Recently I received an iTunes message on my computer telling me about the 40th Anniversary Concert for Bangladesh. I said, "Cool," as I remember buying The Concert of Bangladesh's three-record set featuring George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, and who can forget Billy Preston on the Hammond B-3: "That's The Way God Planned It." Some of you are too young. Couldn't beat Billy Preston on a B-3, man.
So George Harrison, just one man, gets this group of musicians together because he's moved with compassion to make a difference in the lives of starving children in Bangladesh. This was during a time of extreme famine. And here we are forty years later to the week. Get this. Forty years later, iTunes is offering the recordings, and you can download and watch the video of the concert, and they give a special notice that every dollar that is raised, after taxes, is going to the George Harrison Hunger Relief Fund. Forty years later! I'm thinking, "I don't even know if George Harrison was saved!" He died of cancer several years ago, and yet, his legacy continues and he's STILL making a difference!
How much more can the church make a difference? I mean, we're talking about one little Beatle! How much more of a difference can the sons and daughters of God make? How much can the Church impact the world if we will ever allow the compassion of God to be fully manifested through us? The problem is that the compassion will never be fully manifested as long as we are more concentrated on our own lives, needs, four walls, family, jobs, ambition, and education.
We're all wrapped up in ourselves, so much so, that oftentimes we can't even see the needs that are all around us. It's a common religious trait. We see it in the Pharisee; we see it in the Levite. I've recognized it in my own life. I've been so guilty of this. I remember when I was a young missionary, I could drive down certain streets in Port-au-Prince and literally be moved to tears by the needs around me. I've shared with you before; I've seen intersections in Port-au-Prince where the lame and the blind hang out. Kind of like that place that Bartimaeus hung out on the side of the road. I can remember in my early days that I would be so moved to compassion that I'd find myself in tears as I saw a lost, hurting, maimed, beaten, and distressed humanity all around me.
But after years of seeing it and being part of it, I had grown to be the very thing that I had detested. Now I could roll up my windows in my air-conditioned vehicle and keep my focus on the person sitting next to me in the front seat and act like I didn't even see the need, all the while I knew it was there.
God's been messing with my heart. It's a good thing. I think God's messing with the heart of His Church. He's stirring us to a place of manifesting His compassion to a lost and hurting world. I shared earlier about Keith Green, maybe I'm listening to too much old music. He's the guy who wrote the song, "Oh Lord, You're Beautiful," before dying in a plane wreck in the early '80's. Been listening to some of his music and one line keeps going off on the inside of me: "I find it hard to ignore a billion starving people." How can we ignore it, Church? How can we ignore the needs that surround us? I see footage now of thousands, maybe millions of people walking to Kenya from Darfur where the famine has hit. And I'm not saying we can meet all the needs, we can't. The poor will always be among us. But part of the purpose of the Church is to reach out to the lost, to the hurting, to the distressed. It's our responsibility to bring them Christ, the love of God, and be a manifestation of the love of God.
~ pg
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