Embracing Beauty and Wholeness in Pain

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. How you guys doing this evening? How many are ready to receive a word from the Lord? Come on, you guys can do better than that. How many are ready to receive a word from the Lord this evening? I want you to turn to your neighbor and tell them, neighbor, you better get ready. For the Lord has a word for you. I want you to know that if you thought this evening was going to be another sleepy evening, then you're in for a rude awakening. I'm an old school Pentecostal girl, a Nuyorican with fire in her bones, so y'all need to get ready. And I am so excited to be here for I believe that this is a very timely conference on a topic that is much needed in these times. And so I want to take a moment to thank Lisa and the Missio team for the opportunity to share what the Lord has put on my heart this evening. And I remember last summer when Lisa called me and shared the topic with me. I got to confess. I could have not imagined where we would find ourselves today. I believe never has it been more necessary than now to grab a hold of a vision for beauty and wholeness. And so I thought, Lord, where do I begin? There's a lot to talk about. There's a lot that has transpired even in the last 30 days. And as I began to pray about what to share with you, I was reminded of a powerful encounter that I had about 15 or so years ago. As I was overseeing the distribution of Bibles for a major U.S. ministry, we had Bibles being distributed to vulnerable persons all around the globe. And one day... The director of our prison ministry comes into my office with a letter in his hand from none other than David Berkowitz. That's right, yeah. For those that are not familiar with that name, he's otherwise known as the Son of Sam, an American serial killer that murdered six people and wounded seven beginning the summer of 1976. Now, I don't know about you, but that's not the kind of news that I want someone coming to my office to tell me that a serial killer had written us. And what's incredible about his story is that he claimed to be receiving demonic messages to kill people through his neighbor's dog. And so my staff member comes in to tell me that David had come to know the Lord during his time in prison. And he wrote to us because he wanted us to use his story to reach other incarcerated men and women. And so we did our homework. We prayed. We spoke to his chaplain. And we said, Lord, what would you have us do? And the Lord gave us the green light to proceed. So we sent the team out to interview him. And there he was. in a maximum security facility in upstate New York, serving six consecutive life sentences. And our team asks him, how do you still find hope given that you'll never leave this prison? And he says to us, Though I've been in this prison for more than three decades, I no longer see the bars. I see beyond that. I only see Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith. And what a powerful reminder that is for us today. See, I'm here to tell you that beauty and wholeness is not about the environment or the circumstances. It's not defined by what confines us or constricts us, but rather what liberates us in the middle of our pain. Because true beauty is not found in our freedom from pain. It's found in spite of it. And that's the vision of beauty that I want to cast for you today. It's not about embracing a kumbaya missiology where everything is butterflies and rainbows, nor is it raising up a hermeneutic of escapism. It's about seeing beauty now, right where we are, in the messy spaces and places where we find ourselves. It's seeing beauty in the prophetic lament. It's seeing beauty in our places of righteous indignation, in our places of deep disappointment, because those are the very places where Jesus meets us. See, when the vitriol, the vicissitudes, and the vanities of culture threaten to overwhelm us, that's when we must remember who we are. We are not a people to be colonized under the insidious grasp of hopelessness or desperation. No, we are a people of hope. And it's all over our origin story. In the book of Acts, we see this beautiful body of believers on fire by the Holy Spirit, on the move, on mission, and mounting up a movement of counter-cultural resistance. And even in the midst... of the intense religious and political persecution that they faced, we find something beautiful. We see times of deep fellowship, of regular prayer and reflection. We see sharing of possessions. We see taking care of those in need. There was a commitment to the deepening of relationships and the breaking of bread together. There was a passionate zeal for spreading the gospel. There were supernatural moves of God as seen through signs and wonders. Oh, in the early followers of the way, we find a beautiful model of a community devoted to God and living their faith in deeply incarnational ways. Those are our spiritual roots, both powerful and prophetic. Then if we fast forward to what's ahead of us, We find another beautiful tableau in Revelation, and Lisa mentioned it earlier, where John gives us the imagery of multitudes of people from every tribe and every nation and every language worshiping God together. There's global reach and ethnic inclusivity. There's devotion and unwavering faith. There's victory over spiritual evil and earthly empires. There's a breathtaking splendor that saturates the scenography as John continues and shares the vision of a brilliant city coming down from heaven. Oh, a city so bright and so radiant that there's no dark corners. There's no dangerous alleyways. There's no monsters under the bed. There's no cuckoo in the closet like my grandmother would warn me about. As a matter of fact, there's no impurity in this city, for it's always lit up with God's glory. Yet today, today, we find ourselves in the messy middle between these two incredible visions, the vision of the primitive church behind us and the eschatological promised vision ahead of us. And while both are striking in their own regard, Neither captures the complexity of where we find ourselves today. Because if we can be honest, this season doesn't feel so beautiful. It hasn't felt beautiful to see millions of dollars of funding cut from programs designed to support the needs of the poor around the world. It hasn't felt beautiful to see children being pulled out of schools and families not attending church because of possible racial profiling or immigration enforcement. As a pastor, it hasn't felt beautiful to be accused of harboring violent criminals when what we have in our pews are hardworking families looking for a better life. It hasn't felt beautiful. for the leaders of our Latino network to be receiving hate mail for advocating for the vulnerable amongst us. Oh, it hasn't felt beautiful to see the co-opting of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the name of Christian nationalism. or to see the promulgation of the ludicrous idea that somehow black and brown professionals are less qualified than their white counterparts. My brothers and sisters, this season has not felt beautiful. Yet at a time where so many are paralyzed by the sheer shock and awe of it, It's in those very spaces where we find God's invitation to join him in mission. And the scriptures are replete with powerful examples of this. Where did the good Samaritan find a wounded man? On a side road between Jericho and Jerusalem. And where was the woman with the issue of blood healed? In an intermediary place as Jesus was on his way to perform another miracle. My brothers and sisters, it's our unique ability to find beauty and wholeness in those messy middle places that should mobilize us, that should invigorate us, that should send us forth during these difficult times. We see this again in Luke 17 as Jesus travels to Jerusalem and has a powerful encounter in another middle space in the borderlands between Samaria and Galilee, a geographic, political, and ethnic no-man's land between these two nations. And in these borderlands, you guys know the story well, He runs into ten lepers that cry out to him for pity. And in classic Jesus fashion, he sees them when no one else does, and he heals them. Then he sends them out to confirm their healing. And although all ten of them experience the same physical healing, only one comes back to thank him. giving that tenth leper another level of healing. The Bible tells us that he was made whole. He was made whole. And as far removed as this story may seem from us today, the truth is that there are folks all around us with striking similarity to that group of lepers. See, leprosy attacks the nerve endings and causes a lack of feeling in the body. Well, I believe that there's many around us today that have stopped feeling the pain of those that are hurting around them. They've lost their empathy for the poor and vulnerable. Leprosy was also known to cause blindness and sadly today, there are many who have lost their vision for justice and compassion. Folks that have been blinded by the moral relativism of leaders who have elevated themselves to the level of God, gold statues and all. Leprosy caused social isolation. How many people do you know that have tried to distance themselves from those that they consider beneath them, intellectually, ethnically, politically, or otherwise? See, while leprosy was a set of afflictions that literally ate away at its host, I believe that its spiritual counterpart is still ravaging people today. Now, you may be saying to yourself, Pastor, no, no, no. Those are the people on the outside. They not like us. Well, I hate to break it to you. They is us. We are those people for this spiritual sickness has even infiltrated the church. My God. And yet all of that Notwithstanding, I am still full of hope that in Jesus, in Jesus, we can find the true wholeness, the true healing we seek like that tenth leper. But first, we need to do our part. Come on, tell your neighbor you need to do your part. Come on, you need to do your part. First, my brothers and sisters, if we want to grab a hold of a vision of beauty and wholeness in this season, number one, we need to walk out our faith. In this story, Jesus tells the ten lepers to go show themselves to the priests. Now he was telling them to go, not because the priests were going to heal them, but because the priests were going to verify that the healing had already taken place. And the Bible tells us that as they went, the healing took place. As they went, the miracle was manifested. Yet they needed to believe what Jesus said and show their faith by walking it out. Now, he didn't tell them how to get there. They just needed to go. They could have chosen to jog. They could have chosen to run. They could have done the crip walk all the way over there like Serena at the Super Bowl. Jesus said go, and their job was to walk it out. Come on, somebody. So I'm here to tell you today that if we believe what Jesus said about being salt and light in the world, if we believe what he said about how to treat the widow and the orphan and the... stranger if we believe what he said in Matthew 25 about serving the least of these it's time to walk it out because guess what the least of these are under attack oh useless platitudes and pithy little bible verses aren't gonna cut it in this season it's time to walk the walk it's time to practice what we preach you And maybe you're not sure what the Bible has to say about what we're seeing. Listen, there's over 2,000 Bible verses about poverty and justice. And so pick one and walk it out. Pick one. Because while we're walking, God's going to be working. And I want you to know that the journey may look different for each person. For some, it's going to be op-eds and media interviews to shed light on some issues. For others, it's going to mean debunking false information on social media. For others, it's going to be solidarity marches and calls to local politicians. For others, it's going to mean being the hands and feet of Jesus in your community. It's going to mean providing immigration lawyers, opening food pantries, whatever it means in your context. It's time to walk out your faith in this season. So I'm here to tell you, it's time to get up. It's time to lace up those Jordans and walk it out. But the sad thing is that sometimes we can miss those on-the-way miracles because we want to see the change before we go. But God is saying, go first and I'll do the work on the way. Because I believe that as we continue to be a voice for the voiceless, as we continue to stand for justice, as we fight for those that can't fight for themselves, we will see miraculous changes in our churches, in our communities, and in our country. Turn to your neighbor and say, it's time to walk it out. Whatever that looks like for you, you got to walk it out. I think Brother Unc was on to something when he told us to walk it out. Number two, if we want to embrace a new vision of beauty and wholeness in this season, we need to embrace the power of the pivot. You need to embrace the power of the pivot. Luke 17 and 15 tells us that when the tenth leper saw that he was healed, he came back praising God in a loud voice. And it's ironic because when we first see the lepers, they were also grouped together crying out to God in a loud voice. And so at the beginning of the story, it took 10 of them to create a loud voice. But this 10th leper experienced healing to such an extent, he was able to lift his voice all on his own. God orchestrated a shift that allowed him to come full circle in his journey. And it reminds me of a literary pattern we sometimes see in the scriptures called chiastic structures, where a sequence of events are developed and then repeated in reverse order. Some scholars call it introverted parallelism. And so there's a central point in these stories, a chiastic pivot that takes the protagonist from a downward spiral and shifts them in the opposite direction. And so for the leper, There was a moment where he was walking away from Jesus. And something inside of him changed. Something shifted that gave him the courage to come back and let his voice be heard. Oh, brothers and sisters. and sisters, I'm here to tell you that I believe that there's a similar chiastic pivot in your journey that will act as the fulcrum, that trigger point that will propel you forward with powerful intensity. And when you least expect it, you'll have the strength to lift your own voice. Yes, you will. See, David, David didn't need his brothers when he told Goliath, you come against me with sword and spear and shield, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel. Moses didn't have an entourage when he stepped to Pharaoh and he told them, let my people go. And Esther, she didn't need anybody else to convince the king to save her people. Oh, beloved, once you embrace the power of the pivot, you won't need the comfort of the crowd. You won't need the tribe or the crew. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll be strong enough to speak up all on your own. And there'll be a moment when you say enough is enough. A moment where you won't need someone else to tell your story or to fight your battles. There's a pivot coming when you're going to take back your power as a prophetic voice in this generation. And where you didn't have the strength to speak up before, where you didn't have the courage to speak, there's a pivot coming that's going to allow your voice to reverberate in places and spaces that you haven't even imagined. maybe this conference will be the pivot point for you. Or maybe it's already happened. Whatever it is, embrace it and let your voice be heard. Finally, brothers and sisters, as we're on this journey for a new vision in this season, We need to understand that we will find wholeness when we return to our places of pain. Oh, I knew I was going to get any amens for that. You're like, what pastor? You want me to go back? Yeah, you need to go back. See, the Bible gives us one more interesting detail about the 10th leper. He was a Samaritan. a foreigner, an outcast, someone who probably had it worse than all the others, not only because of his sickness, but also because of his ethnicity. And yet he finds the courage to return to his place of pain, to return to his place of isolation and rejection, to return to the place where he was invisible to the world, to the place where for so many years his voice didn't matter. It was in that place that he was made whole. And it teaches us, beloved, that finding wholeness isn't a linear process, it isn't a one-day deal, it's a dynamic process catalyzed by our courage to meet God in our places of deep woundedness. And I've seen beautiful examples of this all around the world. like in a woman's labor camp that I visited outside of Dubai. Every year, millions of people visit this metropolitan city. The high rises and the lights reminded me of home of New York City. But so many don't understand that it was built on the backs of modern-day slave labor. See, there are many immigrants that come from around the region. to work, especially women that come from poor villages to find work. And so their employers would sponsor them, take their passports and essentially assume full control of their lives. Sometimes they would work and not get paid, or worse, they would get abused. There was not a place for them to file formal complaints, because if they complained, they would instantly be deported. And so these poor women would endure horrific conditions just to send a few dollars back home for their families. And so every night, after an average shift of about 14 to 16 hours, these ladies would gather in a courtyard of these... concrete block camps, because that's what they were, cinder block camps, and they would gather each night to have a Bible study. And I remember sitting there with them one night on this thin rug that they had put down on the concrete floor, and we're sitting there in 115 degree heat at night. Sweat is running down my back. And I'm watching as the leader gets up to lead us in worship, and something caught my eye in the periphery. I noticed that just behind this woman, there was barbed wire atop the concrete walls. Barbed wires that encircled the camp. And when I asked about it, they said, yes, we're not allowed to leave. They lock us in at night. And so these women were quite literally prisoners, and yet there was such a freedom in their worship, such beauty, as they cried out to a God that was all they had. I saw beauty in the garbage city outside of Cairo, where the streets, the alleyways, the buildings, the homes are full of garbage that is taken from this big city to people's homes so that they can manually sort it. They take the plastic, they take the metal, and they send it for recycling, and the organic matter they feed to the pigs that they raise. And so in the streets, all you see is bags upon bags upon bags of garbage. There's garbage where the kids are playing. There's garbage by the bakery and the produce stands. There's garbage in the plaza where people sit and connect and the smell. And yet, just beyond that, there's a breathtaking church. carved right into the side of a mountain, where 20,000 people go to worship God each week. See, they don't see the garbage. They've literally found a way to see God in the middle of the mess. I saw beauty in an underground church in Kuwait. It was in the basement of this nondescript high-rise building. And as we entered, I imagined finding a small group of believers scared of being caught. And ironically, it was one of the most invigorating spaces I've ever been in. The walls were adorned with beautiful mosaic lighting, and there was no room to sit because there were people in every nook and cranny of the space worshiping God. They had a choir that wore bright orange and purple robes, and the pulpit, the pulpit was a bright neon green. The space was alive in color and energy. And although the service was in a completely different language, I could feel the ground shake before us as we worshipped. I saw beauty in a migrant center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just beyond the El Paso border. where we took a group of Latino pastors to pay their respects at the site where 40 immigrants had died in a tragic fire, making it one of the deadliest incidents involving immigrants in Mexico's history. And I cannot even begin to tell you the heartbreaking stories that we heard on that trip. At one moment, I was told not to walk in one area because I had open-toed shoes on, and there were syringes filled with drugs on the floor, only to see kids about 10 feet away playing on that same ground. I met women who had been violently raped on the journey, and men who had walked for months. with all of their earthly possessions in one singular plastic bag, all for the hope of a better life, and all of which slept on the floor, under a huge tent until their fate was decided. And yet, as we gathered together to pay our respects, Migrants from the area encircled us and began to sing, Tu fidelidad es grande, great is thy faithfulness. My brothers and sisters, God doesn't call us away from the places of pain, but instead asks us to lean in and see those places through new eyes. Eyes of expectation, eyes of anticipation, eyes of hope, knowing that it's there that Jesus meets us. See, broken glass creates the mosaic art that adorns our spaces. Broken bread. Creates the community that binds our hearts together and a broken body on a cross Created a revolution that has united generations In Jesus, what was once broken becomes the birthplace for something new. So we can't be afraid to go back and lean in to those places of pain and find beauty and wholeness. And as I close, brothers and sisters, let me remind you. We're not just a random group of people sitting here today. We are the ecclesia. We are the ones called to be a light in the darkness of the world. And despite the uncertainty around us, I'm here to tell you, we cannot hold back and we cannot shrink back. The Bible... tells us that the gates of hell will not prevail against us so our voices need to rise in this season without fear without hesitation or vacillation but with unparalleled power and as the great theologian Oscar Romero so aptly put it each one of you has to be God's microphones Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. Let us not hide the talents that God gave us on the day of our baptism. And let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people. Beloved, although 2,000 years have passed since the birth of the church at Pentecost, And though it's not yet time for Jesus to come back for us, even now we must look past the pain. We must look past the prison bars and see Jesus even in the messy middle of this season. Only then can we become his microphones, no, his megaphones to a hurting and broken world. Oh, and I pity the fool that stands in our way as we awaken to embrace this prophetic role as agents of hope and agents of healing and agents of restoration, because I declare that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are still a people on the move. We are still still a people on mission. We are still mounting up a movement of counter-cultural resistance in this time, in this age, and for this generation. My brothers and sisters, there is beauty in the church of Jesus Christ. There is wholeness in the church of Jesus Christ, and the world had better watch out because Aslan is on the move. Let us pray. Good and gracious God, we thank you for this invitation that you've given us today to move past the messiness, to move past the pain, and join you in mission, God, to be your microphones, no, your megaphones to a hurting and broken world. Let us rise with with new courage and new resolve, God, and represent you in all the spaces and places you've placed us. Thank you, God, that even in this messy middle, we can find beauty, we can find wholeness in your church. And let that begin with us. Oh, God, let the change begin with us. that we might be agents of hope, of healing, and restoration for our churches, for our communities, and for this country. We declare and decree this today in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening.

How you guys doing this evening? How many are ready to receive a word from the Lord? Come on, you guys can do better than that. How many are ready to receive a word from the Lord this evening? I want you to turn to your neighbor and tell them, neighbor, you better get ready.

For the Lord has a word for you. I want you to know that if you thought this evening was going to be another sleepy evening, then you're in for a rude awakening. I'm an old school Pentecostal girl, a Nuyorican with fire in her bones, so y'all need to get ready.

And I am so excited to be here for I believe that this is a very timely conference on a topic that is much needed in these times. And so I want to take a moment to thank Lisa and the Missio team for the opportunity to share what the Lord has put on my heart this evening. And I remember last summer when Lisa called me and shared the topic with me.

I got to confess. I could have not imagined where we would find ourselves today. I believe never has it been more necessary than now to grab a hold of a vision for beauty and wholeness. And so I thought, Lord, where do I begin? There's a lot to talk about.

There's a lot that has transpired even in the last 30 days. And as I began to pray about what to share with you, I was reminded of a powerful encounter that I had about 15 or so years ago. As I was overseeing the distribution of Bibles for a major U.S. ministry, we had Bibles being distributed to vulnerable persons all around the globe.

And one day... The director of our prison ministry comes into my office with a letter in his hand from none other than David Berkowitz. That's right, yeah.

For those that are not familiar with that name, he's otherwise known as the Son of Sam, an American serial killer that murdered six people and wounded seven beginning the summer of 1976. Now, I don't know about you, but that's not the kind of news that I want someone coming to my office to tell me that a serial killer had written us. And what's incredible about his story is that he claimed to be receiving demonic messages to kill people through his neighbor's dog. And so my staff member comes in to tell me that David had come to know the Lord during his time in prison. And he wrote to us because he wanted us to use his story to reach other incarcerated men and women.

And so we did our homework. We prayed. We spoke to his chaplain.

And we said, Lord, what would you have us do? And the Lord gave us the green light to proceed. So we sent the team out to interview him. And there he was. in a maximum security facility in upstate New York, serving six consecutive life sentences.

And our team asks him, how do you still find hope given that you'll never leave this prison? And he says to us, Though I've been in this prison for more than three decades, I no longer see the bars. I see beyond that. I only see Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.

And what a powerful reminder that is for us today. See, I'm here to tell you that beauty and wholeness is not about the environment or the circumstances. It's not defined by what confines us or constricts us, but rather what liberates us in the middle of our pain. Because true beauty is not found in our freedom from pain. It's found in spite of it.

And that's the vision of beauty that I want to cast for you today. It's not about embracing a kumbaya missiology where everything is butterflies and rainbows, nor is it raising up a hermeneutic of escapism. It's about seeing beauty now, right where we are, in the messy spaces and places where we find ourselves. It's seeing beauty in the prophetic lament.

It's seeing beauty in our places of righteous indignation, in our places of deep disappointment, because those are the very places where Jesus meets us. See, when the vitriol, the vicissitudes, and the vanities of culture threaten to overwhelm us, that's when we must remember who we are. We are not a people to be colonized under the insidious grasp of hopelessness or desperation.

No, we are a people of hope. And it's all over our origin story. In the book of Acts, we see this beautiful body of believers on fire by the Holy Spirit, on the move, on mission, and mounting up a movement of counter-cultural resistance.

And even in the midst... of the intense religious and political persecution that they faced, we find something beautiful. We see times of deep fellowship, of regular prayer and reflection.

We see sharing of possessions. We see taking care of those in need. There was a commitment to the deepening of relationships and the breaking of bread together. There was a passionate zeal for spreading the gospel. There were supernatural moves of God as seen through signs and wonders.

Oh, in the early followers of the way, we find a beautiful model of a community devoted to God and living their faith in deeply incarnational ways. Those are our spiritual roots, both powerful and prophetic. Then if we fast forward to what's ahead of us, We find another beautiful tableau in Revelation, and Lisa mentioned it earlier, where John gives us the imagery of multitudes of people from every tribe and every nation and every language worshiping God together.

There's global reach and ethnic inclusivity. There's devotion and unwavering faith. There's victory over spiritual evil and earthly empires.

There's a breathtaking splendor that saturates the scenography as John continues and shares the vision of a brilliant city coming down from heaven. Oh, a city so bright and so radiant that there's no dark corners. There's no dangerous alleyways.

There's no monsters under the bed. There's no cuckoo in the closet like my grandmother would warn me about. As a matter of fact, there's no impurity in this city, for it's always lit up with God's glory.

Yet today, today, we find ourselves in the messy middle between these two incredible visions, the vision of the primitive church behind us and the eschatological promised vision ahead of us. And while both are striking in their own regard, Neither captures the complexity of where we find ourselves today. Because if we can be honest, this season doesn't feel so beautiful. It hasn't felt beautiful to see millions of dollars of funding cut from programs designed to support the needs of the poor around the world.

It hasn't felt beautiful to see children being pulled out of schools and families not attending church because of possible racial profiling or immigration enforcement. As a pastor, it hasn't felt beautiful to be accused of harboring violent criminals when what we have in our pews are hardworking families looking for a better life. It hasn't felt beautiful. for the leaders of our Latino network to be receiving hate mail for advocating for the vulnerable amongst us. Oh, it hasn't felt beautiful to see the co-opting of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the name of Christian nationalism.

or to see the promulgation of the ludicrous idea that somehow black and brown professionals are less qualified than their white counterparts. My brothers and sisters, this season has not felt beautiful. Yet at a time where so many are paralyzed by the sheer shock and awe of it, It's in those very spaces where we find God's invitation to join him in mission.

And the scriptures are replete with powerful examples of this. Where did the good Samaritan find a wounded man? On a side road between Jericho and Jerusalem.

And where was the woman with the issue of blood healed? In an intermediary place as Jesus was on his way to perform another miracle. My brothers and sisters, it's our unique ability to find beauty and wholeness in those messy middle places that should mobilize us, that should invigorate us, that should send us forth during these difficult times. We see this again in Luke 17 as Jesus travels to Jerusalem and has a powerful encounter in another middle space in the borderlands between Samaria and Galilee, a geographic, political, and ethnic no-man's land between these two nations. And in these borderlands, you guys know the story well, He runs into ten lepers that cry out to him for pity.

And in classic Jesus fashion, he sees them when no one else does, and he heals them. Then he sends them out to confirm their healing. And although all ten of them experience the same physical healing, only one comes back to thank him. giving that tenth leper another level of healing.

The Bible tells us that he was made whole. He was made whole. And as far removed as this story may seem from us today, the truth is that there are folks all around us with striking similarity to that group of lepers.

See, leprosy attacks the nerve endings and causes a lack of feeling in the body. Well, I believe that there's many around us today that have stopped feeling the pain of those that are hurting around them. They've lost their empathy for the poor and vulnerable.

Leprosy was also known to cause blindness and sadly today, there are many who have lost their vision for justice and compassion. Folks that have been blinded by the moral relativism of leaders who have elevated themselves to the level of God, gold statues and all. Leprosy caused social isolation.

How many people do you know that have tried to distance themselves from those that they consider beneath them, intellectually, ethnically, politically, or otherwise? See, while leprosy was a set of afflictions that literally ate away at its host, I believe that its spiritual counterpart is still ravaging people today. Now, you may be saying to yourself, Pastor, no, no, no. Those are the people on the outside. They not like us.

Well, I hate to break it to you. They is us. We are those people for this spiritual sickness has even infiltrated the church.

My God. And yet all of that Notwithstanding, I am still full of hope that in Jesus, in Jesus, we can find the true wholeness, the true healing we seek like that tenth leper. But first, we need to do our part. Come on, tell your neighbor you need to do your part.

Come on, you need to do your part. First, my brothers and sisters, if we want to grab a hold of a vision of beauty and wholeness in this season, number one, we need to walk out our faith. In this story, Jesus tells the ten lepers to go show themselves to the priests. Now he was telling them to go, not because the priests were going to heal them, but because the priests were going to verify that the healing had already taken place. And the Bible tells us that as they went, the healing took place.

As they went, the miracle was manifested. Yet they needed to believe what Jesus said and show their faith by walking it out. Now, he didn't tell them how to get there. They just needed to go. They could have chosen to jog.

They could have chosen to run. They could have done the crip walk all the way over there like Serena at the Super Bowl. Jesus said go, and their job was to walk it out.

Come on, somebody. So I'm here to tell you today that if we believe what Jesus said about being salt and light in the world, if we believe what he said about how to treat the widow and the orphan and the... stranger if we believe what he said in Matthew 25 about serving the least of these it's time to walk it out because guess what the least of these are under attack oh useless platitudes and pithy little bible verses aren't gonna cut it in this season it's time to walk the walk it's time to practice what we preach you And maybe you're not sure what the Bible has to say about what we're seeing.

Listen, there's over 2,000 Bible verses about poverty and justice. And so pick one and walk it out. Pick one.

Because while we're walking, God's going to be working. And I want you to know that the journey may look different for each person. For some, it's going to be op-eds and media interviews to shed light on some issues.

For others, it's going to mean debunking false information on social media. For others, it's going to be solidarity marches and calls to local politicians. For others, it's going to mean being the hands and feet of Jesus in your community. It's going to mean providing immigration lawyers, opening food pantries, whatever it means in your context.

It's time to walk out your faith in this season. So I'm here to tell you, it's time to get up. It's time to lace up those Jordans and walk it out.

But the sad thing is that sometimes we can miss those on-the-way miracles because we want to see the change before we go. But God is saying, go first and I'll do the work on the way. Because I believe that as we continue to be a voice for the voiceless, as we continue to stand for justice, as we fight for those that can't fight for themselves, we will see miraculous changes in our churches, in our communities, and in our country.

Turn to your neighbor and say, it's time to walk it out. Whatever that looks like for you, you got to walk it out. I think Brother Unc was on to something when he told us to walk it out.

Number two, if we want to embrace a new vision of beauty and wholeness in this season, we need to embrace the power of the pivot. You need to embrace the power of the pivot. Luke 17 and 15 tells us that when the tenth leper saw that he was healed, he came back praising God in a loud voice. And it's ironic because when we first see the lepers, they were also grouped together crying out to God in a loud voice.

And so at the beginning of the story, it took 10 of them to create a loud voice. But this 10th leper experienced healing to such an extent, he was able to lift his voice all on his own. God orchestrated a shift that allowed him to come full circle in his journey.

And it reminds me of a literary pattern we sometimes see in the scriptures called chiastic structures, where a sequence of events are developed and then repeated in reverse order. Some scholars call it introverted parallelism. And so there's a central point in these stories, a chiastic pivot that takes the protagonist from a downward spiral and shifts them in the opposite direction. And so for the leper, There was a moment where he was walking away from Jesus.

And something inside of him changed. Something shifted that gave him the courage to come back and let his voice be heard. Oh, brothers and sisters. and sisters, I'm here to tell you that I believe that there's a similar chiastic pivot in your journey that will act as the fulcrum, that trigger point that will propel you forward with powerful intensity.

And when you least expect it, you'll have the strength to lift your own voice. Yes, you will. See, David, David didn't need his brothers when he told Goliath, you come against me with sword and spear and shield, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel. Moses didn't have an entourage when he stepped to Pharaoh and he told them, let my people go.

And Esther, she didn't need anybody else to convince the king to save her people. Oh, beloved, once you embrace the power of the pivot, you won't need the comfort of the crowd. You won't need the tribe or the crew.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll be strong enough to speak up all on your own. And there'll be a moment when you say enough is enough. A moment where you won't need someone else to tell your story or to fight your battles.

There's a pivot coming when you're going to take back your power as a prophetic voice in this generation. And where you didn't have the strength to speak up before, where you didn't have the courage to speak, there's a pivot coming that's going to allow your voice to reverberate in places and spaces that you haven't even imagined. maybe this conference will be the pivot point for you. Or maybe it's already happened. Whatever it is, embrace it and let your voice be heard.

Finally, brothers and sisters, as we're on this journey for a new vision in this season, We need to understand that we will find wholeness when we return to our places of pain. Oh, I knew I was going to get any amens for that. You're like, what pastor? You want me to go back?

Yeah, you need to go back. See, the Bible gives us one more interesting detail about the 10th leper. He was a Samaritan. a foreigner, an outcast, someone who probably had it worse than all the others, not only because of his sickness, but also because of his ethnicity.

And yet he finds the courage to return to his place of pain, to return to his place of isolation and rejection, to return to the place where he was invisible to the world, to the place where for so many years his voice didn't matter. It was in that place that he was made whole. And it teaches us, beloved, that finding wholeness isn't a linear process, it isn't a one-day deal, it's a dynamic process catalyzed by our courage to meet God in our places of deep woundedness.

And I've seen beautiful examples of this all around the world. like in a woman's labor camp that I visited outside of Dubai. Every year, millions of people visit this metropolitan city.

The high rises and the lights reminded me of home of New York City. But so many don't understand that it was built on the backs of modern-day slave labor. See, there are many immigrants that come from around the region. to work, especially women that come from poor villages to find work.

And so their employers would sponsor them, take their passports and essentially assume full control of their lives. Sometimes they would work and not get paid, or worse, they would get abused. There was not a place for them to file formal complaints, because if they complained, they would instantly be deported. And so these poor women would endure horrific conditions just to send a few dollars back home for their families. And so every night, after an average shift of about 14 to 16 hours, these ladies would gather in a courtyard of these...

concrete block camps, because that's what they were, cinder block camps, and they would gather each night to have a Bible study. And I remember sitting there with them one night on this thin rug that they had put down on the concrete floor, and we're sitting there in 115 degree heat at night. Sweat is running down my back.

And I'm watching as the leader gets up to lead us in worship, and something caught my eye in the periphery. I noticed that just behind this woman, there was barbed wire atop the concrete walls. Barbed wires that encircled the camp. And when I asked about it, they said, yes, we're not allowed to leave. They lock us in at night.

And so these women were quite literally prisoners, and yet there was such a freedom in their worship, such beauty, as they cried out to a God that was all they had. I saw beauty in the garbage city outside of Cairo, where the streets, the alleyways, the buildings, the homes are full of garbage that is taken from this big city to people's homes so that they can manually sort it. They take the plastic, they take the metal, and they send it for recycling, and the organic matter they feed to the pigs that they raise.

And so in the streets, all you see is bags upon bags upon bags of garbage. There's garbage where the kids are playing. There's garbage by the bakery and the produce stands. There's garbage in the plaza where people sit and connect and the smell. And yet, just beyond that, there's a breathtaking church.

carved right into the side of a mountain, where 20,000 people go to worship God each week. See, they don't see the garbage. They've literally found a way to see God in the middle of the mess. I saw beauty in an underground church in Kuwait.

It was in the basement of this nondescript high-rise building. And as we entered, I imagined finding a small group of believers scared of being caught. And ironically, it was one of the most invigorating spaces I've ever been in.

The walls were adorned with beautiful mosaic lighting, and there was no room to sit because there were people in every nook and cranny of the space worshiping God. They had a choir that wore bright orange and purple robes, and the pulpit, the pulpit was a bright neon green. The space was alive in color and energy.

And although the service was in a completely different language, I could feel the ground shake before us as we worshipped. I saw beauty in a migrant center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just beyond the El Paso border. where we took a group of Latino pastors to pay their respects at the site where 40 immigrants had died in a tragic fire, making it one of the deadliest incidents involving immigrants in Mexico's history. And I cannot even begin to tell you the heartbreaking stories that we heard on that trip. At one moment, I was told not to walk in one area because I had open-toed shoes on, and there were syringes filled with drugs on the floor, only to see kids about 10 feet away playing on that same ground.

I met women who had been violently raped on the journey, and men who had walked for months. with all of their earthly possessions in one singular plastic bag, all for the hope of a better life, and all of which slept on the floor, under a huge tent until their fate was decided. And yet, as we gathered together to pay our respects, Migrants from the area encircled us and began to sing, Tu fidelidad es grande, great is thy faithfulness.

My brothers and sisters, God doesn't call us away from the places of pain, but instead asks us to lean in and see those places through new eyes. Eyes of expectation, eyes of anticipation, eyes of hope, knowing that it's there that Jesus meets us. See, broken glass creates the mosaic art that adorns our spaces.

Broken bread. Creates the community that binds our hearts together and a broken body on a cross Created a revolution that has united generations In Jesus, what was once broken becomes the birthplace for something new. So we can't be afraid to go back and lean in to those places of pain and find beauty and wholeness. And as I close, brothers and sisters, let me remind you.

We're not just a random group of people sitting here today. We are the ecclesia. We are the ones called to be a light in the darkness of the world.

And despite the uncertainty around us, I'm here to tell you, we cannot hold back and we cannot shrink back. The Bible... tells us that the gates of hell will not prevail against us so our voices need to rise in this season without fear without hesitation or vacillation but with unparalleled power and as the great theologian Oscar Romero so aptly put it each one of you has to be God's microphones Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet.

Let us not hide the talents that God gave us on the day of our baptism. And let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people. Beloved, although 2,000 years have passed since the birth of the church at Pentecost, And though it's not yet time for Jesus to come back for us, even now we must look past the pain. We must look past the prison bars and see Jesus even in the messy middle of this season.

Only then can we become his microphones, no, his megaphones to a hurting and broken world. Oh, and I pity the fool that stands in our way as we awaken to embrace this prophetic role as agents of hope and agents of healing and agents of restoration, because I declare that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are still a people on the move. We are still still a people on mission.

We are still mounting up a movement of counter-cultural resistance in this time, in this age, and for this generation. My brothers and sisters, there is beauty in the church of Jesus Christ. There is wholeness in the church of Jesus Christ, and the world had better watch out because Aslan is on the move. Let us pray. Good and gracious God, we thank you for this invitation that you've given us today to move past the messiness, to move past the pain, and join you in mission, God, to be your microphones, no, your megaphones to a hurting and broken world.

Let us rise with with new courage and new resolve, God, and represent you in all the spaces and places you've placed us. Thank you, God, that even in this messy middle, we can find beauty, we can find wholeness in your church. And let that begin with us. Oh, God, let the change begin with us. that we might be agents of hope, of healing, and restoration for our churches, for our communities, and for this country.

We declare and decree this today in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Transcript for:Embracing Beauty and Wholeness in Pain

Transcript for:
Embracing Beauty and Wholeness in Pain