Depraved Indifference.

I just can't quiet process it.  I was reading about the Kibera slums for work the other evening.  If you want to be disturbed- start googling the Kibera Slum.  In the largest slum of Africa over 2 million people call this place home.  No running water, toilets, electricity, safe homes and on and on and on.  Death. Rape. Violence. Fear. Discomfort. Death. Death. Death. Preventable disease. Starvation. Malnutrition. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.

I just can't quiet process it. Really, it is overwhelming my soul.  After googling a while I found how you can pay a small fee (which actually goes to a decent cause) to see a slum.  Right, because we are so American and live in immense surplus that we need to tour- as a visitor at the zoo, as though these human souls living in the slums are animals for photos to be taken and tweeted about.  It is a depraved indifference.  Living in slums admits deadly disease, rotting bodies, burning trash- I am a part of a world crumbling from depraved indifference.  

What I do unto the least of these, the ones with no voice- that is ultimately how I am treating my God.  The God of my salvation. 

We suffer from depraved indifference.  You suffer to.  We care. We think Kibera is terrible, what injustice.  But there is an indifference. We comforatbly sleep at night with no worries of others. Selfishness.  We are born with it.  We are born to think and ignore Kibera because that life isn't effecting us.  Its someone elses issues.

Salvation had to be transplanted despite what is in our hard hearts. Jesus transplants me into a new kingdom. I am not part of the earthly rhelm. 

We find comfort and detach our hearts in scriptures which tell- God is a father to the Fatherless.  But stop, because we- WE call ourself HIS body. We are the body of him- the FATHER.  To be HIS body I have to stop thinking I am part of a kingdom that once transplanted into bears the excuse for indiffernece under the banner of "God is soverign- poverty, injustice, death is fine." I don't know when it became appropriate for HIS body to remove themselves- to practice laziness and stay tucked in their safe lives.

My hand, those are HIS body.  My feet, those are HIS body. My heart, it beats only because it is part in transplanting people from this earthly kingdom into the heavenly rhelm.  My heart has no need to pulse apart from being HIS body.  He is the father to the fatherless through HIS body.

WE have a disease.  The disease is sin.  It messes everything and everyone up.  There is one solution- Jesus Christ.  Simple.

If I claim myself as a transplant out of this earthly, sinfilled, broken, dying world- then I cannot stay in Suburbia USA and live satisfied.  My soul must be poured out.  My heart must beat and ooze out to be HIS body. 

It is brave. It is courageous. It is so utterly discomfort-able.  It is sacrifice.  It is pouring out yourself for the weak, for the voiceless.  It is desiring to eliminate cheap tours of slums because your hands and feet have been HIS body there.  You know the faces of babies and your hands have scars on them telling the story of cleaning, rebuilding, redemption- transplanting yourself out of a depraved indifference and into the kingdom not found on this earth, but called to be HIS body on this earth.

It really is quiet humbling.  

Credit: Eric Ludy