The Good Samaritan

The story of the Good Samaritan is one of those biblical stories that has been interpreted so many ways that it is kind of like tofu – you can make it into whatever you want it to be. That is a dangerous thing to do with Scripture. Interpreting scripture is one of those things that can be done well or it can be done in ways that do violence to what the text actually means. I learned that in hours of hermeneutics lectures, where Dr. Hahn pounded the thought that we have to begin with this question: What did this mean to the original readers or hearers? None of the authors of the Gospels or any other bit of scripture were writing to us in the 21^st Century. They were writing to the audience of their day, and anything in the text has to make sense to the readers of the day. Our task is to try to understand the hearers of that day and as best we can put ourselves into their situation as we read the text.

That is really more difficult than you might think. When the adult life group was studying Revelation, one of the points the author made was that for a white American, Revelation makes little sense. But for someone on the underside of power, someone in an oppressed minority, someone who might live in fear of the law such as undocumented aliens or escaped slaves, Revelation makes much more sense. It was written to an oppressed people being hunted by the government. We, who enjoy the top side of power and protected rights, have a hard time understanding the message of hope that John put in that letter. The same can be true of the Good Samaritan.

To give you some background, Jews hated Samaritans, whom they considered heretics. Does anyone know what the basis of their disagreement is? {ask the congregation for input}. Their main issue was over the temple. The Samaritans had built their own temple on Mount Gerazim, and counted the Pentateuch as scripture, but not the other Old Testament books. To say that there was a lot of built up hostility would be understating the issue by an enormous amount. Jews viewed Samaritans as “half-Jews” and would not allow them to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. This hostility went all the way back to the Assyrian exile in the Old Testament, when the Samaritans were placed there by the Assyrian king and intermarried with the Assyrians and Babylonians. This is the setting in which we find ourselves today.

Turn in your Bibles to Luke 10: 25-37. Hear the word of the Lord:

²⁵ Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.^j “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” ²⁷ He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

²⁹ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰ Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³² So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii,^k gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

This story should be familiar to many of us. It is so familiar, in fact, that Samaritan has become a common noun like Kleenex, Xerox, Coke (in the south). It stands for an entire category or genre of things, not just the thing it originally stood for. But if we stopped at reading this as a prescription for how to be a person willing to help others, we would be missing so much in this story. Also, if we, as so many have done, make this into a giant allegory where everything stands for something else, we will shortchanging the text. This is a fascinating look at Jesus taking the religious rules and conventions of the day and giving them the Alice in Wonderland – up is down and down is up- treatment.

Let’s dive into this thing.

Our story opens with Jesus being confronted by a lawyer. It seems that in the past 2000 years, the stereotype of a lawyer hasn’t changed much. J This lawyer is trying to pin Jesus down on some matters of faith. So he asks him a somewhat loaded question “What must I DO to inherit eternal life? Has anyone here ever received an inheritance from an earthly relative? Did you have to do anything to receive it? Wash the car? Clip toenails? Seriously, you don’t have to do anything to inherit. You typically inherit because of who you are not because of your works. Jesus, sensing the trap, throws the question back and asks “What does the Law say?” The Lawyer, then starts looking for a loophole. So he drops in the question “Who is my neighbor?” He seems to be saying “who do I have to be nice to in order to merit favor from God? You could look at it as him asking what the minimum is. He could be viewed as self-righteous “I did this therefore I deserve eternal life.” Or you could look at it as him trying to trap Jesus, this guy who has a habit of eating with tax collectors, sinners, talking to Samaritan women at wells, and other unsavory types. Regardless, I don’t think we can say that the lawyer was honestly looking for some religious guidance that would make him a better human being.

‘Who is my neighbor?’ the lawyer wants to vindicate himself to the teacher, wants to show his cleverness, he wants to manage his responsibility. And who is my neighbor? The way the lawyer asks this question puts him in the driver’s seat. He is in control. He is the one who loves. He is the one who decides if another person is truly his neighbor or not. This is his game. With his question to Jesus, he’s just trying to estimate the size of the pitch and identify his teammates.

In answer to this question, then, Jesus’ story becomes quite odd indeed. One of the two main characters, the man set upon by robbers, is passive and unconscious for virtually all of the story, left half dead in a ditch. He doesn’t even have a speaking part. We know almost nothing about him other than that he is most likely an Israelite, like the lawyer. And we know that throughout this story he is passive, exposed, vulnerable. In answering the lawyer’s question, Jesus effectively turns it on its head: who is my neighbor? Is not a question that we answer out of our own power, by our own decision, through our own control. Determining who our neighbor is not a matter of carefully vetting likely candidates and finding some who are really worth bothering with. No; in the event, our neighbor is who we are given.

And what a neighbor this man is given. A priest and a Levite both see the man, half-dead, and pass by on the other side of the road. These fellow Israelites are most likely afraid that this man is not half dead but all dead, and in that case coming into contact with him would render them unclean. So his countrymen and co-religionists pass him by. Instead, a Samaritan comes upon him and helps.

But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii,^k gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

This is where Jesus’ story starts to get really dicey with his audience. As we said before, Samaritans were looked down upon in that society. But Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero in the story. The Samaritan pays the equivalent of 2 days wages to the innkeeper, which would have been enough for several days in an inn of the era. The Samaritan bandaged his wounds, put him on his animal, took him to the inn and paid for his care with the promise to pay for any more care that the man may incur.

Now here is where we ought to be careful and try to bracket out our contemporary notions about Samaritans. To an Israelite of Jesus’ day, a Samaritan would have been repugnant. There had been hatred and animosity between the Jews and Samaritans for centuries, as the Israelites held the Samaritans to be idolaters and betrayers of the faith. And the Samaritans gave as good as they got. Roughly 25 years before Jesus would have told this parable, a group of Samaritans entered the Temple in Jerusalem and scattered human bones around, desecrating the place. In our story today, once the Samaritan comes on the scene, the lawyer most likely would have thought that he would come upon the half-dead Israelite and finish the job. To the lawyer, the Samaritan’s help would have been shocking, even scandalous. And that, of course, is just why Jesus used him in the story in the first place.

What’s more, the help that the Samaritan gives is extravagantly over the top. He doesn’t just give first aid, but takes him to an inn. He gives the innkeeper an amount of money that, at that time, would have sustained a person for three weeks. And he doesn’t even stick around for a thank you. In fact, there is no sense at all that this half-dead Israelite ever even knows who saved his life.

Jesus, in one story, has just offended the religious sensibilities of all of his hearers. He has constructed a scenario that none of them would have even considered, and he took a group of people that may have been as hated as the Romans, and made them the hero. During Frog Club this summer, the kids took a stab at recontextualizing this story in terms they could understand. We rewrote the story using characters from TV shows and movies familiar to them and switching the roles around. In one of them Darth Vader was the Samaritan. In another, Squidward was the Samaritan. I think you get the idea of how this story is so important

How might that look for us today? I’ve take a stab at rewriting the story for a 21^st century conservative, evangelical audience.

A man was driving from Auburn Hills to Toledo through the inner city of Detroit, and fell into the hands of a gang of thugs, who carjacked him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead in the street. ³¹ Now by chance a minister was going down that same road; and when he saw him, he drove by went home, and called 911. ³² So likewise a church board member, when he came to the place and saw him, drove by, went home and also called 911. ³³ But a Mormon church member, while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. ³⁴ He went to him and administered first aid, bandaged his wounds, having treated him with Neosporin. Then he put him in his car, drove him to the hospital, and checked him in. ³⁵ After ensuring the man was being cared for, he took out his credit card,^k paid the hospital finance officer, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the gang members?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Who is our neighbor? Suddenly, in the logic of the parable, we’re not calling the shots; we are not so sure just who our neighbor is. Suddenly we’re not so sure just who our self is. If I’m to love another as my ‘self’ then the upshot is that I’m not even totally familiar with who I am, as I seem constantly to find that self facing me in others. And here we find the most radical challenge, for in this we see that no boundary will finally stand in the way of us and our neighbor, if we are to love them as our self. There are certainly distinctions: yes; love doesn’t seek to make everything else the same. But boundaries? No. There are no boundaries to our neighbors, no limits to whom we are to find our very selves in, no restrictions to whom we are to love unstintingly in God.

Sisters and brothers, in this day of the internet, international travel, and globalization the world seems to grow smaller; it is clearer now more than ever that any line we draw to limit our neighbors will simply be arbitrary. And so we discover that we have neighbors far and near: your family who sits at the dinner table with you, the young woman across the counter at the Coffee Beanery, the Baptist or the Muslim or the atheist who lives down the street, the unemployed young man who lives across town, the politician we disagree with so ardently, even the worker in a different country who picked the fruit you ate with breakfast or who sewed the shirt you’re wearing right now. Who is my neighbor, who I am to love? Who isn’t my neighbor?

We might even be surprised to find, in fact, that God is our neighbor. That’s not to parrot the words of that song from the nineties that God might be ‘one of us’. What I mean is that the story of the Good Samaritan is also a parable of God’s grace. The man who is half-dead and abandoned, who is unable to do anything on his own encounters a freely given and extravagant healing love from a surprising source, without conditions. This love gives him back his life and allows him to be a neighbor to others. This is the mercy and love of God that we meet through Christ, and that empowers us to love our neighbor. And so here we find that love of God and love of neighbor meet.

We don’t love God because it is a commandment. It is ‘written in the Law’ because God loves us first. God’s love elicits love from us. We respond to that love with love; and we find that even the love we respond with is a gift from God. This responding love is then worked out in loving our neighbor. Loving God and loving neighbor are not two different projects, for love begets love. The love we receive is the love that we love those around us with; and it is with that same love that we graciously receive from our neighbor, who is also beloved of God.

We know how the lawyer in today’s story answered Jesus’ question, but we don’t know what he did after that. Was his life changed? Did he ‘go and do likewise’? Or was he so turned off that he went and looked for a different venue to plead his case in? Or did he, perhaps like most of us, walk away convinced that Jesus was right, yet also knowing how far he was from it, nevertheless trying to love others with the love that he had found in Christ? Of course, we can only speculate about him. But I hope that as we go out in the wake of this story we will be both challenged and comforted by what we find here: by the surprising Samaritan, by the neighbor in our life we do not choose but are given by God, and most of all by the extravagant love and grace of God. In that way, may we better grasp this story, better love this story, and above all, be better grasped by the love we find in it.

Folks, we have neighbors we didn’t choose right here by the church. Some of you have noticed them, others may not have. I don’t want to focus on the neighbors and their various needs, misdeeds and the like. I would rather focus on Jesus’ admonition to the lawyer to go and do likewise. What kind of neighbors do we want to be to these people? What kind of neighbor do we want to be to the people who live near our homes? To the people we work with, come in contact with at Kroger, the gas station, at high school sporting events, in school? In many ways the point of this story is about the lawyer. How do we take the extravagant love that has been given to us and share it with the world around us? That is the question we as a congregation need to wrestle with. There is no easy answer that I can give you other than to love extravagantly .

Emmanuel ( God With Us)

Each year at Christmas we celebrate the coming of the Christ Child, when God took human form and moved in with us. The Hebrews called it Emmanuel, or God With Us.

I recently preached on that topic and realized that to the Israelites, God with us meant a lot, because they could remember through stories when God literally lived with them.

During the Exodus, God was with them as a pillar of fire and a cloud. When Moses went up on the mountain, they heard the voice of God shaking the ground. And when Solomon dedicated the Temple, the Glory of the Lord filled the Temple to the point that the priests could not perform their ceremonial priestly duties. That was God with them.

A carpenter's son, born in a manger and fleeing for his life from a king wasn't their idea of Emmanuel. But God, in his wisdom, sent Jesus to live with us, like us, and among us, so that he could give us victory over sin, death and Hades. It still amazes me to think that Jesus would give up the beauty of heaven to come to this mess. A perfect place for a very imperfect place. A place of beauty for a world filled with much ugliness. That is love my friends. True, selfless love.

And now that the Holy Spirit lives in us, not a building in Jerusalem, we are called to be the embodiment of Christ to the world around us. This Advent and Christmas I have been thinking a great deal about what that can mean for me personally, my family, and my church. I don't have answers, but I encourage you to ask the Lord to show you how you can be the incarnation of Christ to those around you. How can you bring Jesus to them, not in an arrogant, "I'll tell you how to do it" way, but a "I love you because you are you" way. More of a servant's heart, like Jesus, rather than that of a fixer.

That is the meaning of Christmas. Love came and set up camp in our neighborhood. I want to do the same and spread the Love that rescued the world.

Adjusting to reality

This article in Leadership Journal really struck me, partly because it goes against the grain of the past 30 years of Protestant Christianity. It is about a new pastor at a church that aspired to be a mega-church and never made it there. They built the building, but for reasons you can read in the article, it didn't happen.

So the new pastor comes in and decides that they can still be very effective, just not as a megachurch. The process of change is wrenching, but it can lead to great kingdom growth as the congregation reaches out to the lost and hurting world around us.

I've been thinking about this article as I watch the circus in our state capitol. In many ways, Michigan is like this church. It isn't what it once was, nor what it dreamed it would be. So where do you go from here? I offer some suggestions from the article that are applicable to many churches, the state of Michigan, and individuals who are dealing with the disappointment of a life that didn't turn out the way they had hoped.

1. To be honest about our current condition. This can be hard for a church with such a storied past.

People kept asking: Why have our long-term members left? When are things going to get back to the way they were? What's wrong with us? (Translation: Why have all of these people and businesses left?)

Such questions can squelch even the most sincere brainstorming sessions. The hard truth we've tried to communicate through all of this is that the glory days of the past are exactly that—past glory days. We're not to try to return to them. Garnett will never again be the church it once was. We have to do the difficult thing of letting go of our former glory in order to allow God to do a new thing in us.

2. To relinquish our rights as members to a church building that we are no longer able to pay for by ourselves. The Garnett Church of Christ building is becoming the Garnett Event Center.

Already, several other churches are using our facilities on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon: a Messianic Jewish community, a charismatic Hispanic church, a rock church called Rolling Stone, and a new church plant.

Throughout the week, a number of other events, some church-related and others not, are held at our building. Not only is the rental income from these events helping to pay the bills, but it's also giving us a hospitable presence in our neighborhood. (Translation: No longer will we have a dominant position with a dominant industry fueling our state coffers. We will have to go out and compete for each and every business that we hope to lure here.)

But not without some difficulty. Everyone, myself and all ministry staff included, must reserve any classroom or meeting space equally with those in the community who are using or renting space.

The way we're trying to see it: this building no longer belongs to us. It belongs to our community. This isn't easy to explain to a charter member who's been helping to pay off the building for 20 years!

We've started a bi-lingual preschool that has grown to 50 students, half Anglo and half Hispanic. We've projected beyond our ability to speak Spanish, putting "Bienvenito" (Welcome) on the front doors and asking Spanish speakers to help us translate for different events.

We made it our goal to pray for every family that comes into our weekly food subsidy ministry and to invite them to serve with us.

3. To recognize that the most life-giving activities of our church aren't necessarily going to happen in our facility. Church leaders in event-driven and personality-centered churches tend to gauge success by headcount, the number of people who show up. This is what leaders talked about, and subsequently members tended to judge success by how pews and collection baskets were filled.

With Michael Frost (author of Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture) and Alan Hirsch (The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church), we have been forced to ask new questions: What if events of church, personalities of church, and Sunday assembly went away? What would be our view of the Christian life? What would we do as Christians, and who would we be?

We're working with the local fire department to arrange Spanish classes for them so they can better serve and communicate on daily calls. We're partnering with Habitat for Humanity and our city to build and renovate houses and help people to get back on their feet again.

We are learning to see our community, and individuals, not as needing handouts but as valued people who can together with us serve our Lord and our community. (Translation: Not everyone is going to move all of their operations here. We may have to settle for a tech center and the manufacturing will be done in a lower-cost environment.)

4. To learn to be missionaries in our own culture. Across the street from us, Fire Station 27 is the busiest station in the city. Fire Chief Michael Baker said, "This is a big church and the neighborhood is waiting … waiting to see what you are going to do for this community."

This comment has been forcing us outward, while we are at the same time redesigning our space for community groups to enter. Church Shepherd Robert Garland replied to Chief Baker that "we want to be a better neighbor to you and this community." (Translation: Treat the people we have more hospitably instead of crying about what we used to have or didn't get. Don't stomp on the businesses that are here as we chase our next "fix" of a large employer that is using us as a negotiating ploy.)

And really, that's the first step to becoming missionaries: getting to know our neighbors' needs.

Todd Hunter of Alpha-USA articulates well what we want to do: "I want to help people become the cooperative friends of Jesus, seeking to live lives of constant creative goodness through the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world."

That's what we're determined to do: equip our congregation to be Christ to neighbors, co-workers, and family members, rather than trying to coax people into signing up for every church program possible and burning families out with church involvement.

We've had to ruthlessly ask of each ministry venture, "Is this an energy drain? An event without purpose? A building-centered program that determines success by how many populate this building?"

Anything aside from a Christ-centered approach is out in favor of teaching one another how to be incarnational presence of Christ, in practical ways in our jobs, neighborhoods, PTAs, and sports teams.

I know it isn't all directly applicable, but it does ring true for our elected officials, and many pastors and leaders of churches that are not where they dreamed they would be.

For the churches, fix your eyes on Christ and his dreams and plans, not yours. Remember the conversation between Peter and Jesus in John 21:

The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." 19Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

20Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is going to betray you?") 21When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

22Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." 23Because of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

24This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.

25Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

If you are Peter, the prospect of crucifixion is not something that he relished. Jesus was making the point that it isn't about him, or Peter, but about God, who sent Jesus and called Peter. We would do well to heed that advice. I know I would.

Missional Churches - Third in a series

For review, here is the original article on which this post is based.

(3) Missional communities are discontent with spiritual formation as primarily cognitive assent ("I believe this to be true"). Instead, formation is presented as a way of life, a rhythm of being, and a rule of values. It emphasizes faithful living during the week rather than gathering for worship at a weekend event. The sharp boundary between the sacred and secular is evaporating as missional fellowships seek to hear God's voice in culture and creation.

Do you hear that? It is the sound of the author hitting the nail on the head! I've been ruminating on what kind of church I would like God to place me in when I begin pastoral ministry. The best I have come up with so far is a church where its actions are fed by discipleship and motivated by love. What I believe the Lord wants is for the spiritual formation that we go through be shared with others as He brings opportunity. Not just witnessing, but acts of service motivated by love.

I love the phrase the author uses "a rhythm of being" for its sheer imagery. It describes a life where our discipleship/spiritual formation or whatever you want to call it is so ingrained into our being that what we do directly reflects what we believe. I think of the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis during World War II. I saw a documentary film about that amazing community and what struck me was the statement of one lady who said,I'm paraphrasing here, "we didn't have to organize and think about it. We just did it because it was the right thing to do." That is spiritual formation driving action motivated by love.

For many of us, spiritual formation has become an intellectual exercise. And I speak of myself here. We need to renew our sense of awe and wonder of creation. Consider this from Paul's letter to the church in Rome:

1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,

1:19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. We can experience God in creation, as well as in the Bible and revelation of the Holy Spirit. Let's hone all of these aspects and then use our love to go minister to all of creation. We have no excuse, and we are incomplete if we exclude any of these areas. Enjoy the fullness of God with me. And then let us share it with others.

Missional Churches - First in a series

A recent article in Leadership magazine talked about some characteristics of "Missional Churches." I know this is another title like emerging/postmodern/seeker-sensitive etc that often has a vague definition. If you want to be part of the naming discussion, go to Out of Ur, the Christianity Today blog. The article is title "Missional Buzz" by Tim Conder.

I want to discuss some of the specific points he makes individually over the next several posts. He begins with:

Identifying missional churches can be difficult. Such churches are separated by identity and perspective as much as their visible forms. Nonetheless, there are some common commitments.

(1) Missional communities try to align themselves holistically with God's theme of redemption. They resist the use of Christianity as an anesthetic to the pain of human needs and as an affirmation of the superiority of one culture's way of life.

Wow. That is a power-packed statement. That really smacks the state of American Protestantism over the past 30 years. We have gone into mission fields and interjected our culture along with our religion as if they were inseparable. That is getting better in some tribes of Christianity, but I suspect that it is still prevalent. I find it disheartening to hear people in the far-flung corners of the globe singing American or Western hymns in their language and at a tempo that doesn't suit their culture. The form is not as important as the function for this.

The whole "Christianity is the cure for all that ails you" argument has been spiritually destructive to many people. Yes, ultimately faith in Christ does cure your underlying illness of original sin. But it may not cure your illnesses in this life, it may not help you lose weight, get a spouse back or find a better job. God blesses his people, but He is also sovereign. And sometimes he chooses to allow suffering for reasons we cannot understand. Go read Job for an example.

So a missional church is one that does not misrepresent the Gospel as a path to prosperity and happiness, and one that does not ally itself with a particular culture. If we can grasp that we have made significant progress. There is no "right way" to do church other than to follow the instructions of the Lord. The rest is preference, and each group should be allowed to choose its preferences so long as they do not violate the laws and instructions of God.

We are all sinners, some have been redeemed, some are still waiting. If we keep redemption as our central focus, it will make the mission much easier to grasp. We don't have to be cleaned up first to be redeemed. We don't have to look good, smell good, stop smoking, drinking etc to be redeemed. Jesus meets us where we are. After that, the Holy Spirit will do the cleaning from the inside. We just need to keep focused on the redeeming process. God has cleaned many of us, and we can help those who have joined our tribe. But let redemption be the first order of business. The cleaning comes later.