I recently revisited a notorious trauma text—the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah according to Genesis 19. I was in search of good news in a dark and difficult Scripture, hoping it would help me find some good news here and now, in our dark USA.

For years I’ve led people in comparisons between Abraham and Sarah’s warm hospitality of strangers (who turn out to be YHWH and two angels), in contrast to the men of Sodom’s attempt to violently abuse the sojourners, and Lot’s abhorrent attempt to protect his visitors at his daughters’ expense.

On this visit to Sodom I notice for the first time comparisons between the two angel guests’ visit to Lot, and Jesus’ sending of missionary disciples in pairs to receive hospitality, heal the sick and announce the nearness of the kingdom of God (Lk 10:9).

These two messengers are sent because God says to Abraham: “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave, “I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to me; and if not, I will know” (Gn 18:20-21).

The two men head down on a fact-finding mission, while Abraham stays back with God, interceding for anyone who might be counted as righteous below. The messengers experience the oppression firsthand, and their visit turns into a rescue mission for undeserving and reluctant members of the family of God.

Abraham’s intercession bears fruit, and the messenger men offer spiritually-empowered protection against predators before rushing Lot, his wife and daughters out of town before it’s destroyed. Their intervention shakes a family co-opted by an evil culture out of their spiritual stupor. They, like many in our society today, seem to have fallen prey to spiritual blindness and near paralysis.

A mob surrounds Lot’s house, calling for him to turn over his visitors so they can violate them. Lot tries in vain to reason with them, calling them “my brothers.” He offers them his virgin daughters in the place of his angel guests. The men of Sodom then turn on Lot, prompting the men (angels) to reach out their hands and bring into the house, shutting the door. They then strike the predators with blindness (19:10-11).   

The men urge Lot to bring his family out the place and Lots tries to comply. He urges his family to flee the city before it’s destroyed, but his sons-in-law think he’s just joking.

When morning dawns the angels urge Lot to get out of town. “But he hesitates. So the men seize his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him; and they bring him out, and put him outside the city” (19:16).

Today in the America where I live the story strikes me as highly relevant. So many seem entrapped by predatory powers, pulling them (and me) away from the narrow path that leads to life. God’s compassion is at work, and like Jesus who sent out the seventy, the Spirit recruits and sends out people on fact-finding and rescue missions now.

Over the past months I was prompted to go looking for a young man I knew from the jail, who I’d heard was caught up in a meth addiction and suffering from diabetes. He was living in a notorious place with other addicts and people hiding from the police. While I prayed for him, I put off looking for him, and then heard the tragic news a few weeks ago that he’d died of Covid.

I also felt compelled more recently to look for another man, and I delayed again. When I heard he’d been hit in the head with a baseball bat and was back in jail facing charges that could give him a third strike according to Washington State law, leading to a life sentence, I decided to pay him a visit in the jail. This visit went beautifully, and my friend urged me to visit that notorious place, telling me to tell the people that he’d sent me.

I have since visited the place and been well received, meeting people who are facing imminent eviction and homelessness. The story is still unfolding, so let’s return now to the outskirts of Sodom to see what happens there.

When the angels bring Lot, his wife and daughters outside one says: “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away” (19:17).

Lot lamely negotiates for an easier solution, but then complies. He, his wife and two daughters flee and are spared. In contrast Lot’s wife “from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (19:26).

The fate of Lot’s wife is brutal in its finality. There’s no turning back from becoming a pillar of salt. She looks back and it’s too late. And yet we see the urgency to flee and the finality of death far too often here in our streets and in our country today!

A woman who used to attend our services comes out of a drug and alcohol treatment program earlier this year, immediately relapses on heroine laced with fentanyl, and dies of an overdose. Someone with active warrants for minor offenses, on the run from law-enforcement, sells drugs to make some quick money to hold their family over and to post bail. They’re busted for drug dealing and now face years in prison.  A Christian leader I’d written several times, attempting to challenge his overtly nationalist and anti-vaccine blog posts dies of Covid. Not escaping for your life and looking back can have fatal consequences, as Philoxenos of Mabbug, a 4^th Century Christian mystic comments.

“So then, if you are following Jesus, walk behind him and do not turn back behind you. Remember the wife of Lot: because the love of her people and the sound of the howls of her friends had forced her to turn around and look behind her and she became a pillar of salt, as it was written concerning her. Because her soul did not become salty by fear of the Most High, she became a pillar of corruptible salt. Remember then this woman who was divided in her mind and perished, so do not become divided like her and do not turn around behind you lest you remain on your spot. It will be this way for you, if not in your body, at least in your soul. Whoever turns around and looks behind himself after he has departed on the journey of this road, his soul will become an unfeeling pillar. Just as the wife of Lot had ceased bodily sensation and so became a pillar of salt, so also here the thought that always looks back at corruptible things will cease and be numb to the sensation of spiritual things, because the memory of the world acquires for us the dullness of the heart and soils the clarity and purity of the soul, and this physical worry will obscure and darken the pure gaze that renders the min capable of constant vision towards God…

Therefore, depart from the world, O disciple, by that example in which the apostles had departed, in deed and not just in name, by one’s own thought and not by pretense; by will and not by outer appearance; by desire and not by chance; by discernment and not by tradition; by freedom and not by law. Daily make the desire of this spiritual way of life new in yourself. Taste life while making everything moral die from you.”

I’m trying to pay closer attention for myself, my family and for others the Holy Spirit puts on my radar. The compassion of the Lord is still at work, compelling us to seize people by the hand at times, and urging them to flee temptations and dangers.

Jesus himself was moved with compassion when he saw the crowds “distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest” (Mt 9:36-38). May we not delay in our response to his recruiting and sending, and join him in his rescue missions.

Check out my Sermon last Sunday at City on a Hill Church in Surrey, British Columbia below.

Baptisms at Tierra Nueva are momentous occasions that are celebrated by our faith community. Most of our people come out of lives deeply marked by traumas of many kinds.

Addiction, homelessness, and incarceration are often part of people’s journeys. They talk of feeling worn out with life on the streets, and describe in different ways the gentle draw of Jesus’ embracing love becoming an irresistible tug.

Normally our TN pastors try to meet up 3-4 times with each person wanting baptism. Since most all are new to faith in Jesus, these times are precious encounters where people make discoveries, embracing God’s love, and confessing and turning away from evil in precise ways.

Since people are often navigating precarious life circumstances, and chaos often ensues prior to baptism, we’ve learned we must be flexible. We seek to “get away with” each meeting, like we’re stealing from the enemy camp. This means we must seize the moment as unforeseen time slots become available for each individual, rather than counting on set meeting times.

Our baptisms themselves are often quite precarious. Last Sunday morning Lorinda called me disturbed.

“Pastor Bob, we are going to have to change our baptism site. The river bank packed with fishermen, shoulder-to-shoulder. The boat launch is jammed full of trucks with boat trailers! What are we going to do?”

I could see we indeed had a problem as there’s a huge salmon run up the Skagit River right now. I imaged fishermen being frustrated with us taking up too much of the beach, and lures even hooking our new spiritually caught “fish” in their legs.

“What were we to do at such short notice?” I wondered.

Lisa, a faith community member and our new admin person jumped into action. She called her pastor friends who run Cowboy Church in the nearby community of Bow. Soon she had it arranged to have me meet her at a farm with my trailer and load up a large metal livestock drinking trough they use for baptisms—stationed outside a horse-training arena where the church meets. We set it in our garden and Julio filled it with water- just hours before our service.

The baptisms happened at our normal worship site in the garden behind Tierra Nueva—a joyous occasion!  Christina reflected on her baptism:

“I feel great! Actually I feel like I’m whole, if that makes sense. I am confident in why I exist now. Before I felt like I was just a being with no direction day after day. It’s really changed me inside.”

Then a few days later, last Wednesday, Julie showed up at Tierra Nueva. She had missed the preparation meetings for her baptism, and the service last Sunday. She saw the big livestock trough still full of water and asked Julio: “Can I still be baptized?”

Since she arrived right when we were starting our street outreach, we adjusted our plans and did a Bible study on Philip’s baptizing of the Ethiopian eunuch on the desert road in Acts 8.

Julie’s request minutes before was so much like the Ethiopian’s: “What prevents me from being baptized?”

We in turn repeated Philip’s words, addressing them to her: “If you believe with all your heart you may.”

This was the perfect segue to baptism, and our group of eight gathered around and prayed for her, led her into the baptismal renunciations and affirmations. Then Julio and I baptized her then-and-there (second picture below). After she came up from the water we prayed for her back and shoulder, and she experienced immediate healing. What a beautiful time!

We value your prayers for protection and ongoing growth for our newly baptized people: Heather, Christina and Julie.

There’s still time to sign up for one of our People’s Seminary trainings. Check them out here: http://www.peoplesseminary.org

At Tierra Nueva over the past three weeks, 10-12 of us have been meeting on Wednesday afternoons to first learn from the Gospels what it looks like to follow Jesus in mission. We then pray together, divide up into groups of 2-3 and head out onto the streets, where we offer to pray for peace or for the needs of individuals we meet. After 45-60 minutes we come back together to debrief. Everyone returns with stories of positive encounters.

During a recent Bible study we see how Jesus shows that his role as prophet, or spokesperson for God, was not welcomed among his own (Mk 6). He himself could only lay his hands on a few sick people. So, he takes off for the surrounding villages, and then calls and sends the twelve disciples out in pairs to other places.

As the disciples go out with Jesus-given authority and in extreme vulnerability they witness repentance, and lots of freedom from evil spirits and healing (Mk 6:13). How could this story help us experience something similar now?

Looking more closely at Mark 6:7-13 we notice how after calling them to himself and beginning to send them out in pairs, Jesus “was giving them authority over the unclean spirits.” We note that Jesus’ first miracle was to cast out an unclean spirit from someone in the synagogue (Mk 1:23-25).

Unclean spirits are powers that afflict people who are meant to be fully filled by the Holy Spirit. These spirits are associated with undue loyalty, submission, oppression by or outright idolatry to organizations (synagogues, temple, religions), regions (Gerasene), violence (Mk 5:2), legions of the Roman Empire (Mk 5:9), etc. In the gospels they are associated with sickness, psychological torment and even permanent conditions like deafness and muteness (Mk 9:25). Unclean spirits include “religious” or nationalist spirits, as they cause people to fall down, and show their allegiance (Mk 3:11).

They are invisible powers at work everywhere in our culture and larger world, associated directly with “rulers, authorities, powers and world forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” that Paul says we struggle against— and not against “flesh and blood” (Eph 6:12).

Jesus had authority over these spirits and gives this to his disciples- you and me included. But what’s amazing is that Jesus combines this authority with the uncommon partners of extreme humility and vulnerability.

Jesus sends out his disciples without money, or extra clothes—a huge contrast to the church’s normal tendency to serve as host rather than guest. Disciples are only to carry a staff, (which is the same word in Greek as scepter). King Jesus deputizes his disciples and sends them and us outside our comfort zones as dependent guests (not conquering invaders)– to advance the Kingdom of God.

In Mark 6:7-13 we notice that there’s no more mention of the disciples exercising authority over unclean spirits. Rather they act more broadly and freely, preaching repentance, casting out demons and anointing the sick with oil and healing them. Receiving authority over unclean spirts from Jesus opens the way for the Kingdom of God to come close.

There in the Tierra Nueva garden our people were excited about the prospect of this kind of mission. Most of them had experienced hardships like homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. Some had also been on the receiving end of overly zealous Christian mission efforts. Yet they see the need for a scepter, and they like adventure.

My group consisted of Robin and her sister, who came that day for the first time. We started right off praying for one of the women new to Tierra Nueva. She drinks in the prayer and care like a thirsty plant.

We head down the road, noticing a hopped-up car parked by the park where we used to meet for Sunday worship. A big star on the hood catches our attention. A woman sat in the driver’s seek, window rolled down, talking away on her cell phone.

“Let’s pray she gets off the phone quick or we won’t be able to pray for her,” I propose. We pray and she almost immediately ends her call. We approach her and describe our mission, offering to pray.

“Yes, I’d like prayer,” she says. “I want protection from Covid.”

We gathered around her window and each of us pray. We share how we noticed the star, and tell her we believe God sees her as a precious person, a shining star like the one on the grill of her car.

Tears begin to fall, and her eye lashes start to come unglued. She didn’t seem to notice as she soaks up our words and prayers.

We leave her and meet a young man with pierced nose and lips, and a skateboard, who’s waiting for a bus. He, too, gladly receives prayer for his wife and new baby daughter, born two days before.

We return to the garden and hear reports from the three other teams, who had each prayed for 4-6 people.

The following week we head out together again, crossing the street as a group before going our separate ways as small teams.

Together we run straight into a young man we knew from past interactions. He was pushing a shopping cart along with a blanket and other basic necessities he’d acquired. We ask how he’s doing and if he needs prayer. One of our people knew he had just lost his stepmother to a Fentanyl overdose. He is deeply touched as we gather around him and pray. Gracie and Jessica accompany him back to our Tierra Nueva garden, where he waits until we return, to get a ride to the place he’s staying in Sedro Woolley.

Roger, one of our team members, had received an image of someone wearing red while praying two days before. I tell him I have a strong sense we need to head to a particular corner near the police station. Off we go, walking several blocks. We decide to stop by a local clean and sober house, and pray for two men out front, one of whom we knew from the jail. We turn the corner, and pass a Mexican woman and her son working in the yard. She is eager to receive prayer, especially for one of her older sons, who suffers from diabetes. We pray for his healing, and invite her to join us in our prayer walk the following week.

Suddenly Roger nudges me. “Bob, we’ve got to cross the street!” He points to a man with a dark beard fixing his bicycle on the corner—the very corner I had envisioned. Roger notices his red shorts, fitting the description of the guys in his vision.

We cross the street and approach him, and Roger humbly shares how we are out blessing the community, walking the streets and offering to pray for people. “Can we pray for you for anything?” he asks.

The man looks at us in shock. For the longest time he is unable to speak- his lips quivering and face contorting. He asks us to pray for his five-year-old daughter, from whom he was legally separated for some reason unknown to us. This separation is crushing him. Her name is tattooed on his forearm. He cries as we pray, and then shares how he works at a motel, and everyone he knows is struggling with Meth. He asks us to pray for his friends. When he learns I’m a pastor, he gives me a big hug. He knew about Tierra Nueva and says he needs a family, a faith community. He gives us his number and takes ours.

We return to the group in the garden, where everyone shares their stories. Julio, Lucrecia and Chucky had prayed for a woman with Cancer. Jessica and Gracie and stopped by someone from Jessica’s work and prayed for her.

Like Jesus’ disciples who talk with people, cast out demons and pray for healing after Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits—it seems we are stepping into a version of this ministry. We can see that our simple stopping, conversing with and praying for people affected by Covid, Cancer, Fentanyl, the court system makes a difference for them– without needing money or anything material to give. I’m excited to go out again. May the Spirit fill and empower you to step into Jesus’ ministry too.

Reading and enacting Mark 6 with 14 young adults from France, Poland, in Hungary in Budapest at the end of July brought the public ministry of Jesus into sharp focus.

We read how Jesus taught in his hometown synagogue. At first his fellow villagers were impressed, asking: “where did he get these things?” They wondered how someone ordinary, like them, could have such wisdom and perform miracles. But then they took offense.

“Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? Are not his sisters here with us?”

Jesus then made his famous statement: “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household” (Mk 6:4).

Since those familiar with Jesus wouldn’t honor him, they were unable to receive from him. He could only lay his hands on a few sick people and consequently could not advance the Kingdom of God among his own. Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. He expected them to humbly embrace him as a divine messenger, even though he was like them.

This text is highly relevant for followers of Jesus now, serving as a warning that if we are staying within our own insider community and limited subculture, our prophetic role will likely be challenged or stifled. If it happened to Jesus, it most certainly can and will happen to us.

In today’s Covid-struck, divided and even hostile environments, people tend to stay where they are comfortable, and where things are familiar and safe. Human beings self-segregate around national, ethnic, ideological and religious identities. In these settings Jesus-followers can find themselves unable to effectively minister to their own, and consequently can become discouraged by a lack of fruitfulness. Jesus’ teaching and action in Mark 6 speak to our times. But first let’s address a common misunderstanding.

Jesus’ words about himself as a prophet stop many of us from seeing this as relevant to ourselves. We can see that Jesus was a prophet—but what does that have to do with me? More than you might think!

Scripture is clear that every child of God is called to prophecy. Every human is made in God’s image and likeness (Gn 1:26), invited to represent the Kingdom of God through word and action.

When the Spirit of God was placed upon the 70 elders on Mount Sinai (and not just Moses), they prophesied, and when people took offense Moses said:  “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!” (Nm 11:29).

Moses’ prophetic words were realized at Pentecost, when a tongue of fire came upon the heads of all the gathered believers, and they began speaking of the mighty deeds of God in the different languages of the assembled people (Acts 2:11).

Peter interprets Pentecost as the fulfillment of the Joel 2:28 prophecy that in the last days God would pour out the Spirit on all humankind, empowering people to have visions, dreams and to prophecy (Acts 2:17).

Paul himself urges believers to “pursue love, yet desire eagerly the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy” (1 Cor 14:1).

Jesus states clearly here that a prophet (you, me) will not be honored in our homeland (patris), racial/ethnic group (sungenes), and household (oikia)— manifestations of the powers and principalities created by and for Christ (Col 1:16), which become empowered by unclean spirits when they are worshipped.

These same categories God called Abraham to take leave of so he could be a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Gn 12:1-4). Jesus himself left his hometown to teach in the surrounding villages (Mk 6:6)– though he continued to engage with his own resistant people.

In Mark 6:7-13 Jesus sends out his twelve disciples in pairs, giving them authority over unclean spirits (which would include spirits associated with nations, cities, ethnicities, organizations, political entities, businesses, religions, idols, etc…).

After studying Mark 6 we headed to downtown Budapest, dividing up into three to four people, including a Hungarian in each group to translate. Most had never ventured onto the streets in any kind of public witness, and would find it much harder to do this in their own countries and neighborhoods than in a foreign place like Hungary. Once out on the streets in my small group the Hungarian woman translating for us made an interesting observation.

“Hungarians are not used to being approached by one another in public,” she said. “People are wary as the only ones that do this are Jehovah’s witnesses or Hare Krishnas.”

“When a foreigner approaches, Hungarians are more receptive,” she continued. “They are more curious and sometimes can even feel honored.”

From then on one of the non-Hungarians in our group was the first to speak when we approached Hungarians, even if it was in English, and this in fact seemed to work better. Many Hungarians received prayers of blessing and healing from our majority non-Hungarian teams. Immigrants we encountered from other nations (Thai, Kenyan, Palestinian) seemed even more receptive.

In contrast to Jesus, who could only “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” in his hometown due to people’s taking offense and unbelief, the twelve disciples appear to have been received as prophets, who preached, like John the Baptist (1:4), that people should repent (6:12). They “were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them” (Mk 6:13). Our groups in Budapest also found that most people we encountered on the streets were open to receiving prayer.

So, if Jesus himself was minimally fruitful ministering among his own, how much more might we his followers today find ourselves blocked in our prophetic function, when people overly familiar with us take offense and resist believing that we too are deputized to advance Jesus’ movement in the world.

This does not mean that we should give up on the people from our homeland, ethnicity and family. Jesus was amazed at his fellow townspeople’s unbelief, suggesting that he hoped to be received. Jesus did not give up, nor did he bow to the pressure to conform to groupthink in the interests of unity.

Jesus went out of his way to expose and denounce Israel’s past inability to receive from their own prophets (Elijah and Elisha)– in contrast to a foreign widow from Zarephath who received miraculous provision from Elijah during a famine, and an enemy Syrian military commander Naaman, who was cleansed of leprosy by Elisha. Jesus’ prophetic challenge was met by his villagers’ attempt to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:24-30).

Despite his people’s resistance, Jesus continued to engage with them, even though they rejected him to the point of calling for his execution, a dishonor that was foreseen by an earlier prophet: “He was a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of sickness, for his face is turned from us; he was dishonored, and not esteemed (LXX Isaiah 53:3).

May you wisely resist the pressures to remain silent or give up your prophetic role in your own familiar circles. May you grow in your authority over the unclean spirits of our day and age, and go outside your comfort zones and circles of relative sameness, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

As you engage prophetically with your own community and step out beyond the limits of homeland, ethnicity and family, may you experience greater fruitfulness, joining in fulfilling the promise to Abraham to be a blessing to every family on the planet.

Last week my daughter Anna and I were in Budapest, Hungary, where we participated in the Changemaker festival, organized by the France-based Catholic-ecumenical order Chemin Neuf.

About 125 young people ages 18-34 gathered from across Europe for five days of worship, Biblical reflection, prayer and seminars on justice issues like migration, racial reconciliation, climate change and European unity. In the afternoons people broke into project groups. Fourteen people joined my project “Word, Spirit and Justice on the Streets.”

We began each of our three-hour afternoon sessions looking at a Gospel text showing Jesus in action– tenderly encountering the people of his day. We explored together in detail how Jesus approached people– calling them to join him, healing them of their pains and diseases, defending them from accusers, casting out spirits that oppressed them.

After each daily hour of reflection we broke into four groups, which always included one of our Hungarian-speaking participants. We then went out on the streets for an hour and a half to walk, pray, and pay attention, deliberating seeking to attend to what we were noticing, informed by the Gospel account we’d examined. We sought to make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit to respond to people we encountered on the streets, or to initiate encounters.

The neighborhood where the conference took place was in the notorious 8th District, an impoverished area where many Roma people, gypsies and newly arriving immigrants from Eastern Europe live. Drug dealing, homelessness, and prostitution were often visible on the streets.

Participants in my group came from France, Poland, Hungary, Germany and Indonesia. Only one had ever prayed for healing and no one had engaged in street chaplaincy. When we re-grouped to debrief after our first outreach there was both visible relief and excitement. Going out was easier and more fulfilling than people had imagined.

Everyone shared stories of surprising encounters with people on the streets. Each group engaged in respectful listening, and prayers of blessing for people. Some people even prayed for healing.

As we were talking with and praying for a man in a wheel chair who’d lost both his legs we noticed a woman soliciting customers on the side of the road. Our Hungarian group member asked the woman whether she knew God. She answered: “I used to, but not anymore, since I took a bad path.”

We told her that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and how Jesus never gives up on us, showing himself to be a friend and defender of sinners and the excluded. She gladly received prayer, lifting her hands up slightly as we blessed her, tears falling.

In downtown Budapest on the third day my group gathered to ask the Holy Spirit for revelation about what to look for. People received “youth,” a picture of someone with a black shirt with “stop” written on, a black shirt with an orange triangle, among other things.

We turned a corner into a park full of young people. Skateboarders were everywhere. As we were leaving the park I noticed a teenager approaching wearing an interesting t-shirt– thinking to myself how much my friend Jason would love that shirt.

I stopped the youth and asked him where he got the cool shirt. He didn’t want to be bothered but then took my interest as a compliment, telling me where I could find one. I asked if I could take his picture. Just after we parted someone noticed that hidden in the middle of the graphics of his shirt were the words “Stop.” We had stopped, but we had missed this clue that the Spirit had given us in response to our request at the opportune moment! A few of us took off in search of the guy, but couldn’t find him. This experience excited us all, a confirmation that we were hearing from God.Later that afternoon a woman in our group saw a prostitute on the street with a black shirt with an orange triangle. She approached her to offer prayer, and was well received. This amazed her and delighted people, who were not used to the Spirit providing such intelligence.

On the final day, after our group presented our project to all the festival participants there in a public park in the heart of the 8th District, we extended an invitation for anyone to join us on a final hour of street chaplaincy.

Twenty new people joined our group, and we sent out eleven groups of three, each heading out in a different direction. We planned to meet back to debrief an hour later. Seven new Hungarians joined us to help translate, and each group was led by one or two people from our project, who four days prior had no experience of this kind of ministry!

Participants came back excited, reporting moving encounters with people on the streets that included listening to their stories and praying for their healing. I’m sure that my “Word, Spirit and Justice on the Streets” participants are now less intimidated to engage in street chaplaincy back in their home countries. Anna and I return ready to engage afresh with our Tierra Nueva faith community in prayer walks through our streets here in the Skagit Valley.

Consider joining us for a new cohort of our Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins, which is designed for those already serving (or feeling called to pioneer work) amongst poor and marginalized communities. This 12-week CTMM 2021 Module 1 training begins Sept 28, Tuesdays 12:00-1:30pm (PDT).

https://www.peoplesseminary.org/product-page/newctmm2021

Visit our website for more information: http://www.peoplesseminary.org

God’s instructions to exiled people in Babylon through the prophet Isaiah strike me as highly relevant now.

“Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?” (Is 43:18-19)

These words help us avoid the trap of old mindsets and ways of doing things so we can re-focus our attention on the new things that the Spirit is initiating in our lives and world.

The “former things” for Jews in exile, included the glorious and romanticized past of Israel’s successes, awesome temple worship and religious feasts, and powerful kings.

Lately, I find myself remembering the early beginnings of Tierra Nueva in Honduras, where we went from village to village on our motorcycle, meeting with farmers in their fields, leading spontaneous reflections on Scripture under trees in corn fields. I think of the many dynamic Bible studies in past years in our local jail, our vibrant worship and gatherings in the months before Covid that brought in the most vulnerable, and many other high points of our lives.

Calling the idealized past to mind stirs up nostalgia and invites comparisons, leading to discouragement and desires to return to the sacred beginnings or traditions that hold power. The Lord prohibits this as distraction that keeps us looking backwards rather than forwards.

“Former things” also include the people’s individual and corporate failures: idolatry, rebellion, refusals to pay attention to the prophets… When I focus on my failures, I can easily despair over things I can’t go back and re-do. It is important to carefully discern how things went wrong, to learn from past mistakes so as to not repeat them. But the replaying of failures must come to an end; otherwise regrets, remorse and discouragement will result, which can be better resisted and overcome through honest confession, repentance, receiving forgiveness and choosing to listen to God’s voice now.

“Former things” can also include past hurts and traumas that have wounded and crippled us, causing us to see ourselves as victims. Israel’s past traumas are called “oppression” (Is 52:4) and “former devastations” (Is 61:4). Blame, resentment, bitterness, hatred towards those who have harmed us can invade our lives. False guilt, shame, self-hatred, and despair can also become installed when we listen to and internalize accusing voices.

Rather, we must learn to identify and carefully name offenses, uncovering the wounds to the healing light and cleansing waters, and engage in the process of grieving, lamenting, receiving God’s healing and comfort, and eventually forgiving.

I don’t believe Isaiah is suggesting escapism, denial or a spiritual smoothing over of past atrocities or brutal ways we were sinned against or participated in sin ourselves.

Right before these challenging instructions of Isaiah 43:18-19, God calls himself “your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” and describes the destruction of the Babylonian perpetrators and the liberation of the oppressed using the language of Exodus from Egyptian slavery.

The Lord “makes a way through the sea, and a path through the mighty waters. The chariots, horses, army and mighty men “will lie down together and not rise again,” writes the prophet, stating God’s commitment to effectively addressing injustices that traumatize, rather than overlooking them and calling people to forget about past atrocities and traumas. God can be trusted to be 100% about liberation and life.

But everything in the past is included in “former things,” which are not to be called to mind or pondered. We are only to remember God’s past saving actions (Is 46:9), a remembering which is essential so our faith is enlivened so we can watch for the new.

“Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?”

God promises something new that is underway, in the future and even immediately—now! “Now it will spring up! Will you not be aware of it?” This evokes God’s original creation (Gn 2:9), righteousness (Is 45:8), the living word (Is 55:10); recovery (Is 58:8) and newness of life (Is 61:11).

Waiting and watching for the new in the here and now requires active faith, described earlier in Isaiah 43:10-11.

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me. “I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides me.”

In order to become an active witness of the new work of God in the midst of devastation, I am seeing I must surrender and cooperate with the Lord’s choosing and recruiting movement. We are chosen so that we “may know and believe and understand” that the Lord (identified as Jesus in the New Testament) is true and real—the One—and that there’s not other savior options.

Paul writes about this is in his own way in Philippians 3:13-14

“I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Faith in Jesus is required if we’re to identify and attune ourselves to the “something new” that’s springing up. This is how we receive the mind of Christ, rather than leaning on our own way of thinking.

“Will you not be aware of it?” asks the prophet.

Will I not?

I pray that you and I will be spared from ignorance. I pray that you and I will become freed up enough from focusing on the past to perceive the new works that God has prepared for us in this season. I want to notice and step onto the pathway God is making in the wastelands and drink from the rivers in the desert.

May God bless you with active faith so you will become aware so you can fully participate in the new movement of God in these times.