Intro: Ordinary Days for Ordinary People?
Neary lived in a small Indian village where her father beat her and her five siblings routinely. One day, her father sold her to cover a gambling debt and Neary went to work as a bonded laborer at the age of 9. Each day Neary would weave saris in the searing heat for 5 rupees a week but Neary’s room and board mandated by her captors was 7. Neary would be the property of her owners for the rest of her life. Neary’s life seemed so ordinary to many of the 30 other women who had been weaving saris for years and would continue to do so for years to come. Ordinary except when compared to Oden.
Oden sits blowing bubbles on her manicured lawn on a hot summer day. Her father calls her in for lunch, it’s lemonade and finger sandwiches today. She giggles as her dad teases and tickles her into her seat as she hugs him muttering, "I love you daddy," just barely loud enough to be heard. Another ordinary day in suburbia unless compared to Phon.
Phon was walking in her small poor Cambodian village when a woman introduced herself to Phon. The woman told 8-year old Phon that she could give her a job to help with for her family’s economic hardship. Phon went with the woman to a home a few miles away where she was given a room. When Phon woke up the next morning, she discovered the home was actually a brothel and that she had been sold to the brothel keeper and would have to work as a prostitute. Phon cried and refused but was beaten severely until she complied. An ordinary life to so many children housed in the brothel for years, some since the age of five. Ordinary except when compared to Brittney.
Brittney plays jump rope on her first day of second grade. The hot blacktop radiates against her navy uniform on one of the last summer days as she and her friends spell out, "M-I-cooked letter, crooked letter, I." An ordinary day until compared to the end of summer for Melissa.
Melissa, at the age of 4, lives on the outskirts of Nairobi, the largest sub-Saharan slum, bursting at 700,000. When a neighbor offered to buy Melissa ice cream one afternoon, she couldn’t miss the chance. She followed the man who led her to a trash heap used as the slum’s public restroom. Believing sex with a young virgin would cure him of AIDS, the man made Melissa lay down as he covered her mouth with his hand while he raped her in the garbage. An ordinary occurrence in the slum, ordinary unless compared to Gina’s special day.
Gina stands all done up with flowers and bows at the back of the little chapel on her wedding day-a virgin. I know it seems old fashioned but she had saved herself for the special day that was now here as she gazed passionately toward the front of the church where her fiancé stood with anticipation and awe.
Ordinary:
o Commonly encountered; usual.
o Of no exceptional ability, degree, or quality; average.
o Of inferior quality; second-rate.
There may be ordinary circumstances, there may be ordinary experiences, there may be ordinary hopes or dreams, aspirations and struggles-but there are no ordinary people!
There are no un-exceptional people, no usual people, no inferior people, and no second rate people.
All people have a mystic value that comes from being created in God’s image.
This "mystic value" is a transcendent equity that each of us has regardless of what we or others think of us.
Tonight, we want to be a voice for those who are voiceless. We want to help to throw a light on those locked away in darkness and silence.
Author Natalia Ginzburg writes, "Every day silence harvests its victims. Silence is a mortal illness."
Silence is killing and enslaving millions of people tonight and tonight we in the Christian community want to stand and say that there are no ordinary people!
This "mystic value" transcends race, ethnicity, countries, continents, and cultures and because of that fact we cannot ignore one of the greatest atrocities in human history just because it is happening behind the closed doors and under the sheets in our neighbor’s land.
Human trafficking-bonded labor, sexual slavery, human defilement and un-prosecuted rape.
The problem is considered by most to be, "...one of the most significant issues facing humankind."
In the last decade there has been an explosion of human trafficking far surpassing anything we’ve seen in modern history.
According to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime which oversees the UN’s approach to human trafficking, "...there are more slaves today than were trafficked in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade."
The increase can be attributed to 1) the globalization of economies; 2) cheap and accessible transportation; 3) the increase in divergence of economies with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer; 4) corrupt governments having access to wealth from the west, primarily Europe.
Our Common Constant Craving Produces Unspeakable Evils:
In order to understand why this explosion, why this unimaginable evil is spreading throughout the world, we have to answer the more basic question, "What fuels our common constant craving?" Where does the desire to commoditize other people come from?
There is a ubiquity of moral corruption in the human soul.
Yes, we are capable of great good momentarily, but we are capable of sustained moral evil.
Do you know this word, "ubiquity?" It means to exist everywhere at the same time.
When we think about a man raping a child atop of a garbage heap, dumping his disease into innocence we recoil and say, "What a monster," or perhaps, "Ignorance and poverty produce evil actions."
Now to be sure, ignorance and poverty lubricate the way for evil to occur but one needs only to look at wealthy educated countries to realize that evil is everywhere in the human heart.
It is the wealthiest and most educated countries in the world that supply the vast majority of clientele for the trafficking industry.
The news of Wolfgang Schwartz shocked the Austrian world when this figure skating champion from good breeding as it were was sentenced for trafficking sex slaves from Eastern Europe into Austria.
There is a constant craving that is common to us all and for most of us it is not the craving for pedophilia or to directly enslave and torture defenseless people.
In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, a man shot his own sister in the head over ice because when the levies of society break the evil in our hearts comes rushing out and even those closest to us are not safe.
As easy as it is to point to finger outward, we have to ask ourselves, "Are there ways we commoditize others and ourselves?"
When we look at internet porn we are committing an act of commoditization.
It is this hunger, this desire, this ability to commoditize people that is at the heart of the human trafficking pandemic.
In a very real way, through a consumption of porn in the west we are helping to fuel the human trafficking industry as many images we see are images of involuntary sexual slavery.
We are saying by our consumption of pornography that women are objects to be used and discarded.
We are like the man who drops the 12 year old off on the side of the slum when he’s had his fill as we purge our computer’s cache at the end of the night.
When we gossip or lie to others around us we are committing an act of dehumanization. We are saying that others do not have this mystic equity, we cheat them out of their splendor of being human.
We are like the men who hid in the forest as they bludgeoned a 14 year old Black boy to death before throwing his dead body in the nearby river fifty years ago as we distort the truth about ourselves and those around us.
We commoditize people for our own consumption and discard them when we are done.
We all have a mystic value that comes from being created by God but it has been corrupted by the ubiquitous disease in the human heart.
We see this disease in one of its most graphic forms in the human trafficking industry but it is all around us.
Wherever a high view of God withers, injustice flourishes.
Where we fail to embrace our creator, we automatically reject our own dignity and the evil that results is catastrophic.
And as we look across the global landscape we see a withering view of God and thus a withering view of people leading to in increase in injustices against humanity.
We are reaping the consequences of the soul-sickness and the end result will be an increase in human horror.
Cashing in on Our Mystic Equity Means Turning Our Eyes Back to Our Creator
I’m not saying that we don’t have good intentions-we do. We mean to do the right thing. We do care about the suffering of others. That is why many of us demonstrate our convictions and care by boycotting stores, eating foods grown in certain ways and in certain places, why we sign petitions and send e-mails, why we give money to organizations and causes.
The good intentions of a corrupted heart can never change the world around us or solve the most basic problem of the world because they are spiritual problems.
Our best ideas and intentions at the end of the day may solve particular problems in particular places for particular people but it is a band-aid on the wound of humanity.
Author Stephen Covey of the Covey planner empire has said, "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."
I remember when I first realized and embraced this truth. I was 20 studying philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1989.
Up until that point, I lived my life as if there were no God. My parents painted a sign on the front of our home which read, "The Moore’s: The Atheists." There was also a barrel on the side of our home for burning Bibles and other religious propaganda.
I was raised atheist and studied as an atheist but as I increasingly rammed my life up against spiritual problems I realized there were no material solutions for the dilemmas I was facing.
In the moment of suicide God revealed His presence and power in my life and miraculously saved me. It was at that time that I took the first step of my spiritual journey, a journey of embracing the gift of life and relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Tonight, you can make the same decision. You can choose tonight to embrace life through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You may not be on the verge of a suicide but you must understand that you were created to know God personally and to passionately live out life the way it was intended to be lived out.
In order to begin that relationship with God you must start using spiritual solutions to treat spiritual problems.
The reason why our best intentions make no lasting difference is because we are trying to solve spiritual problems with material solutions.
Children get it so easily. In fact, most children when taught about the spiritual solutions to life will want to apply them even to the most common needs and problems.
I had my car lifted up on a jack one day in the garage as I was changing a tire. My six year old son came in to spend some time in the garage with his dad when I warned him not to go too close to the jack. "Why daddy? What will happen?" I said, "The jack may slip and you could get hurt." Right then and there he closed his eyes and prayed, "Jesus, protect us from the jack!"
When my daughter was 3, we took her to Disney World where she enjoyed the intoxicating buzz of cotton candy, ice-cream, singing midgets, and amusement park rides.
Every night at dinner and every night at bedtime when we pray she prays, "Thank you Jesus for cotton candy, for Winnie-the-Poo ride, for roller coaster ride, for Minnie Mouse..." I’ll be the first to admit that her prayers were a little self focused, but at the age of 3, she had learned a lesson that takes some an entire lifetime-the lesson of giving thanks, thanks for the big stuff and the small stuff.
Having peace in your heart and confidence to trust God even with the small things is a part of living life the way it was to be lived. Experiencing God’s peace and protection and having a heart of gratitude are not just for children.
The multi-dimensional life is referred to by so many names. Jesus referred to it as abundant and what he meant was a quality of life that emanates from a center where God supplies the values and purpose and then spirals outward into the world to make a real difference in our lives and in the lives of others.
As we think about the life of bondage that Jyoti was living in we see that we need God’s centering power in order to be truly free.
Jyoti was 8 when she was enslaved in a sex brothel. Forced to perform oral sex at first and later on intercourse, Jyoti serviced literally hundreds of men before becoming pregnant.
Her captors forced her to continue having sex until the day of her delivery and immediately after her recovery put her back to work.
The International Justice Mission, working with the local authorities and the national government, conducted a raid on the brothel where 14 year old Jyoti was imprisoned. They placed Jyoti and many other girls rescued from the brothel in a recovery home where she received psychological care and schooling before being reintroduced back into her society.
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For some of you in this room, the horrors of a rape or molestation are the closest experience to the years of forced prostitution Jyoti experienced. And for those of us who’ve suffered in this or similar ways, you’ll recognize that all the psychological and educational processes in the world can never give us back the innocence lost, the hope deferred, or the power to live life free.
I know personally that there are stains on our souls that seem will never come out.
It is only through God’s power that we can be truly free to embrace life.
If we are willing to embrace life, we find that God is willing to give us life.
We find that he is both willing and able not only to change us but also to change the world through us.
You see, God is able and willing. God’s ability has to do with his power.
As we look at the constant craving in our soul the question becomes, "How can I change?"
God is able. No matter what marring memories haunt you from your past, no matter what struggle you face in the present or fears you have of the future, embracing God’s gift of life means embracing the power to make a real and lasting change.
God is able...and He is also willing.
Both of my children when they were younger came down with what I now know to be a very common sickness called "Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease." I had never heard of it before I had kids and just the sound of the title frightened me.
You get blisters or hives on your hand or your foot and they spread to the mouth since babies are always sucking on one or the other. The bumps then spread to the throat making it difficult and painful to swallow or speak.
Because it is painful to swallow, the babies don’t eat and because they don’t eat they get hungry and cry but because it is painful to cry they just sit there and do a kind of breathless whine that is reminiscent of a dead-man’s last breath.
It is an awful sickness and thankfully a short-lived and easily treatable one.
As a father, however, my heart broke watching my bump-covered babies begging for food that they could not eat as they lost weight over the course of days.
My heart broke and I would have traded their sickness for my health in an instant if it were in my power.
God is the same way except He is not only willing, but his desire was coupled with ability through Jesus Christ.
Jesus stepped into our world amidst the suffering and sickness to take on our spiritual hand/foot/mouth as it were. The cyclical sickness that creates a hunger that can never be satisfied unless there is a subsiding of the illness.
Jesus dealt with the injustices of the world and the soul-sickness of our hearts when He went to the cross.
Jesus went to the cross and died on two pieces of wood to provide the cure for our constant craving. The medicine to heal us from our sickness was his blood. The blood of Jesus in time and space is God’s cure for the sickness of the human soul.
It is God’s spiritual solution for our ultimate spiritual problem.
By recognizing and embracing God’s medicine we can be healed and begin to experience wholeness.
Jesus also suffered on the cross. He didn’t just die, he suffered. His suffering on the cross pays the penalty for all the mistakes and evil intentions of our hearts. Through Jesus’ death, God’s justice and love are completely satisfied and we can begin to live the multi-dimensional life Jesus spoke about.
We can know life for ourselves and have the power to change the world-but the choice is ours.
It all goes back to the fact that we have an inherent mystic value that emanates from creator. That mystic value has been corrupted by our soul-sickness and that is why Jesus came into the world-to provide the medicine to transform our soul and to transform society.
But God doesn’t just stop there, he goes beyond healing. What is beyond healing, you may ask? Hope.
As children, women and men are rescued from sexual slavery, bonded labor, and the horrors of continuous victimization and rape, we want to move them from a place where there most basic human needs are met.
God wants us to let go of our good intentions and embrace hope-there is life past survival.
Embracing Hope Requires Us to Let Go and Grab On
For me as a Black man, the tragedy of Katrina was a defining moment in American life. You’ll recall many of the graphic images in the rescue efforts after Katrina, you will recall the coast guard helicopters.
We watched as terrified parents pushed their children into baskets dangling from roaring helicopters as water thrashed from the whirling blades.
In order to be saved, the people on the roof tops had to finally let go and leave the property they had risked their lives to keep and grab onto an empty basket dropped from the sky.
But it was this empty basket that symbolized hope, a hope of salvation from the rising waters, a hope of healing of sicknesses, hope of the end of hunger, and most importantly a hope for life.
In order to embrace hope, we need to let go and grab on. We need to let go of our best intentions, our plan to cope with our deepest spiritual problems.
There are many spiritual problems in the world today. The biggest problem is that we don’t see them as spiritual which is why we can’t solve them.
We could talk about the fact that there are 6000 children orphaned by AIDS each day. We could talk about the Iraqi war, the Darfur genocide, or Congolese child soldiers-these and many other issues like these are spiritual problems that require a spiritual solution.
The good intentions of corrupted soul can never change the world within us or the world around us.
Tonight we are focusing our attention on the human trafficking industry. We wouldn’t be trying if we thought it couldn’t help to change the most basic physical needs of real people who are enslaved today but beyond the physical need of safety, food, shelter, water, exists the hunger for hope.
But beyond the human problem lays a spiritual problem, the problem of the heart and it requires a spiritual solution-his name is Jesus Christ.
The spiritual problem is not just out there but right in here <
Let Go and Grab On
In just a moment we are going to have a prayer for those who are suffering in the human trafficking industry, but first I want to invite you personally to let go and grab on to Jesus.
Jesus is our basket dropped from the sky. He is the symbol of hope as he himself beat the soul-sickness of the human heart and the brokenness of the world when he was raised from the dead.
Jesus is the hope not only for those imprisoned in human shackles, but he is our resurrection hope for us who are in spiritual shackles today.
Jesus defined his purpose in life in his personal mission statement in Luke 4:18-19, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
Good news to the poor-to those in physical poverty but also to us in spiritual poverty.
Freedom for the prisoners-those in prison in sex brothels but also to those in prison to pornography, gossip, anger, hopelessness and despair.
Sight for the blind-those blinded by the lies of the people who tricked them into slavery but also for those blind because of our own soul-sickness.
Release for the oppressed-the oppressed who are living a life of servitude as bonded laborers but also for those oppressed by the haunting memories of the past and fear of the future.
Jesus proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favor which was a symbol to the Jews of the year of Jubilee. Every fiftieth year the slaves were to be set free, there was to be a massive economic redistribution of wealth and a re-calibration of physical resources.
It was a time of great joy and celebration, particularly if you were the poor, sick, oppressed, or imprisoned.
Tonight can be your jubilee. If you would like to receive God’s cleansing power, his freeing power, his gift of life, then in a moment I’m going to ask you to respond personally. LIGHT STICK APPLICATION
