“Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
-Martin Luther King, A Christmas Sermon on Peace, 1967
“He (God) plucks the world out of our heart, loosening the chains of attachment. And then He hurls the world into our heart, where we and He together carry it in infinitely tender love.”
-Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion
This is one of the many paradoxes of the Christian faith, and my personal struggle. We are to be in the world and yet not of the world. We are to live and love differently as disciples of Christ, and yet not be detached and isolated from the world in which we live. And yet, we all struggle with the balancing act of understanding and engaging in the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of earth simultaneously.
We are lured in the direction of consumerism and the American dream, but Jesus spoke of living simply, selling our goods and giving them to the poor, turning our tools of destruction into tools of harvesting, and fighting oppression and injustice through peace, love, and creativity.
We are called to be extremists of Christ’s love, not extremist protectors of our ideologies and comfortable way of life.
Warning: This will not be easy.
Side effects may include the following: headache, doubt, frustration, questioning our current way of living, interaction with those whom we are not comfortable, sacrifice, utter discontent with living anything less than as a radical Christian following in Jesus’ footsteps.
I have recently encountered several people who recommended a book called The Hole In the Gospel. I’ll be honest. I only skimmed through it, but luckily stumbled upon this quote, which is something that we all at times ask of God.
“Sometimes I would like to ask God why he (or she) allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when he (or she) could do something about it.
‘Why don’t you ask?’
Because, I’m afraid God would ask me the same questions.”
All last week I had the priviledge of being an adult sponsor and a community group leader for our church’s youth group summer camp. The over arching theme was “Heroes,” not in the sense of having super powers, but of seeing heroic qualities in others and ourselves, and also understanding the source from where those qualities come–God, the Father/Mother, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
One of those heroic qualities is being given the “Jesus Eyes” by the Holy Spirit, which enables us to see all people as beloved of God, without categories or superficial labels. Gordon Atkinson, the camp pastor and author of Real Live Preacher, said an unforgettable statement:
“What breaks the heart of Jesus breaks the heart of those with His eyes and what brings Jesus joy bring us joy. This will most certainly set up apart from those around us.”
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Just a thought I had when reading this quote by Morris West from his book The Clowns of God:
“Once you accept the existence of God, however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him–then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things. You are also caught with the fact that man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage.”
This is what it is like to be a Biblical Justice Christian, to live in the midst of two narratives fighting for our attention, fighting for our allegiance. We constantly run into the walls of systemic injustice and see the pain caused by greed and irresponsible consumption, yet we are thrust forward to act with the hope of Jesus Christ and envision the promise of his new Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It is a cycle of hope and despair, but we cannot ignore it. We cannot turn our eyes from it. We cannot walk away. We must follow Christ to the cross and move with Him through death and into resurrection.
