“The Good Shepherd” by James Tissot (c. 1890), Brooklyn Museum (PD-Age)
The news this week has been filled with images of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States. Over one billion Catholics worldwide view the Pope as the successor to Peter. The apostle, we know, was instructed by the Lord, Himself, “ ‘Feed My lambs…Feed My sheep’ ” (John 21: 15, 17).
Shepherding is among the oldest occupations, having originated some 6000 years ago, in rugged regions where planting grain was not a viable alternative.
It has always been the duty of shepherds to keep their flocks intact, and protect them from predators. That is not, however, an easy task.
Humans, sheep, and dogs specially bred for the purpose, interact with one another under constantly changing circumstances. A formerly reliable stream runs dry. One of the new lambs cannot find its mother. The lead dog is favoring the leg he injured last season. Wildfires are closer than they were last year. A few of the sheep are skittish for a reason the shepherd must ascertain. A wolf appears on the horizon. A storm suddenly comes up.
The analogy is not hard to draw. Bucolic setting or not, large congregation or small, shepherds of all denominations must remain attentive to lurking dangers.
“If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?’” (Matt. 18: 12).
You searched for us when we were lost, Lord Jesus. The Good Shepherd, You drew us back from the precipice. Your love enfolded us after all hope was gone.
Our hearts are filled to overflowing with gratitude. May we now extend a helping hand to others. May our lives reflect Your love.
We ask this in Your holy Name.
Amen
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“The Plague of Locusts” (1890), Holman Bible (PD-Age)
Locusts are the swarming phase of grasshoppers which change color and behavior when their population rises to a certain level. Locusts can travel enormous distances, and rapidly strip fields of crops. The largest swarms can cover hundreds of square miles.
The plague of locusts was the eighth of ten plagues in ancient Egypt, as described in the Bible (Ex. 10: 3-6). Clearly, Seth and Isis, the so called protector god and goddess of crops were unable to protect the Egyptian food supply. Ernutet, the goddess of nourishment and patroness of the harvest, Neper and Nepit, the grain god and goddess, were all impotent.
We have a new plague ravaging our land, no less devastating than locusts. Drugs are destroying the lives of our youth, and all those who love them. Drugs are overwhelming our criminal justice system, eroding our workplaces, and undermining our social structure. Drugs are looting economically challenged nations.
Rat poison, feces, and broken glass are just of few of the elements that may go into the drugs so casually traded. Lives in this game count for less than nothing.
We need the one true God to heal our land.
“ ‘ So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…You will eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God…’ ” (Joel 2: 25-26).
Lord Jesus, we praise Your Name above all other names. Restore our land, and the lives of those impacted by this modern plague. We throw ourselves on Your mercy.
Amen
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“Parable of the Hidden Treasure” (Matt. 13:44) and “Parable of the Pearl of Great Price” (Matt. 13:45), Photo by StAnselm of Stained Glass Windows in Scots’ Church, Melbourne, Australia (PD)
This is another message from Peter Hileman, Esq., the Executive Director of Christian Legal Clinics of Philadelphia. It speaks, I think, to lawyers and non-lawyers alike.
You can find more information on Christian legal aid under that heading (above).
“I often tell people that I’m like the man in Jesus’ parable who found a treasure hidden in a field. He went home, sold all that he had, and bought that field…
Like the man in Jesus’ story, I wasn’t looking for this treasure, I stumbled upon it. I didn’t even know [ten years ago] where Hunting Park [the site of one of our first legal clinics] was. I hadn’t heard of any of the ministries we work with now.
When we needed…[more room] 4 years ago, [Pastor Manny Ortiz of the Spirit and Truth Fellowship]… offered us space in the church’s Joy in the City building. Before long, Esperanza Health Center completed construction of a new medical building providing health care and encouraging healthy living. Christian lawyers and Christian doctors working together. Biblical Seminary opened their urban ministry center in our building.
We can refer our clients to a variety of dynamic churches and ministries nearby… They all became good sources of clients for us, and partners in ministry.
We feel we are in the center of a revival, as suburban resources are drawn to a vibrant urban mission. It is an exciting place to be.
Hunting Park is typical of North Philadelphia, a poverty rate and high school drop out rate of over 50%, high crime, high unemployment, 80% of the homes are fatherless. The need is great, as is the opportunity to make a difference.
It can be difficult, challenging, frustrating. Things that worked well for me in [suburban ministry]… don’t work so well here. A friend told me when we moved, “People come thinking they are going to change the city, what they find is that the city changes them.”
That is true. Every day I feel like I don’t fit in… I often don’t relate, don’t understand. I offend people without even realizing it. It makes me confess and repent. It makes me pray more, because I have to. It has made a difference, in my life.
The treasure I have found here is the opportunity to have an effective ministry in partnership with others, to see my gifts used to bless others. The treasure is that Jesus is able to use me more. Isn’t that what we all are looking for? A life that has meaning and purpose, where we feel we can make a difference?…”
Donations to Christian Legal Clinics of Philadelphia are not required, but always welcome. These can be made at http://www.clcphila.org/wp/donate/.
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“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”– High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. [1]
Human beings have always been seekers. We have always been restless. We cannot help but wonder what may be found over the next horizon. New places call to us, and it is in our nature to respond.
So mankind migrated from continent to continent, crossing land bridges on foot, trackless wastes of ice by dog and reindeer sled, and vast oceans by canoe and longship. We learned to navigate by the stars, then realized the air was another realm to be conquered.
Kitty Hawk led to the Sea of Tranquility in less than 70 years. We broke the sound barrier, then what some have called the surly bonds of earth. Now our goal is farther still and we aim at the stars, themselves.
Even exploration on so grand a scale has not satisfied our restless curiosity. The search for something unseen, unknown, has inspired us to investigate the world around us on an atomic level, and the human body on a molecular level.
In the process, we have discovered the relationship between energy and matter, and the relationship between time and space. We have split the atom, and mapped the human genome.
And we have studied ourselves – giving rise to fields from anthropology and sociology to philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry. Still we seek new challenges, new frontiers.
To varying degrees, the journey of exploration is replicated in each human life. We search for identity. We search for connection. We search for meaning and purpose…higher mountains to climb.
All this wandering – this wondering – is not pointless. This searching has not been in vain. However much it may have benefited mankind, it is reflective of a greater longing.
“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29: 13).
—
[1] John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was a 19 year old World War II pilot serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was killed in an aerial accident 4 months after having written High Flight.
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Residents on roof of flooded home after Hurricane Katrina (2005), Source FEMA Photo Library, Author Jocelyn Augustino (PD- Fed. govt.)
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you” (Is. 43: 2).
The power of water should not be underestimated.
Floods damage homes, businesses, vehicles, cropland, and infrastructure. Floods take lives, drown livestock, contaminate drinking water, and spread waterborne illnesses like cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. Economic hardships due to flooding include food shortages, rebuilding costs, and a decline in subsequent tourism.
The worst natural disaster in the United States in terms of fatalities was the Great Hurricane of 1900 in Galveston, Texas. Some 6000 – 12,000 were killed by storm surge and coastal flooding. Ten years ago this month, over 1500 died in Hurricane Katrina.
Tsunamis or tidal waves are considered a form of flood. What distinguishes tsunamis from most other natural disasters is that there is no upper limit to the losses they can cause [1]. The 2004 Indonesian tsunami killed more than 230,000 people.
But the power of the Lord is greater still. We have no standard to which He can be compared. In the most dire of circumstances, when all hope is gone, He can make a way.
We are beneficiaries of God’s covenant with Noah, His promise that the waters will never again become a flood to destroy all flesh (Gen. 9: 15). That covenant has broader application than natural disasters alone. It signifies that the Lord is a holy and faithful God who will not let sin go unpunished forever.
In times like these, when chaos threatens to overwhelm the world, we can trust that God will fulfill His promise. Like David, we can say, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose against us…then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul…Blessed be the Lord…” (Ps. 124: 2, 4, and 6).
—
[1] Australian Earthquake Engineering Society, “Some Reflections on the Insurance Aspects of Tsunami Damage” by George Walker, 11/5/13, http://www.aees.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/05-Walker.pdf.
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Dwarf elliptical galaxy M32, Credit 1.1 Meter Hall Telescope, Lowell Observatory, Bill Keel (University of Alabama)
The number of stars in the universe tripled in 2010. That is not actually true, of course. Only our estimate of the number tripled.
Yale astronomer, Pietur van Dokkum and his team used the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to survey eight elliptical galaxies for red dwarfs (a class of small, “cool” stars). Since red dwarfs cannot be readily detected, astronomers until now estimated their number based on the proportion of such stars found in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Dr. van Dokkum’s study determined there may be five to ten times more red dwarf stars in elliptical galaxies than previously believed. That triples the total count to 300 sextillion (3 followed by 23 zeros or 3 trillion times 100 billion).
Feel insignificant yet?
“ ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?’ ” (Job 38: 4-7).
How great You are, Lord God! How small and weak are we, by comparison.
Teach us Your astronomy, Lord. Your power extends to the most distant star. Yet Your love is offered to the least of us. Before time existed, You were. Yet you chose to die that we might live.
We praise Your holy Name!
Amen
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Starving child, relief camp, Nigerian-Biafran War, Source Centers for Disease Control, Author Dr. Lyle Conrad (PD-Federal govt.)
The CBS game show “Survivor” has become a staple. The program isolates a group of men and women in a tropical locale, who then compete for cash and prizes. The show has been nominated for several Emmy Awards. Potential contestants vie to be on.
The Discovery Channel now has a program entitled “Naked and Afraid”. An unclothed couple attempts to locate food and craft shelter. Viewers are offered titillation in the guise of “adventure” and scientific inquiry.
The History Channel is this summer presenting a program entitled “Alone”. Survivalists live on their own in a wilderness area with limited equipment.
This is so called “reality” television. Apparently, Americans have become so bored (and disconnected from genuine risk) that we must take vicarious pleasure in the artificial challenges set for strangers in quasi-scripted settings.
While we entertain ourselves, there are those in the world who must deal with real challenges.
- Very nearly half the people on earth live on less than $2.50 per day [1].
- 21,000 children worldwide die each day from a combination of poverty, malnutrition, and easily treatable disease [2]. That is one child every four seconds [3]. Some 1.8 million children die each year of diarrhea alone [4].
- More people have access to a cell phone than a toilet [5].
These figures do not take into full account the casualties of war, or the suffering of those made refugees by war.
Greatly blessed, we are numbing ourselves to the needs of the world, to the grim reality others face daily. But that cannot last. Moses warned Israel, too, of approaching judgment.
“For they are a nation void of counsel, Nor is there any understanding in them” (Deut. 32: 28).
—
[1][2][4] Global Issues, “Poverty Facts and Stats” by Anup Shah, 1/7/13, http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats.
[3] Global Issues, “Today Around 21,000 children died around the world” by Anup Shah, 9/24/11, http://www.globalissues.org/article/715/today-21000-children-died-around-the-world.
[5] Time, “More People Have Cell Phones than Toilets, UN Study Shows” by Yue Wang, 3/25/13, http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/25/more-people-have-cell-phones-than-toilets-u-n-study-shows/.
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“Gideon and His 300” (Judges 7: 9-23), (1907), Source http://thebiblerevival.com/clipart/1907/judges7.jpg, Author Providence Lithograph Co., (PD-US)
You may recall that before battle Gideon was instructed by God to reduce his forces from 32,000 to 300 men.
Who among us would have the faith – and courage – to do this? Yet Gideon did, so that the glory of victory would be the Lord’s alone. Victory, in fact, followed with God striking fear into the enemy at the sound of Gideon’s trumpets.
What does this teach us?
First, God does not look to our weakness, but rather His strength. Gideon’s leadership credentials were not impressive in a worldly sense. He was the youngest in his father’s house, and came from the weakest clan in the tribe of Manasseh. Still the Lord favored him.
Second, God knows our nature, and is merciful toward us. Gideon was very human. His reaction to news of the Lord’s favor was cautious, at best. Gideon asked twice for confirmation which God gave him.
Third, we may be called on to step out in faith, when reason would dictate otherwise. Gideon could “reasonably” have declined the Lord’s direction. Instead, he chose to act on God’s assurances. Despite his doubts. Despite his fears. That took real courage. Read more…
Bombing by Boko Haram 4/14/14, Source Voice of America (PD-US federal govt.)
WARNING: Graphic Images
Below is an excerpt from the August 2015 edition of the Voice of the Martyrs Magazine. VOM, http://www.persecution.com, is a Christian non-profit serving the persecuted church.
The events described are brutal. The faith of this 13 y.o. boy stands in sharp contrast. It should be humbling to the rest of us.
“Danjuma Shakaru’s…face is marked by horrendous scars…and by a beaming smile…He remembers running for his life and then being confronted by some of the more than 1,000 Islamic insurgents who attacked his Christian village, burning homes and killing villagers who didn’t manage to escape…
Danjuma can’t recall the attackers hacking at his left arm with a machete. He has no memory of them cutting out his right eye. And he doesn’t remember them cutting off his genitals.
Danjuma is among the thousands of Nigerians who have been brutalized in violent riots, bombings and village raids since 1999, when Islamists began their campaign to establish Islamic [Sharia] law and an Islamic territory in the north. The Insurgency escalated in 2009 with the rise of the extremist group Boko Haram…
In spite of what he has suffered, Danjuma is certain that God is still in control…Danjuma not only forgives his attackers but almost pities them for the condition of their hearts.
‘I forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing,’ he said, echoing the words of Christ. ‘If they had love, they wouldn’t behave that way.’ Read more…
A study of racial and ethnic hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in conjunction with the American Communities Project, suggests that the factors contributing most toward racism and ethnic hatred in a given geographic area are low income and high population diversity [1].
This would appear on its face to be counter-intuitive. Surely, those with little to defend would find common cause with those of differing race or ethnicity confronting similar challenges. That does not, however, seem to be the case.
Where resources are few, they are bitterly contested – all the more so, if differing groups lay claim to them. And hate thrives.
This is how Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African-American studies at Duke University, explains the situation:
“Very often…there’s an expectation that if you go to school in diverse neighborhoods that you would have the least amount of friction around race. But just because folks are going to school with people of the opposite race doesn’t mean that families are talking about race in a productive way…You’re talking about communities of folks who are all struggling for the same amount of resources. They may blame another group for not having access to those resources.”
Communities living in poverty, with close contact between those of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, can be found throughout the deep South and Bible Belt – in states such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The South, of course, has a long history of racial problems (extending from the Civil War, to Jim Crow, to present day disputes over voter registration).
What the demographics imply is that prejudice and xenophobia have deep economic roots which education alone does not overcome. Sadder still, the presence of Evangelical Christians in many of these communities has not eliminated the threat of violence.
—
[1] NBC News, “The Two Big Factors that Determine Where Hate Groups Thrive” by Dan Te Chinni, 7/7/15, http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/two-big-factors-determine-where-hate-groups-thrive-n387631.
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A Lawyer's Prayers 
