was i circumcised?

it was sunday evening at the [living] room… february 4th… the super bowl was starting in 1 hour. i was looking forward to a really cool evening…just hangin’ with some friends…studying the bible for a while…and watchin’ the colts put it to da’ bears. but the evening was just starting…and i’m no prophet…

the evening was different right from the start. for one thing, we were studying Genesis 17…circumcision (ouch!). but brandon took us from the old testament law of circumcision where they cut…uhhmm…well, you know…to the new testament teaching from Romans where we need to have circumcision of our heart…a.k.a. our need to change on the inside.

it was ironic because this topic had been heavy on my mind since the “isn’t she beautiful” conference at mars hill where i felt convicted by a break-out session on community involvement/outreach and a term they used: “neighboring”. for the leaders at mars hill, the goal for grand rapids is not to help people with money, or teach them about the bible/Jesus/God…no, the ultimate goal is quite simply to be a good neighbor…the way Jesus would want you to…by breaking down social barriers…loving people unconditionally…and then letting all of the other good stuff flow from that…yes, that’s neighboring!

well, it had been almost 2 weeks since the conference and the day before the super bowl. i (finally!) decided to go to horizon house…a local shelter for families…to talk with one of the directors…mary. and my journey down this road of “neighboring” continued. as mary and i talked, i kept trying to understand how to connect to the people at horizon house…and mary just kept telling me things like… “just drop in”… “just listen”… “don’t worry about what to say”… “be a friend”… “show them that you care”… and so on. when I finally left after 1.5 hours with mary, i still had many unanswered questions…but i had this strange sense that i was making it too hard…and something inside of me needed to be circumcised.

so back to the [living] room, circumcision and the game. we were just finishing up our study when mary and her friends came walking through the door…and the plans for the evening changed. i quickly realized that the focus was no longer on hangin’ with some friends and watchin’ the super bowl . instead, it was now time for me to start neighboring! for the next two hours i struggled to keep up with the game as i worked hard to meet our new neighbors from horizon house. in some ways we were very different but in other ways we were exactly the same. it turned out that neighboring wasn’t that hard after all. at half time, our new friends had to leave to go back to horizon house…and i was completely exhausted. BUT we (the [living] room) had taken an important step toward neighboring the horizon house.

so…the final point is this: male circumcision is a permanent thing (for sure!)…and circumcision of the heart should be the same. and i wonder if my heart was truly circumcised on super bowl sunday or was my effort just another “one-hit wonder” that was here today and will be gone tomorrow?

-kwin

~ by kwinabram on February 10, 2007.