Pants

Sometimes Jesus doesn’t have a beard…

and sometimes he needs to pull up his pants.

The first thing that I noticed about Jesus was that he didn’t have a beard.  The next thing I noticed was that he needed to pull up his pants.  Finally, I noticed that he was just a teenager.

I was celebrating thanksgiving in Cambodia with a wonderful pork and rice dish.  To be totally accurate, it was Thanksgiving in the USA but I was 8,000 miles away in Siem Reap, Cambodia volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity project.  Jim Witt and I had traveled there with some other Lutherans from the Denver metro area on a short-term mission trip.  For the previous few days we had been leading a Youth Conference for the Christian youth of Cambodia on the Means of Grace.  It was a wonderful opportunity to share with them the way in which our Lord promises to work in this world.  It was also a wonderful way for me to learn that in many ways teenagers are the same the world over.  The girls often gathered together in the corner casting shy glances at the boys who were strutting around trying to show off.  There were also a number of boys that needed to pull up their pants.

Toward the end of the Youth Conference all the youth went out into the community to do some service projects.  I happened to be assigned to a Habitat for Humanity project with 10 of the youth including, you guessed it, a teenage boy who needed to pull up his pants.  We traveled out to a rural area where we met a family of five living in a shack with a dirt floor.  Our job was to build them a latrine.  Habitat had delivered the materials and provided the plans, but our team needed a leader.  And who do you suppose volunteered?  You guessed it, low pants boy, my group clown. 

To my mind we were off to a poor start.

It turned out I was wrong.  As I came to discover, my low pants teen actually knew what he was doing.  It just so happened that this teenage boy had a steady construction job whenever he wasn’t in school, which meant every afternoon after school and during any breaks.  And let me tell you, he was a brick laying machine!  He got the other boys organized framing the latrine, digging the hole, mixing concrete and hauling water - and before you knew it that rural family had a brand new latrine to use.  As I spoke to my professional brick layer about his construction experience and his family something suddenly registered with me.  This young teen that was helping build a latrine for a family “in need” did not have a latrine at his own home.  He was literally giving to someone out of his need, sharing his gifts and skills with those in need.  And that’s when it hit me. 

I had just seen Jesus at work in Cambodia. 

But Jesus wasn’t done in rural Siem Reap.  Following our Thanksgiving feast of pork and rice, I went to round up my youth to get back to work.  I couldn’t find any of the girls.  After a few minutes of looking I found them inside the family’s home.  Most of them were sitting on the dirt floor finishing their lunch…with the exception of one.  She was sitting on the bed, wearing her “Hello Kitty” T-shirt, next to the grandmother in the family.  The grandmother was quite old and blind and had been resting in bed all morning as we worked.  But upon finding her in the home, this teenage girl had sat down next to her and begun to read her the Bible. 

Jesus was at it again.

When our Lord’s call leads Christians into their neighborhoods, communities and even across the world we can sometimes mistakenly believe that Jesus isn’t present until “we” show up.  But Jesus paints a different picture in John 20:21 when he tells the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And this is not a “divide and conquer” kind of thing, as if Jesus is sent to one place and we are sent to another.  No, we are sent where Jesus has already gone.  We are not delivering Jesus as much as we are joining Jesus in what he is already doing.   

And while it took me flying 8000 miles to remember this lesson, I pray you’ll learn from my shortsightedness. 

Wherever it is that the Lord has led you… he is already there.

He is there and he is at work.

He is caring for the people he loves.

He is serving them.

He is bringing them his message of peace, love and restoration.

Keep your eyes open.  Jesus might be the homeless man on the street on your way to work, he might be the soccer mom in your neighborhood, he might be sitting next to you in school.  He might be reading a Bible while wearing a “Hello Kitty” T-shirt.  He might even be the kid that needs to pull up his pants giving to others out of his need.