Let me tell you about a beautiful little girl. Within hours of being born, she was placed into foster care. By the time she was three months old, she had already been cared for by four different “mums”. Statistics tell us that the outlook on her future is bleak.

71% of girls who age out of foster care will be pregnant by the time they’re 21. Half will be unemployed in their 20’s, a third will be on the streets. Half will have a substance addiction. Children in foster care are twice as likely to have PTSD than a war veteran who has experienced combat.

I could keep going, but here’s my point, this little girl has a world of statistics fighting against her.

Several years ago, my wife and I heard about her story and we talked together and prayed together and we thought, if there is anything that we can do, we want to help her story not end like this. So, we brought this little girl into our home.

For about four years we poured our life and our love into this precious girl. Part way through her journey, we learned that she was going to need an option for permanency. Generally, this isn’t the case. Foster care, by nature is temporary. The kids we’d fostered in the past ended up reconciling with their family, which is always the hope. But for this little girl, we were told she wasn’t going to have a home to go back to. So, we moved from being her foster family to her forever family.

Here’s the reason I share that with you. 

Every one of the thousands of children in foster care has a name. They have a story. And every one of their stories matters to God. Therefore, they matter to us.

Let me tell you the story of another couple of kids. A brother and sister. This little boy and girl were removed from their biological family just after they were born. The girl was placed with a family in the city, and the boy was placed with a family in the country. They both grew up and did really well. They both had big hearts for what was going on around them, so the girl went into politics and landed in public service. The little boy had a big heart as well and so he entered into military service. In fact, the boy would grow up to one day become a hero. You’ve probably heard of him. He didn’t simply save his fellow soldiers, or even his country. He would go on to save the universe. This, of course, took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This is the story of Luke and Leia Skywalker. My friend Krish pointed this out in a TED Talk that he gave around foster care and adoption. He said, “Luke and Leia are not alone in the film industry, are they?” Think about how many other characters have similar experiences in our most popular and well-loved stories. Spiderman was adopted by his Aunt. Superman was adopted. James Bond was adopted. Batman was brought up by his butler. The kids from Leminny Snicket. The Chronicles of Narnia (the Pevensies were fostered during the war). Harry Potter was fostered by the Dursleys (now, they’re not shining examples of foster parents, but nevertheless Harry Potter was fostered).

Somehow our filmmakers and story tellers have discovered something. They realized that children who have experienced difficult, heartbreaking experiences are not without hope for their future. These storytellers understand that someone’s history does not necessarily determine their destiny.

What’s fascinating to me is that this is more than just a good plot line. That truth is at the very heart of Christianity.

Although things seem to be dark and broken and falling apart around us, there is hope for healing and wholeness.

I want to look with you at a few verses in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus tells us this very thing.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 ESV

There are three things that Jesus tells us here: 

• First, that we live in a world in need of salt and light;
• Second, how the world will experience this salt and light, and 
• Third, the impact of this salt and light. 

So first, Jesus says we live in a world that needs salt and light. What does that mean? Jesus says over and over in the Scriptures that we live in a world that needs light. Without this light, we’re living in darkness. Let me tell you what I think He means by that. 

There was a guy Ernest Shackleton who was a famous British explorer who got stranded in Antarctica for months on an expedition. It was said that out of all the difficulties he faced, including starvation and freezing temperatures, the worst thing was the darkness. In the South Pole, the sun goes down in May and doesn’t come back until July. There’s no sunlight for two months. It’s absolute, utter darkness. In darkness like that, you go mad. You can’t see forward, so you have no direction. You don’t know what’s around you, so you have no security. You can’t even see yourself. You begin to forget what you look like. He says it feels like you’re losing your very identity.

No sense of direction. No sense of security. No sense of identity. Jesus is saying that this is true of our spiritual condition. We’re walking in darkness and we’re desperate for some kind of light to break through. This has been true for me, and I’m confident that there was a time in your life that this has been true for you.

Now, I don’t know you. You might just be exploring all of this Jesus stuff, and I understand that what I just said might come across a little offensive. I don’t know you and I don’t know your story, and yet I’m here saying, “you’re living in darkness, everything’s falling apart and your only hope is for some light to break through your life.” But listen, I think that, if you’re honest, we all get this to some extent. I would argue that every person to some degree understands this to be true. 

I’ll give you just one reason why I think this is true. Tim Keller writes about this in his book King’s Cross. He said, think for a moment about the stories that we tell over and over that resonate with us the most. Think about the stories that we celebrate the most. Why, generation after generation, do we continue to tell stories of damsels in distress, locked away in the tallest tower in a dark castle, enslaved by an evil dragon, and when all hope seemed lost, in rides the knight in shining armour to come and do battle against the dragon and sets her free and they ride off into the sunrise, happily ever after. You realize, that is the story of Jesus?

Think about how often we tell this same story. Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty reminds us that death is not the end. One day a Prince is going to show up and do battle with the evil one and will come and kiss us and wake us out of our sleep. Cinderella tells us that one day a prince will come and save us from a life of oppression and make us royalty. Beauty and the Beast. Maybe one day a Beauty will come and see through our mistakes and our ugliness and kiss us and change us into something glorious. We all want a Peter Pan who will fly with us to a land where we’ll never grow old.

The one that sticks out to me the most is The Lion King. The Lion King says that when the rightful King sits on the throne, the land will live in peace and light. But when the evil one takes the throne, everything falls apart. And what’s so fascinating is that when that happened, the artists who made that movie actually depicted the land as dark and desolate. The light was gone. Do you remember that? There was only despair and darkness. But do you remember what else the Lion King tells us? 

One day the Son of the King is coming back. And He’s going to do battle against the evil one, and He’ll win and He’ll take back the throne… and the rain will come and wash away the desolation and the sun will break through the clouds and everything will be made new and the land will once more have peace and light. 

We just can’t get enough of this same theme, can we? Could it be that we resonate so deeply with these stories, and we keep re-packaging and telling that same story over and over again because we know that ultimately this is what we need? I’ll say it again, our history doesn’t determine our destiny. There is hope. 

So when my little girl comes to me one day and says, “Daddy, I wish there was a real prince who would come and rescue me and make me a princess. I wish there was a real Superman who would come from another world with powers to fight evil. I wish there was a real person who would help me fly to a place where we’d never grow old.” Do you know what I am able to say, “Sweetheart, there is a real prince. There is a real Superman. There is a real beauty that will see past all of our mistakes and give us new bodies. There is a Knight in shining armour. The Prince is real. The stories are true. There is a light that has entered into the darkness. It’s Him. It’s Jesus. He is the light of the world.”

But secondly, here in Matthew 5 Jesus tells us how the world is going to experience this light. Look at verse 14 again. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Now, if you’re paying attention at all, you might be confused, because I just told you that Jesus is the light of the world, but here Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.” So which is it? If you keep reading, it’s clear what He means. In the very next verse Jesus tells us what kind of light we are. He doesn’t say we’re like the stars, something that has light in and of themselves. He says, “you’re like a lamp”. And we know lamps don’t produce light; a lamp only holds light. In the same way, you and I become the light of the world when we are lit up by Him.

Starting from the very earliest days of the church all the way to today, we’ve seen what this looks like. History tells us that the earliest followers of Jesus were all huddled up in a room, with locked doors, scared of persecution. And we’re told that as they were praying the Holy Spirit came on them, and it was as if fire came into each of them, and they were lit up. Their fear was gone. They had purpose. They had direction. They had a deeper concern for their neighbours who were hurting and far from God. They got up, unlocked the doors and walked into the streets and they started sharing Jesus with anyone who would listen and loving their neighbours in these unprecedented ways and they lit up Jerusalem, and then Judea, and then Samaria, and the world was never the same.

The way in which God has chosen to advance His light in this world is through men and women like you and me. Men and women who have been lit up. Jesus says, you are the way I’m going to bring hope to your city. You are the Light of the World.

He says, “You are the salt of the earth.” We haven’t even touched on that yet. Can I tell you what it means to be salt of the earth? 

In Jesus’ day, salt was used primarily as a preservative. They didn’t have freezers back then, so the only way you could keep meat from going bad immediately was to douse it with salt. You put salt into that which would ordinarily decay and it would keep it from breaking down. Jesus is saying that when everything was falling apart, I didn’t keep my distance. I came near. I didn’t run from your brokenness, I ran into it. I want you to do the same thing. Bring healing. Bring wholeness to that which is breaking down. When my people see things falling apart, I want you to get in there… like salt. When you see a system that’s broken, you go in. When you see somebody emotionally falling apart, you go in. When you see a neighbourhood falling apart socially or economically, don’t take flight to the next neighbourhood over, you go in. 

We find things that are falling apart and we don’t run from it, we run into it.

This is what the people of God have done over and over and over. If you look at prison reform, education reform, women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, civil rights, even hospitals themselves, they all trace their roots back to followers of Jesus.

The same is true with adoption. We have historical records telling us of how in the ancient Greco- Roman world, it was not uncommon to dispose of unwanted children. If the child was sick or frail, if the child wasn’t the preferred gender of the day, it was not uncommon at all to simply take these babies outside of the city to dispose of them. They called it ‘infant exposure’. One of three things would happen. One, the babies might die. Two, they might be found by traffickers and would end up one day being sold as a slave. Or three, they’d be found by Christians. There are historical records that tell us how followers of Jesus would go out at night and walk up and down the streets outside of the city listening for the cries of babies. And they would rescue these children and they would bring them into their own homes and raise them up as their own beloved sons and daughters.

We don’t need to go out at night and walk up and down the streets to try and find vulnerable children though, do we? The Child Protection Department has told us where to find them. The Homeward Project was launched because there are more children entering care than there are foster homes that are ready for them and we believe there are churches who can help meet this need. It’s our prayer and mission to see churches say, “We’re going to do something about this. We’re going to raise up foster families and support them until there are more than enough families to meet the need.” Our desire is that there will be a waiting list of loving families rather than a waiting list of children in need of a home. 

I hope that each one of us would be open to whether or not God might be leading you to take a step to get involved. For a small handful of you, that might actually mean opening up your home to a foster child. There is a profound need for more families to move towards kids and families in crisis. In fact, in when kids come into foster care because of abuse or neglect, far too often they are sent out of area due to a shortage of foster homes. Someone else in some other part of the state is having to love our neighbours because we don’t have enough families that have opened up their hearts and their homes. There is something fundamentally broken about that. 

This brings me to my final point. Jesus tells us what the impact will be if we will say yes. 

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Matthew 5:14

In that time, it was rare that a city would be built on a hilltop. It was really expensive to do that, so villages and cities would be built at the bottom of a hill, or in the valley by a river. But on the rare occasion when a city was built on a hill, at nighttime when lamps and torches were lit throughout the city, its light could be seen for miles and miles around. I think Jesus is saying, as an individual, I’m calling you to be salt and light but you are also to be like a city. A community. If there is a group of you, collectively bringing light and making things better, your impact will be farther-reaching and will be more visible to the watching world.

We can make a difference as individuals, but we can do so much more together.

One of the main reasons why there is a shortage of foster homes across the country is because retention is so low. Carers are leaving the system and fewer are joining. Foster care is hard. But do you know what changes that? If a foster family takes the journey within the context of community. This is why at The Homeward Project, we hope to raise up foster families AND support people for those families. Someone providing support cares just as deeply for vulnerable children in their community, they’re just not able to open up their home in this season of life. They can drop off meals a couple times a month, or they can babysit, they can pray, or they can offer rides. Maybe your call is to come alongside foster families or adoptive families and just simply help. We can’t all do the same thing, but we can all do something. 

(Check out the Wrap-around support resources here.)

“Let your light shine before others that they might see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

My prayer is that when the watching world looks at our churches and looks into our homes and they see the way you work and the way you spend your money and the way you invest your time and the way you show hospitality to your neighbours and the way you engage the vulnerable and the way that you don’t run from things that are falling apart, but you run into things that are falling apart and see the way you’re making things better and more beautiful, that the watching world would marvel and wonder and ultimately see the source of your light, the true Light of the World, the true source of our joy – Jesus Christ.

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This post is based on a sermon by Philip Patterson, provided by our friends from Foster The City, who are equipping churches to provide loving homes for children in foster care in California and beyond.

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The Homeward Project exists to partner with churches in the space of discipleship and mission, providing ideas, connections and practical tools to engage in a holistic ministry of Out-of-Home Care. We’d love to partner with your church. Get in touch at hello@homewardproject.org