"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27 NIV)
I feel like that verse is pretty straightforward in what it is saying to Christ followers. It comes out of a larger section in James that is talking about walking the walk, putting faith into practice and being the hands and feet of Christ.
I'm thinking about orphans now, which I have to admit, I haven't ever really done much of...I watched a documentary yesterday entitled "War Dance." It traces the stories of three kids, some of them orphans, in Northern Uganda who have been displaced by rebel uprisings and war.
I'm not really an emotional person, and I don't really do crying. I didn't cry yesterday watching the film, but I was close a couple of times, if that says anything. The film really tore some inner heart strings.
I looked up how many orphans are in the US today, and it is approximately 3 million (according to UNICEF statistics). Another article I found said there are about 150 million orphans in the developing world as well. Taking all the nations of the world together, that's a lot of kids...way too many to be orphans!
I think a hard question to ask and an even harder one to answer, but one seriously worthy of some intentional thought:
What role do intentional Christ followers here in the US have to play with a) orphans in the US and b) orphans in the rest of the world?
I'm not implying that Christ followers should be nationalistic to a particular country, I think Christ followers should recognize they carry a passport of Heaven that sees no earthly nation-state lines...but I ask the question in parts because the reality of the situation is that we do live in recognized nation-states, and so borders, and laws, and customs, and language do factor in.
I don't know if Jesus specifically refers to orphans in this passage, but I can see Him having a really compassionate heart for these children who could be orphans:
"Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there." (Matthew 19:13-15 NIV)
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