Not Until All

“But there will be no poor among you…If among you, one of your brothers should become poor…you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be” (Deuteronomy 15:4, 7-8).

Not yet.

Calls Moses. When you get into the land the Lord your God is giving you, if you see a poor man among you, care for him. There shall be no poor among you (Deut. 15:7-11). In the Promised Land, but salvation is not complete for you as long as there are poor among you.

“And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess. All your men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel….until the Lord gives rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also occupy the land that the Lord your God gives them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to his possession which I have given you.’” (Deuteronomy 3:18-21).

Not yet.

Calls Joshua. The Reubenites and Gadites already had their land, their possession, but they were not to rest, they were to go with their brothers and conquer all the land and then return to their rest. Conquerors, but not complete until all the brothers possess it.

“…when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily…” (Isaiah 58:7-8).

 

Not yet.

Calls the prophets. Defend the orphans! Care for the widows! Do not turn away from the naked, your own flesh and blood! Cries out Isaiah (Isaiah 1; 58).  God is redeeming, working, calling you into and then out of exile, but the new exodus will not be complete until all are in.

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19).

Not yet.

Calls the mountains that are charred by forest fires. Calls the oceans that grimace in pained tsunamis. Calls the volcanoes that heave in torrents of lava. Calls the winds that are wracked in torturous hurricanes. Not yet. Even creation.

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24).

Not yet.

Calls Paul. Suffer with those who suffer; rejoice with those who rejoice. Caught up in both the joys and the sorrows, there is a together not yet. Christ’s afflictions are not yet fully realized in a sense, as not all are included, not all are wrapped up, not all have heard.

Salvation is not complete. Yes—glorious yes, our individual salvation is assured! Christ’s death was sufficient! But my, our, together-mine-and-our salvation and redemption is not complete until the most vulnerable are cared for, until the gospel has been preached to all nations, until the mountains rest their heaving.

In my individualism it is easy to forget. Easy to turn my back on my flesh and blood that is languishing in their addictions, the autistic boy who walks up and down the street in restlessness, the woman caught in domestic violence that I just wring my hands and throw them up not knowing what to do. Easy to say they are not part of me.

Easy to say that the Muslims who have never heard the gospel in a land I can’t even quite place on a map is not part of me.

Easy to say that the false teaching of That Other Church is not my problem, not part of me.

Easy to give up on someone who has been sick for twelve years, to stop praying and stop hoping and stop fighting. They are not part of me.

Individualism—I’m fine. I’m responsible for me.

El-Hedine Mosaic

But God made male and female, he made them in his own image. Together. United, in one flesh, they echoed the Triune God. He blessed them. He prayed to our Father. Not my Father, not your Father. He put us together as members of one body. We are living stones, built into one temple. We are one kingdom of priests. We are commanded, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

Oh, dear God!!!! Let me not rest until all! Not some broad universalism, no God has chosen, elected, knows individuals—but he is using us to bring his salvation to its completion. Until the poor in the kingdom of heaven are cared for. For I know personally the pain that one part of the body can bring to the whole—so how can I rest when others in Christ are languishing, facing foreclosure, bearing empty bellies, bearing the persecution? Until the lame are brought in, the Gentiles of today, until the servant of the Master of the wedding banquet brings in all.

My dear Savior, let me be part of it! Grant me your passion for your name, for your glory to fill the earth! Grant me eyes to see the beaten woman, the teen helpless while her mother sells herself and drugs and whose vision for her own life is dimmed, the addict stumbling down the road, the woman in prison, the wealthy and worldly content business man, the career woman sacrificing her peace and her children on the altar of commerce, the elderly who are neglected, the arrogant teen, the ones who have disorders and diseases for years and years as those who you are potentially calling to your kingdom. Potentially as my fellow-arm, my fellow-leg, my fellow-nose, my fellow-eye in Christ. Will I rest while Christ is amputated? Will I rest while I am amputated? Will I rest while you are amputated?

In a very, very real, supernatural real way, I cannot be fully saved, fully healed until the world that tore me, that tears others, in its beauty and pride and in its ugliness and brokenness, is made whole by our Lord and Savior. And the world that tore me, the death that tears me—Christ in me is sending you-me-us-we working in and through his body, you-me-us-we to reach out. God who reaches out to envelop you-me-us-we wants to envelop others. God who healed you-me-us-we wants to bring his healing through you-me-us-we. You-me-us-we cannot rest. A holy restlessness, born of Christ’s own heart in us! Under our Head, Christ!

Day in, day out, I myself bear the ravages of death in nausea, pain that spasms up my back and neck, lays me flat with headaches and feels like it cracks open my skull, in sleepless nights, in fatigue—marks of death. But may, oh Holy Spirit, may this moment-by-moment reminder not cause me to despair or to turn inwards, but to remind me of the ransacking forays of the forces of death that are at work around me.

Christ is reconciling ALL things to himself—HE is the HOPE, he is the ONE WHO IS WORKING. But Lord! Use me! Use you-me-us-we. Your body, various members, me, myself. They is we in you. Other is me in you. Different is unity in you. And brokenness is healed in you. Pride is humbled in you. Fear is stilled in you. Together, Jesus, with your power in me and in us your church, may we work to complete what is lacking in your afflictions to the ends of our block, to the ends of our workplace, to the ends of our extended family, to the ends of the brokenness, to the ends of the heaving of creation, to the ends of the earth.