb, their daughter Jennifer, Ekk, two Christian teachers from Annubaan Chiang Mai (where one of our team's will be working this week), and one other Thai lady who came in late. Thomas and Joel did an excellent job of leading worship. And then Amy led a fantastic Bible study on John 15:1-17. It is Jesus' very familiar parable of the vine and the branches. But it was delivered in a new way. Amy did a great job of picking out some interesting and important parts of the parable. One thing that stuck out to me was the actual question of what is this "fruit" that we are to produce. I had gone through my whole life just assuming, for some reason, that this "fruit" meant that we were to be having other people come to Christ. That's a nice thought and goal, but I also don't think it is true. I thought of it in the way that a real branch simply cannot produce fruit without nutrients flowing through and out of it from the vine. Without the lifeblood of the vine flowing into it and then out of it into the fruit, the branch would die. It wouldn't be that a branch that doesn't produce fruit would be chopped off, it would fall off, because it would die. To produce fruit is to be alive. Fruit that is a continuance of that nutrition that we get from the vine. And if the overflow of the vine is love and compassion, among other similar things, then our "bearing fruit" would be us sharing these same things with other people. I believe that not bearing fruit doesn't incur death, it is death. If we are alive in Christ, as we are, then we should be spreading that life. The distinction that I made for myself today was that we are not called to make people become "Christians." We are told (I actually very much dislike the word "called," especially after all of the distortions I think it has gone through) to love people. To love them in a way that they know that there is something real about our love that doesn't exist in other people, that there is something beyond us wanting to feel good about ourselves for following some religious precept. Strangely enough, this is exactly what Jesus mentioned next in His parable. Verses 9-17 read as follows (in the New Living Translation): "I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it--the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. You are my friends if you obey me. I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn't confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father has told me. You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. I command you to love each other." I could say so much about this, but I will not. I will just say that Jesus draws some very clear parallels between his relationship with his Father and our proposed relationship with Him. He also follows every statement by showing exactly how it is to be enacted. We are to obey, in order to be in His love. We are commanded to love each other. We are told that the greatest measurement of said love is to lay down our lives for our friends. This just happens to be exactly what Jesus was about to do. He was telling us that He loves us the very most that is possible. He said "...for our friends," and then goes on to tell us that we are "...(His) friends if (we) obey (Him)." But what does it mean to obey? What is the command? He commands us to "...go and produce fruit that will last...." He commands us to "love each other." So simple, yet so profound. He loves us, we love them. This may be an example of scripture speaking directly to me, and meaning little to others who read it, but it did impact me. The point isn't convincing people that Christianity is right. The point is to love them for the sake of loving them, to love them because God loves us. To love them to the point that they KNOW that there is something supernatural going on. Is that possible? Yes. We went from the church service (which was held in a house-type structure) to Big C, a mall type place, where we had lunch. It was fairly normal. From there we returned to the Guest House. Shortly thereafter, Stu arrived. Stu is from New Zealand. Stu talked to us about Thai culture, Buddhism, and Christianity. It was stunning again. He took our "key" Christian verse, John 3:16, and showed how it made absolutely no sense to a Buddhist, and therefore a Thai. To them, "God" means next to nothing. There are gods all over. To them, "gave his only son" means only that their attempts at holding on to nothing and giving up everything, a core Buddhist idea, are worthwhile. To them, "not die, but have everlasting life" means that they would have no chance of reaching Nirvana, and would instead be forced to continue there endless reincarnation cycles with no hope of escape. To them, John 3:16 would sound worthless, at best. In order to really get them to understand about our God, and how great He is, will take more than shoving a Bible under their noses and trying to prove truth to them. Americans hold truth above all else. Thais hold relationship above all else. To reach a Thai, to reach a Buddhist, is to build relationship. To build relationship generally takes more than 2 weeks. Stu left. We were all provoked to much thought, and brought down to reality a bit. But the thoughts were nowhere near complete until Glenn shared with us from his heart immediately following the departure of Stu (who in no way was trying to tell us that our time here was pointless, only that we needed to have focus, and more realistic goals). Glenn shared from Matthew 25:35-40, another familiar passage. "'For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.' Then these righteous ones will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' And the King will tell them, 'I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!" That is how we can share the gospel with the Thais. Not by forcefeeding them something that they won't understand, but by loving them in a way that they cannot ignore. God doesn't need us, but he uses us. And we are here, and we are willing, and God will use us. Pray that we will be open, pray that we will be mindful, pray that we will be focused, and above all, pray that we will seize every opportunity that we are given to love these people.