As Christians we are called to be servants: the hands and feet of the Lord while we are on this earth. Lately however I feel that our feet have been staying pretty stationary and our mouths have been doing most of the work.
It is impossible to walk around our campus without seeing flyers calling for awareness of social injustices: sex trafficking homelessness illiteracy starvation thirst AIDS Malaria genocide cancer and poverty in Africa. We ensure that our campus is painfully aware that there is great need outside of and in our nation. If empathy was enough our student body would have solved the world’s problems three times over; but it is not enough.
Our empathy does not help the 1.5 million people in our county who are living below the poverty line. Our empathy does nothing to combat the system that allows 50 percent of children in Los Angeles to live in what are considered “low-income” environments. Our empathy alone does not attempt to solve an epidemic of illiteracy in our county so great that future jail cells are estimated off of third graders’ reading levels. Finally our empathy does not comfort the families in our community who struggle to make a day-to-day existence in a life that to them is filled with foreign people who speak a foreign language.
In Matthew 5:14 it is written “You are the light of the world. A city upon a hill cannot be hidden.” Sometimes I think our intentions are hidden on this hill. We are aware as a campus that there is injustice. But who else in this community is besides us? And what are we doing about it? Acknowledging that poverty exists and is wrong cruel and unjust is one thing; coming face to face with a homeless man and asking how you can serve him today is another.
While we are here at Pepperdine spreading awareness of the world’s injustice our neighbors are lonely hungry and in need of love. Now I am not trying to say that we should stop our advocacy or silence our voice for those who cannot speak. What I am saying is that we can do more. If we are to truly follow in Christ’s footsteps we are called to do both all and everything in between. Shane Claibornea prominent activist for the poord expressed this powerfully when he said “We can believe in CPR but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them. And we can tell the world that there is life after death but the world really seems to be wondering if there is life before death.”
Instead of hiding in the safe confines of the Seaver campus and feeling for those in need what if we all went out and gave them the comfort we know they need? I do not doubt for one second our student body’s wish and intention to change the world. What if we took it a step further? What if we actually acted on our intentions? What if we made our wish come true? What if we actually changed the world?
We have more resources available on our campus that could help enact this change than people realize. Opportunities abound and programs span every facet of interest. Have a heart for the homeless? You can choose from SOS L.A. Mission Midnight Mission the list goes on.
Want to work with your hands? Habitat for Humanity builds on Saturdays so working around class schedules is no excuse.
Don’t want to break a sweat? School on Wheels tutors homeless children on Skid Row. Children are not your forte?
Enjoy great conversation and make an elderly person’s day through the Senior Connection. Want to practice your Spanish? Language Connection meets just down the road at the Malibu Labor Exchange.
Pepperdine’s goal for us post graduation is that we find where our greatest interest meets with the world’s greatest need. Why wait for graduation when we have all of this need alongside all of this opportunity right here right now?
Pepperdine are we prepared to spread our light outside of this hidden hill? If so I would like to welcome you to pray with me: Dear Heavenly Father thank you for blessing us with the beautiful opportunity that is Pepperdine University. Please help us to use all that you have provided for us to be your hands and your feet in our community and this world. Please Lord fill us up and send us out. Break our hearts for what breaks yours. For freely we have received and freely we are crying out to give. Amen.
For more information on how to enact change in our world now go to www.pep-perdine.edu/volunteercenter.