Artificial Light
I occasionally watch Extreme Makeovers Home Edition and last night I watched with real interest because the recipients were the Montgomery’s of Philo, Illinois which is located close to where we used to live in the Champaign area. Nathan and Jenny Montgomery and their four children lived in a house that was most standards almost inhabitable because they give their lives to a local Christian mission in Champaign. Salt & Light is the name of the mission where Nathan is the director. Salt & Light (http://www.saltandlightministry.org) feeds, clothes, and fills in the gaps for people in Champaign. It is truly a model ministry, operated by men and women with servant hearts who put so much love into filling basic needs of poor people in the area.
The show was fantastic! The house the volunteers built for them and the work they did for Salt & Light was great. Extreme Makeover Home Edition has a pretty clean record of choosing needy people and then giving them far more than they expect. It was a great “feel-good” show, except for one glaring flaw. The flaw was a serious omission and it would have been insignificant to me except I am noticing it more and more. Salt & Light is a Christian ministry. They make no excuses about their faith. They seek to be the salt and light to this world (from Matthew 5: 13-16) and take their mission directly from the mouth of Jesus. Their mission statement is clearly a statement of faith. They want to “share the love of God by helping those in need.” And yet I did not hear the words “God” or “Jesus” in the entire broadcast. ABC completely neglected the reason for their lives! Instead, what was pushed was the benefit of volunteering. The Montgomery family got the glory and the people who helped build the house got the glory. Are they good people? Yes – way beyond the average. Do they deserve to be thanked? Most definitely! And yet, we did not hear even once hear the real reason why they do what they do. The entire motivation for their lives and the lives of the people who helped them was based in humanism, in a “do this and it will make you feel good” motive. The second motive that was sold was that if more people did this kind of thing, it would make the world a better place. Both are true, but both are half-truths. The love of God found in the person of Jesus Christ is THE reason. Every other motive is less and fall apart without the principle reason.
Jesus said, “. . . Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” Matthew 5:16 (NLT) The “so that” clause is vital to this commandment. We are not told to help others so that we will feel good about ourselves. We are not told to spread the good news of volunteerism. Our service to God in the form of love in action for other people is to give God praise and glory. Our selfless actions are to point to God. The Montgomery’s lives do just that. The hundreds of volunteers who donated money, food, and labor for the Montgomery’s were mostly there, I would think, because they want to give glory to God. But when ABC omits that critical reason what we are left with is artificial light.
More and more we are hearing the benefits of volunteering. And yet, the benefits sold to us are not real benefits. Are we to help someone only when it makes us feel good? Are we to give only when the person deserves it? Are we to help so that someday someone will help us? These are the criterion in the fine print being sold as generic volunteerism. Yes, it is better than doing nothing, but it is just another version of Christianity Light. “All the taste but less filling.” It offends no one.
It is still refreshing that the small, tiny word “God” is so terrifying to many. ABC obviously has a policy against mentioning that dreaded and controversial word. And the word “Jesus” must only be used in reporting stories about weirdo wackos who kill the innocent or live double lives. God still scares the “bejeebies” out of the secular world. The message is changed from “We love because God first loved us” to “volunteerism is good for everyone.” I have learned that if you look behind the story, in most cases there is a story of faith. The reason why a young engineer and his wife leave a lucrative career and begin a ministry to the “least of these” is not because he is responding to the President’s call for volunteerism, but the Spirit’s call “pick up your cross and follow Me.”
1 Comments
A very good message here. Thank you for reminding us.
Posted by Marjorie Rothwell on 01.26.2010 at 03:47:39 PM