Romans 1:14
I am obligated both to Greeks and barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish.
My heart breaks for the barbarians. There is no doubt about it, they are a hard pack of wolves that have fed on the carcasses of this world. They are brutal, raw, in your face, dirty, coarse and care not for sanitation. They don't care about rules, rites or rituals other than the ones they have learned in the dark or through pain. They don't fit tidy programs, sanitized environments or white gloved hand shakes. They will shock you or ignore you. They don't care about what you think they should care about. They can disgust you, use you, screw you or just blow past you. They are this cultures underbelly but they are not soft but have grown calloused by being dragged along the highway of life.
Obligate: to bind or compel.
I am obligated to the Barbarians.
“God saved the Jews in a Jewish way, the barbarians in a barbarian way."
-Clement of Alexandria
We need to face the reality of this truth. The barbarians among us or that live on the margins or the ostracized or ignored places within our communities are in need of those with a call to be bound to them. They are in desperate need of those who will find out how to see them saved in a "Barbarian way". The barbarian way isn't about motivation, inspiration or feeling more manly' it's far more brutal and dangerous than that. It's not something like a christianized weekend warrior thing...it's cultural baptism by blood.
It requires something from us...like Paul circumcising Timothy to reach a group within a culture...what are we willing to bleed for? Timothy heard the barbarian call and followed it in a path of his own blood.
In order to reach the Barbarian you are going to have to face the reality that you are going to have to embrace the freedom of Christ in order to get where you need to get in order to be close enough to them. You are going to have to look like them in many ways to reach them and that might require more of you than you think. Can you lose to gain? Can you throw out your prissy propriety and be counted among them? Are you willing to eat their food, drink their drink, wear their clothes, speak their language, walk their paths, know their homes, share their fears and endure their weaknesses?
Can you lose your reputation for love? The only way to traverse the steep paths towards the walled off hearts of the barbarians is to truly wear the shoes of the gospel of peace. You must be walking in the peace of the gospel. Your conscience must be at peace. You must have what the bible calls a strong conscience not a weak one. Study to find out the difference, it may surprise you.
"To bind the conscience where Scripture leaves freedom is a very, very serious crime."
It will in fact, steal from you the ability to incarnate into the people you must be to reach the ones who require you to change to reach them. You must change to see change in them.
But for some of you that change is a clarion call to abandon the safety of the familiar, the suffocation of the sanctuary and to be released back into the wilds again. You yearn for freedom, the ability to throw off the civilized trappings of the "greeks" and once again sing the songs of men instead of humming the soft melodies of the ladies.
You hear the poetry of the barbarian, etched in the stones of zion, carved there by a tattooed God, whose eyes kindle with eternal fires and his breath smolders with words that can shatter mountains, split open the dark seas of mens hearts and enflesh the dead with the breath of His nostrils.
Poetry is ultimately mythology, the telling of stories of the soul," he wrote. "The old myths, the old gods, the old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our minds, waiting for our call. We have need of them, for in their sum they epitomize the wisdom and experience of the race. -Stanley Kunitz,
I dare you to listen to the whisper in the wind and follow it...you will never be the same again and isnt that what you know you desperatly need?
My course is set for an uncharted sea. -Dante
5 comments:
We 'barbarians' don't care what you (the church) have to say. We were bleeding on the side of the road and where were you? You told us we stunk, and you didn't want to stink up your perfumed sanctuaries. We were crusted with blood, and you didn't want to stain your new carpets. We were thirsty and you were too busy wasting your water on your over-watered congregations. The 'world' walked by and had pity on us, accepted us, brought us water and asked nothing in return except to be accepted in return. In our filth we separated ourselves and empowered ourselves with our humanity. This was our freedom. Why should we want to be carried back into the chains of your disallusionment? To us, you are the barbarians. Leave us alone. We don't need you or your "loving" God.
Wow! What a post! What a response Donna! I know this, that Donna’s need will
only be met by someone with the attitude found in Eric’s Post.
Donna, the acceptance that the world offers to the wounded, is usually offered with a promise
to hate those who hurt you. That unifying call is grasped with
urgency at first, but it is not enough. Ultimately it fails just like shallow Christianity. In both cases we are being carried away by the stream and not evaluating the source. The stream of Christianity is often wide but rarely deep.
I know because I have added to its width, but little to its depth.
That being said, there is a remnant and they are to be found deep in ministry.
They are in each church and out of many. But they hear the heart beat of God and are busy in its pulse. They are not to be followed, but the work, the fruit, is sweet to a hungry traveler. A fruit that nourishes.
Oh Donna!, I long to reach out and hold you, wipe away your hurt, dry your eyes; but I can’t. But I know that the longing I sense for you is real in me, and yet does not originate with me. No, that sense of your need is the concern of God in me, and in many who read your posts.
Donna, you are a true woman of God and there has always been something very genuine in you. Your heart may have been misunderstood by some but I have always been keenly aware that you have a special touch on you. Even now with a layer of anger it can not be hidden.
Passionate souls are often lost on the journey, but in the end, always find there way.
Donna, please forgive the stammer and stagger of this post, but don’t miss its sincerity,
Love Fred
Donna,
I didn't know what to think when I read your response. But then I went to your blog and truly enjoyed and appreciated all the posts of yours that I read. Was your response to this post an outcry of your own hurting soul, or more a prophetic outcry written on behalf of the barbarians of the world, giving us a glimpse into their perspective?
Pastor Eric,
When I read your post, it reminded me of the feeling I had driving to work this morning. Every morning I drive past DeJavu'(sp?). Today it struck my heart, how do I reach those people? I imagined myself walking in there, sitting down at a table, and doing nothing more than praying and waiting for the Spirit to show me what to say and do. But my immediate reaction to this vision was to think, if I did that, what would people say/think/do?? The thought of actually going in there still scares me to death. I pray that God's perfect will be done as He binds my heart to His own for the lost and dying people all around me.
Eric is right. The church needs to stop flinching at the world around them and throw away their agenda of trying to 'save' the barbarian soul. There is no love in that as righteous as it may seem.
The barbarian can sense a fake a mile away. Leave your religion at home. Come naked, with nothing to hide. Bring only your desire to be a friend and nothing else. You will be tested and tried. If you flinch, you be laughed at and sent away. Know this: that, though the hard shell covering of a barbarian is a façade , by no means should it be carelessly ripped open but respected. It protects a broken, wounded heart that wants only to be accepted and not to be changed. If this is your calling,then come...if it is not, stay out.
It has come to my attention that my posts may have been taken incorrecly. Neither of them were directed at Eric. I apologize for any misunderstanding.
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