Foot of the Cross

Foot of the Cross is a super sweet church that meets in the Pourhouse Cafe Sunday mornings. They have a great mission, amazing vision, and a pastor that just brings it. But, what I love even more than that is who the body is made up of. It's a small church with a few families and a few college students... and a few homeless people.

I remember thinking and praying a few months ago about how to reach the homeless. I love these people. I love seeing them as people and not just creatures. It's been my passion for years to reach them emotionally through counseling. Half the reason I got into my field of psychology is so I can offer free counseling. So often those who need it most are those who can't afford it.

So often we view the homeless as helpless, dirty, deranged people looking for a free handout. When we see them asking for money we consciously make a decision. Do we give money or food? We're worried they'll spend any money we do give them on alcohol or drugs. But don't you think they need more than food and money? What about company? I sometimes wonder how long it's been since these people have had a real conversation with anyone. I often wonder, when was the last time someone simply asked them their name?

We're relational creatures. God created us to want and need love and fellowship. We'd all go a little crazy without it. But what about church? Church should be a sanctuary. The one place any living breathing being can go when the rest of their world turns their back. Unfortunately, dressing up for God has prevented this.

Sunday mornings are a time most Christians put on their Sunday best, as a sign of reverence and love to their Father. It's not wrong, in fact it's almost romantic. But, I'd be willing to bet this makes many poor and homeless people think twice before walking into a church. Prostitutes and beggars probably wouldn't feel very welcomed there.

Paul's advice to the Corinthian church, who faced a similar problem, was to abstain from idol meat. Not because it was a sin to eat it, but because it was causing others to stumble (1 Cor 8:7-13, 11:33-34).

For a while now I've developed a desire to help plant a church. And as my ideas progressed, I decided if I planted a church, I wanted it to be in the heart of some thriving downtown metropolis... somewhere close to the homeless. They are no less deserving of Jesus, a church, and the body.

Pastor Matt beat me to it here in Bloomington. Maybe we're not a thriving metropolis, but the church is located in a great section of town to reach these new and old believers.

Now, on to Matt's sermon Sunday. Here goes.

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The book of Jonah begins with a call from God to go to Ninevah to share the good news (Jonah 1:1). For context, Ninevah would be about the equivalent of God calling you to walk over to a mosque in Iraq and share the gospel. Jonah, like so many of us, didn't trust that God could bring him through something like that, so he denied God.

Now, we disobey God all the time, but Jonah decided to not only not listen, he chose to run in the complete opposite direction. Ninevah was just barely to the north of Joppa, Jonah took off for Tarshish, which was thousands of miles to the west (1:3).

And that's not enough. Jonah is so beyond despair now that he asks to be thrown overboard. He would rather die than listen to God (1:12).

I love God's response. He doesn't get angry like I probably would and just let Jonah perish. He sends a fish to swallow him and carry him to back (1:17). It's stories like this that make many doubt God, but it just furthers my belief. Anyone writing an account of such a tale would have no reason to make this up. Who would believe them?

I digress. So God calls to Jonah a second time, "Go to Ninevah!" Finally, Jonah submits. He waltzes right into the city and simply says, "In forty days Ninevah will be overthrown." (3:4) That's all we know he said. Not a long, poetic, loving explanation of God, just "You're all so sinful that God's going to wipe you out."

Here's where it gets good (horrible grammar). The whole city turns to God!!! (3:5) And they didn't just turn to him, they believed in him and put on sackcloth and ashes as a sign of humility to everyone who could see them. And it doesn't stop there. The KING does this, too. He puts his faith in God and humbles himself before his nation by taking off his royal robes (this never happens) and wears sackcloth. Beyond that, he orders the rest of his kingdom to do the same.

If the story of Jonah isn't a demonstration of the fact that salvation is a result of God's doing, not ours, then I don't know what is.

These people from Ninevah get it! How many of us would turn our life over so quickly? And how many of us trust God can reach the unreachable? That he can use us (even doubting Thomas') to turn entire nations to God with one sentence? How incredible that the people from Ninevah turn to God so quickly, when Jonah had been sharing the good news with the religious in his home town and no one there was changing anything about their lives.

So, the question is, when God calls you, do you run the other direction or do you humble yourself for all to see? Are you living in Ninevah or Israel?