Barefoot Gospel

I want to give credit where credit is due here, as I did in my last blog entry.  My friend, Sara Norton, who I ironically have never met in person but have known for 3 years and we both have traveled extensively due to missions as well as vacations AND we both live in the state of Florida AND share several mutual friends, started a blog with this as the name of the blog.  I consider her a great friend, in spite of never having met in person.  She has a wonderful heart for the Lord and a great heart for missions.  Anyways, she started this blog by that name and that’s part of what inspired this entry.  In addition to this is the fact that I’ve spent a considerable amount thinking about bare feet for some reason today, as you may have already guessed from my previous blogs from earlier that I wrote.  I digress, let’s get started, shall we?

What does bare feet and the gospel have in common you may be asking yourself at this point.  Well, I already talked about the passage that discusses when Jesus washes His disciples’ feet so I won’t rehash that part for the sake of brevity.  Wait a minute, do I ever care about brevity?  This time, I’m going to focus on another passage completely different from the ones I used in the post titled Barefoot Theology.

The passage is found in Isaiah 52:7 which states the following, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”  This is set in one of the major prophets of the Old Testament.  Isaiah has a ton of foreshadowing and prophecy about the coming Messiah.  If you read the entire chapter of Isaiah 52 it’s pretty clear that he’s foreshadowing the coming of the long-awaited and long-anticipated Messiah.  It will be glorious, Isaiah assures us.  Is it any wonder that many Jews didn’t think Jesus was the Christ?  There are so many prophecies throughout the Old Testament that refer to Christ as the coming King.  I don’t want to address those right now as that isn’t the focus of this particular entry.  I do want to point out though that this particular passage is clear about what the coming Messiah will be like.

Starting in verse 13 of chapter 52 and then continuing on into chapter 53, we see the descriptions of Christ that were undeniably fulfilled in the person of Jesus.  It talks about how He will suffer and then rise to glory.  On a side note, and a friend pointed this out to me and it has stuck with me since.  Could it be said that perhaps Jesus wasn’t nearly as handsome as we like to portray Him?  Aside from the fact that he definitely looked more like a modern-day extremist Muslim terrorist and would for sure not make it through airport security in any American airport without a ‘random screening’ than a white skinned, blonde haired and blue-eyed Savior, I want to go even further.  Isaiah 53:2b states the following, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should despise him.”  I mean, I don’t want to attract a lightning bolt straight out of heaven right now, but can we even go so far as to say Jesus was ugly while He was on this earth as a person?  No beauty or majesty to attract us to Him sounds like the modern day equivalent of saying, “She’s got a great personality!”

In addition to this, I’m reminded of Mother Theresa as being quoted saying something along the lines of “In the faces of the poor we see Jesus in His most distressing disguises.”  I’m not sure of the exact quote, but I think that gets to the heart of what she was trying to say.  It’s not too difficult to draw a line between her quote and the passage in Matthew 25 that talks about how whatever we do to one of the least of these we do to Jesus Himself.  This should be terrifying for just about all of us in my opinion. 

In the past I have been known to pick up homeless people and have a meal with them, much to the concern of fellow believers mind you.  However, I have lost count at how many times I’ve simply walked by a beggar on the street without a passing thought.  They become part of the landscape almost, don’t they?  “It’s just one of the side effects of living in a fallen world” we comfort ourselves by saying.  I don’t at all agree with just giving someone money, that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.  What I am saying is that if we don’t take the time to at least acknowledge the person and the unmistakable fact that they are one of God’s created beings that He died for, than we had better be ready to examine our hearts.  You can do a tremendous amount of good simply by validating another person.  Sometimes that means eating a meal with them; other times it’s as simple as providing a listening ear.  I don’t agree with giving some homeless person, but I do agree with buying them something that they have a direct use for. 

The best example I can think of was when I spent a week in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in November of 2010.  This example stuck out with me because it was simply shocking to my desensitized heart at the time.  The girl who I ended up staying with for that week was someone who I had met randomly at a women’s conference in New Zealand at some church that I had volunteered for.  When someone asks for volunteers to help at a women’s conference and you’re a single man, you don’t exactly hesitate.  Also, I happened to meet another girl on my round the world trip whom I also had met at the exact same conference in New Zealand.

Anyways, back to the girl who I stayed with in South Africa.  Allow me to set the stage a bit for you.  South Africa has a ton of poverty.  It has come a long way from where it was during apartheid, but it still has a long way to go.  It is simply all around you and unavoidable.  We have done an excellent job at insulating ourselves from the needy and poor in many parts of America should you choose to live that way. They have not learned that skill quite yet in South Africa and I sincerely hope and pray that they don’t.

With that as a backdrop, allow me to continue.  It occurred to me very quickly that if I lived there poverty would quickly become just an easily forgotten background to my daily living.  Like I said before, it’s like the beggar on the street that you pass by without a second thought.  The woman I stayed with was different though.  I can honestly say I don’t remember one single person who she came into contact with that she didn’t try to help in some way.  This was simply dumbfounding to me.  Who lives that way?  Not anyone I had ever known before. 

I have been blessed richly by tons of people who have incredible hearts of compassion for the needs of those around them.  Even still though, they can largely avoid poverty not meaning to but just by going through their daily routines.  Unless you live in the inner city of your larger metro area, you can really avoid poverty without thinking about it at all if you’re not careful.

Anyways, I still remember a man carrying an infant and begging for money.  That happens all the time whether in South Africa or America.  Usually it’s a woman of course, but regardless you get the idea, right?  So what does this woman whom I’m staying with do?  She takes the man and his infant to the local grocery store and asks him what he needs.  At this point I was hooked.  I can remember practically fighting over who would buy the baby formula for the infant because that was the most expensive thing.  That was one battle that I was actually happy that I won.  There were a ton of examples like that in this woman’s life over that week but that was the one that really sent me over the top.

As an opinionated person, I am more inclined to argue my point and prove that I was right rather than be more inclined to share love with the person whom I’m having the argument with.  What is more attractive, this woman’s life that was marked by compassion for others and a love for Christ; or my life that consists of meaningless arguments with fellow brothers and sisters in the faith that ultimately do more damage than good?  It’s a pretty clear point to be made, isn’t it?  As my pastor has pointed out to couples that he goes through premarital counseling with, if someone wins a fight; that necessitates that the other person loses.  Are we more concerned with winning arguments or loving the other person?

To bring it all back to the original point I was trying to make; whose feet are more beautiful?  The person who meets the needs of the poor around her and maybe she does or doesn’t have the chance to share the gospel; or the person who is successful at proving their point and that they are right and theologically more sound but loses a friend in the process?  What should our goal be; to live a life marked by love or a life marked by winning countless arguments and proving one’s theological superiority?

May we share the gospel of Christ by our actions and our mouths.  May we live lives marked by love and not marked by proving how right we are.  May our feet be bare and beautiful when we share the gospel.