Everyone searched frantically, but nobody found their balloon. 

The teacher told all the students to pick up a balloon and hand it to the person whose name was written on it. Within 5 minutes, everyone had their own balloon. 

After they all settled down, the teacher said, “These balloons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is just looking for their own. But if we care about other people’s happiness, we’ll find ours too.”

Too much of Christian history has been us as individuals focusing on ourselves. 

Our own “Personal Salvation.” 

God is always trying to move us beyond that. 

To pay attention to the whole. 

To pay attention to the collective. 

In Exodus 3:7, God says to Moses

“I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. I’ve come down to rescue them.”

God shows up because God has “heard their cry of injustice.”

The Myth

There is a myth out there that people who are strong don’t complain. 

They don’t complain about the things that are wrong. 

They just grin and bear it.

Now, nobody wants to be around someone who is just complaining all the time and never does anything to try and change things. 

But being silent about issues, injustices, and things that are wrong also doesn’t change them. 

Sometimes people have a rule – “Don’t bring me a complaint unless you also bring me a solution.”

That may be the right move in some situations. 

But most of the time, the solution only comes because of the cries of injustice. 

And we’re in a culture that doesn’t want to hear it. 

It’s embedded in all kinds of little comments we make. Like the comment, “You can’t complain if you didn’t vote.” 

The sentiment behind that comment is that if you want to make change, voting is a good way to do it. 

Except, that phrase is typically geared toward one group of people…people who are left out and ignored. Usually, people who are poor, low-income, and minority groups. 

Even though people are trying to inspire other to vote with comments like that, what they actually do is silence people. 

I know countless people who do not vote because they aren’t feeling heard and nobody cares about them. 

They complain hoping somebody will listen to the injustice and harm they are experiencing. 

Actually, I lied. I don’t know “countless people.” We know the number of people who don’t vote. 

“Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage workers.” (1) They have the lowest turnout of all groups of voters because nobody is talking about the issues and struggles they are dealing with. (The turnout among low-wage and low-income voters today is 20-22% below the average turnout).

Nobody is listening to them. Instead, in subtle, and sometimes unintentional ways, (but also in very intentional ways) they are silenced and told to not complain. 

But the very reason God shows up to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt is because people who are suffering, oppressed, and in unjust situations cry out about it. 

Things change because we cry out. 

This is even true in our immediate relationships. Two people tend to have a lot more conflict when they don’t share their complaints or the ways they feel slighted or wronged. How would someone ever fix that? How would change ever come about if those things aren’t voiced? How will people ever see what’s going on?

Those things matter. 

Zora Neale Hurston was an author, documentary filmmaker and a central figure in the 1920 & 30s Harlem Renaissance (this was an explosion of African-American art, literature, music, and nightlife in NYC that was sparked when many Black people from the south fled up north).

She focused on the African-American experience and her struggles as an African-American woman. 

She said, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Staying silent is a myth. 

God “comes down” when people cry out.

But God doesn’t show up and start hurling lightning bolts down from heaven or show up and automatically set things right.  

God comes down and gets involved by sending Moses. 

A person.

When God wants to get involved, God sends people. 

And if people are going to be sent, then people have to know that something is happening. 

We need the protests. We need the cries of injustice. We need the videos and tweets, sermons and newspaper articles. 

God is going to send people, but only if we continue to cry out about the injustice, oppression, and harm being done. 

Crying Out

My own tradition, United Methodism, calls this “Social Holiness.” We take a stand on issues of injustice and oppression, and invite people to work to better these situations. 

We literally write down and call out injustice like lack of clean water, gun violence, hunger, poverty, the death penalty, the importance of a living wage, responsible lending practices by institutions, national budgets, education reform, and the disarming nuclear weapons.

We even call out the injustice of Israel and Palestine. 

We don’t always know the answers for how to fix things…but we know that if we don’t speak about it – nothing will change.

The students protesting on college campuses are crying out about the injustice, knowing that this is how things will change. 

If we don’t say something, how will people know God is calling them?

If we don’t say something, how will people know God is sending them?

Archbishop Desmund Tutu was a Christian leader in South Africa during the time of Apartheid – when Black people were oppressed in South Africa. He helped lead the work for justice.

I love this statement that’s attributed to him: “Every church should be able to get a letter of recommendation from the poor in their community.”

Are we paying attention to the cries? Are we crying out ourselves? 

It’s easy to ignore this stuff. But we are all connected. All of these issues matter and impact all of us. 

We rise and we fall together. 

God’s Representative

Sometimes I find that being God’s representative is difficult, not because I don’t care…but because I don’t know what to do.

It all seems too complicated and more than I can handle, take on, or have the understanding for…

But a lot of times that’s because I’m trying to take on a role that isn’t mine. 

College students across the country have been protesting on their campus to call on the U.S. and their schools to stop funding Israel’s war on the Palestinian people. Thousands of innocent children, women, and civilians have been killed and are being killed. 

The students are paying attention to what they can do. They’re crying out about it and crying for change to happen, for this slaughter to stop. 

They have heard the cries and they know this is a way they can respond. 

It may not be the whole answer. 

But they know they are called to this role at this time. 

Conclusion

We can’t stay silent. 

This is the way God “comes down.” 

This is how the Kingdom of God shows up. 

It’s not a “Personal Salvation Project.”

It is about all of us being saved together. 

So may we cry out and trust God will “come down” to save us all.  

(1) https://www.commondreams.org/news/poor-people-s-campaign

People screaming. 

One class can’t lock their door, so they block the entrance with furniture. The door gets kicked in.

Eventually, the shooter is stopped. 

Everyone is taken to a safe location to meet up with parents.

But the location isn’t safe. 

An angry parent shows up with a gun and starts shooting. 

Some run, some freeze, some huddle together screaming and sobbing in fear.

Thankfully, this wasn’t a real school shooting. 

It was a required emergency drill for all teachers and school staff in my county (including my wife who is a teacher) – which ended up being a surprise active shooter drill.

Students practicing active shooter drills is disturbing.

To require school staff to go through police shooting blank bullets in the hall and kicking in doors is beyond disturbing – it is traumatic. 

Traumatic enough that therapists needed to write notes requesting their patients be excused from the required drill. 

As a Christian in the United Methodist tradition, my baptismal vows require me to resist suffering, injustice, and evil in the world – which includes putting people through traumatic situations. As a Christian Pastor, I am often with people going through painful and harm-full situations. I regularly see the hurt and scars from the pain and trauma people face in their lives. 

I am grateful our police department, sheriff department, and schools care about the lives of our students and staff. I am grateful they want to prevent school shootings and to be prepared in case something happens.

But I’m heartbroken that the best we can do is put people through terrifying and traumatic situations to prepare them.

In January, a Boing 737 jet lost a rear door plug in flight, as one article said, “terrifying people on board.”

Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt. 

But the result wasn’t to put people through live action drills of doors being ripped on mid-flight to ensure everyone knows how to react. 

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) halted other similar planes from flying altogether and launched a non-stop investigation. 

After learning there were issues with their quality control, Boeing was told they had 90 days to create a plan addressing quality-control because the FAA has “non-negotiable safety standards.”

Boeing must “ensure that safety is the company’s guiding principle.”

I am grateful we take air travel safety so seriously.

The Boeing incident grounded planes and required a 90-day plan to address changes – all for an incident where nobody actually died.

Just because people were terrified. 

Meanwhile, students and teachers are being terrified as a method to help them be prepared. 

I wish we took gun violence just as seriously as we take air travel. 

If we did, we would “ground” all guns used in mass shootings until we could address the issue of safety. Just like Boeing 737s were grounded. 

Our lawmakers would be given 90 days to create a plan to address these issues because we have “non-negotiable safety standards.” Just like Boeing was given.

We wouldn’t wait for people to die. 

We would require these changes right away…simply because what’s happening is “terrifying people on board.”

Life & Death

I’m reminded of the women in the Gospel of Mark who find the tomb empty. 

They are told Jesus has been raised from the dead and then they are told to go tell the disciples about it. Mark says they are terrified, run away, and tell no one…

The earliest versions of Mark’s gospel end there. 

A cliffhanger, inviting us to decide what we do with our own terror and fear. 

Do we run away and avoid?

Or do we share the truth about death, pain, and suffering? 

This is not the way God intended things to be. 

The FAA is pretty clear that people’s lives are what is most important, and they aren’t afraid to require drastic changes to make sure it happens. 

We know from other gospels that the women also weren’t afraid to make drastic changes in order to champion life. 

We should take some notes (and so should our lawmakers). 

We must not champion trauma, suffering, pain, and death as a way of protecting life.

This is not the way of Jesus. 

We must become champions of life. 

This is the way of resurrection. 

This is the way of God. 

May it be our way too. 

The earliest creeds of the church talk about Christ’s return. It’s also mentioned in some New Testament letters from people like the Apostle Paul.

However, Christians believe differently about what the return of Christ looks like.

Some believe Christ will literally return like the Apostle Paul seemed to believe.

Others, like the Gospel of John, seem to believe it is more of a spiritualized return where our hearts and communities are transformed by justice, love, and peace.

But the idea that Christ would come back and take people away to heaven while the world was destroyed…

That is a pretty new idea.

193 years old to be exact.

This idea is often called the “Rapture.”

Creation of the Rapture

A young Irishman named John Nelson Darby started this interpretation in 1830.

Basically, he taught Christ would come and take Christians from the earth and everyone left on earth would suffer all kinds of horrible things, which he pulled from the Book of Revelation. Then, after all the destruction and suffering, Christ would come back again and make a new world. (The technical name for Darby’s teaching is “dispensationalism”)

Darby made a number of mission trips to the U.S. in the mid-1800s to share this idea. A few prominent preachers in the U.S. took up preaching his ideas. Eventually, a whole Bible was created called the “Scofield Bible.”

The Scofield Bible had headings and commentary that focused on teaching this idea of the rapture. It would take different passages of scripture throughout the Bible and say “This is all about the end times.”

In the process, the Scofield Bible completely ignored the historical context and what the authors of the books were actually talking about. (As one of my mentors says – A text without context is just a con)

Millions of copies of this Bible were sold, and for most of the 20th century, Americans were influenced by headings and commentary about the rapture and the end of the world. Seminaries, such as Dallas Theological Seminary, were started with the specific goal of teaching about the rapture. (1)

Many people know this way of thinking because of popular books like The Late Great Planet Earth in the 70s & 80s and the Left Behind series in the 90s and early 2000s. These authors wrote from Darby’s teachings and perspective.

All of the sudden, the Bible was turned into a book about the end of the world. And the book of Revelation held the secret code.

Revelation

Early church leaders, like St. Augustine, opposed including Revelation in the Bible but agreed to accept it as long as it was made clear that it was to be understood as a spiritually symbolic book and not taken as literal. Early church leaders worried this book could cause harm (and it has).

Revelation is a specific style of writing called “Apocalyptic literature.”

The writing is coded language that pulls from deep within the Jewish tradition to reveal spiritual truths. This made it difficult for people outside the Jewish faith to understand, but the original readers of the letter knew what was being said.

For example, Revelation uses the name “Babylon” as a code name for Rome. Babylon destroyed the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 587/6BCE and carried them into captivity. Jerusalem was rebuilt and later on Rome destroyed the Temple in 70CE. Jewish people started calling Rome the name “Babylon” as a coded reference.

Revelation is filled with subtle details like this.

African-American Spirituals

During slavery, African Americans used spiritual songs in similar ways.

These songs were sung to give hope and encouragement to each other. They sang “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Steal Away to Jesus” to cryptically request or signal the help of the underground railroad, which was the “sweet chariot” to get “home” (Northern states or Canada). Many slaves had to get past the Ohio River, which they called the “Jordan,” to get to the “promised land.”

The song wasn’t about being taken away from earth into heaven. It was about heaven coming to earth and “bands of angels comin’ after me” to carry them to freedom from slavery.

These spiritual songs were coded and symbolic in order to give hope, strength, and encouragement to keep going and to trust that one day things will be different.

It was never about leaving earth. It was always about heaven coming to earth.

This is what John Nelson Darby got wrong.

Not an Accurate Teaching

One of the foundational texts for Darby’s view of the rapture is simply misunderstood. This is what it says:

The Lord himself will come down from heaven with the signal of a shout by the head angel and a blast on God’s trumpet. First, those who are dead in Christ will rise. 17 Then, we who are living and still around will be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the air. That way we will always be with the Lord. ~1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

Paul is pulling from a very common image at the time.

When the emperor would visit part of his kingdom, the citizens would go out to meet the emperor in open country and then escort him into the city.

Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air” isn’t that all of the sudden Jesus takes the people away into outer space or heaven. The image is that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to this world.

This isn’t about leaving earth. It’s about welcoming Christ into the world.

That is what we pray when we say, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The book of Revelation teaches the same thing. It ends with heaven coming to earth and a loud voice saying, “Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:3).

We aren’t being taken away from the world to go to heaven.

Heaven is coming to earth.

This world is our home.

Conclusion

Our whole faith tradition is built on the idea that God leaves heaven and comes to earth.

Because God loves and cares for all of creation.

As followers of Jesus, we don’t try to escape this earth.

We embrace it

We care for it.

We love it.

We nurture it.

Refusing to allow evil, injustice, and harm to chase us away.

The way of Jesus invites us to forsake heaven for earth…so that heaven may be on earth.

May we be bold enough and brave enough to live in this way.

(1) Learn more of this history in Barbara R. Rossing, The Rapture Exposed (Basic Books, 2004).

He was yelling so I could hear him over the wind.

“Later on, while we were riding along the border wall, we saw someone fall and break their leg!!” 

I peddled my bicycle faster, so I was near enough to hear him, while also listening to the car that was coming behind us. 

“It’s built just high enough, if you jump or fall off, you won’t be able to walk away!” 

I am riding across the state of Florida on the final stretch of a 3200-mile cross country bicycle ride with the group We The People Ride. The purpose of the ride was to highlight the need for better immigration policies that do exactly what our faith asks of us: to welcome the foreigner and the stranger (Lev. 19:34), to remember this land is God’s, and we are all immigrants (Lev. 25:23). 

I joined the group in November for the last section of the ride. I didn’t know anyone in the group. When I flew into the Tallahassee airport, two strangers driving from Ohio picked me up. I was provided with a bike, food, and a place to sleep each night. This little community was living out the very way of life they were asking our larger country to live out: to welcome and care for the stranger.  

Though I wasn’t able to ride along the border, I was able to learn a lot from the riders who did. I found that immigration is at the intersection of so many of our deep struggles in the U.S. At the core, immigration speaks to our tendency to devalue life. We The People Ride spent the first 1600 miles of the trip riding along our southern border meeting immigrants, refugees, border patrol, and communities who are directly impacted by our immigration policies. It became very clear that the purpose of the border wall isn’t just to deter immigrants. It’s meant to permanently harm and kill people. The term used is “Deterrence by death.” 

The border wall used to be 10 feet high. Then, it was increased to 17 feet high. Now it is 30 feet high so that, if you fall from 30 feet, you won’t be able to walk away. Our group not only heard stories about this but saw the effects first hand. The border wall is also strategically placed to funnel people into death traps, such as the desert in Ajo, Arizona. The wall stops and invites people to try their luck crossing the desert. Thousands of people have died trying to make this journey as they run out of water and food. A wall doesn’t deter desperate people, and neither do deserts. In June 2021, 380 people died in this Arizona region attempting to reach safety. 

People try to cross the wall and desert in hopes of a better life. As people of faith, we know these stories. This is the story of Hagar in the desert, the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fleeing to Egypt—all searching for life and hope and freedom. 

READ: Jesus is Waiting at Our Border

Our government doesn’t track migrant deaths, but the communities on the border do. These cities and towns care deeply for the immigrants and refugees. Groups from these communities travel into the desert and leave food and water hoping people might find it and survive their trek through.  Maria Singleton lives in Ajo and shared that they’re deeply impacted knowing people are dying around their community. Bodies are found all around the desert and even just outside of town. In Arizona, over the past 10 years, almost 4,000 migrant bodies have been found. Surely, more people have died since it takes as little as three weeks for a body to disappear in the desert. 

As our group road through these communities along the U.S. border, we asked the same question to everyone: “What do you know that you wish everyone else in our country knew?” Citizens, mayors, people of all backgrounds answered the same way: “Would you please tell people that it’s not dangerous here. It’s not true what people are saying about us. It’s not dangerous to live on the border.” 

What is happening on our southern border is a result of the false stereotypes we have created. We’ve been fed the story that living on the border is filled with immigrant criminals, rapists, drug lords, and the cartel. These are lies that feed our fear of strangers, of non-white bodies, and of people who are poor and from poor countries. This has created the extremely toxic narrative in our country that everyone coming across the southern border is a threat. 

This is not what the communities who live on the border in the U.S. experience though. These communities care deeply for immigrants and refugees. They advocate for a change in our immigration policies. These cities and towns are teaching us how to live and work for the common good of all people. 

As people of faith, and in my own United Methodist tradition, we are called to advocate for Common Good immigration policies. We The People Ride understands the “Common Good” to mean “setting policies leading to the inclusion of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers through a clear, fair, accessible path to migrate into the United States.” Every person I spoke with on the ride agreed that our immigration system is not working, but most people don’t understand how harmful our border policies are for immigrants.

Take for instance the policy coined “Remain in Mexico” – a Trump era policy that is continuing under President Biden. This policy massively reduced the number of asylum seekers to a record low of 15,000 and requires anyone seeking asylum to wait in Mexico. Now, tens of thousands of asylum seekers are in make-shift camps with no money or resources. Everyone to whom our group talked said they paid to make the journey (many selling everything they had) and ended up in debt to criminal cartels along the way. They are to pay off the debt with the money they make in the U.S., which would also guarantee the safety of their families back home. Now they are stuck in Mexico, with no money or resources, at the mercy of the cartels.

While the Biden administration has raised the number of asylum seekers, it still isn’t high enough to fix the problem we’ve created. People came to the border, not only with the hopes of gaining asylum, but of being able to wait safely in the U.S. as their case is adjudicated (which can take 6 months or more). By drastically lowering the number of people granted asylum, and by requiring everyone to wait in Mexico, we have trapped people. They cannot come, and they cannot go. They cannot find a safe place. 

We have strengthened the power and influence of the cartels and we have created more desperation, which will lead to more people taking more chances . . . which will lead to more deaths . . . 

Our immigration policies have been, and continue to be, literal death sentences for thousands of innocent people.

But, there are people who want to change this. 

People who are doing amazing work. 

People who know that we need Common Good immigration policies. 

People who know our faith demands it. 

Find out more about We The People Ride and help make change here.