Pastor Silvest is an amazing Ugandan pastor who has planted nine churches (and counting) in his country. Humble. Soft-spoken. He speaks of God with a deep voice and an even deeper faith. He has been beaten several times. He has had his home robbed. His family threatened. Early in his ministry, his only means of transportation (a bicycle) was stolen so he walked from church to church to preach on Sundays.
Anarchy. Civil War. Unspeakable tragedy. Lawlessness. Suffering. Drought. Famine. Disease. Death. These are the conditions under which the Kingdom of God is growing in South Sudan. 150,000 new believers in the last ten years. 180 new church plants. 77 indigenous church planters risking their lives for the sake of the gospel. Through these incredible men and women, the Kingdom of God is growing through miracles, signs, and wonders. And I get the pleasure of spending a week with them. Like Elisha of old, I find myself wanting a double portion of their spirit.
Every single human being who has ever been born has carried with them - in their bodies, minds, and spirits - the image of their Creator. As such, we do not draw our primary worth from our utility. From what value we add to society. From what we can produce or achieve. Our value is not extrinsic but intrinsic because we have been endowed by our Creator with a worth we cannot begin to measure.
"Ain't free will a bitch?" I was walking with one of my favorite theology professors through campus one day and his comment totally caught me off guard. First, because I had never heard the man cuss before. Second, because we were talking about how hard it is to love our enemies like Jesus commanded.
I meet a lot of people in my line of work. They come from all different places and walks of life. They are all over the map spiritually. And almost all of them have a hunger down deep for more of God. They want to experience God. They want to know God. They believe on some level that life is incomplete without a relationship with God.
We have to stay alert as weeds spring up threatening to choke off the new life that's emerging in us through Christ. And it's not enough just to clear the ground of our old vices, we have to plant new virtues as well. We have to be intentional about sowing seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That way, we will reap a harvest of godliness over the course of a lifetime.
"The highest wisdom is to navigate one's course - with contempt of the World as your chart - towards the Heavenly Port." So says a fourteenth century Augustinian monk named Thomas in his classic work, The Imitation of Christ. It's a book about the danger of vanity. Pride. Arrogance. "If you're not humble, you make the Trinity nervous..." he writes in another place in the same work with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
But here's the real truth. We can die on a lot of hills in the church. Most of which simply aren't worth it. This is one hill worth dying on. This is one battle worth fighting. Study after study shows that the most effective evangelism takes place when one generation reaches another with the good news of the gospel. When one generation makes it their aim, their goal, their passion to pass on the faith to the next generation. Parents to kids. Grandparents to grandkids. All so that, as one generation is "gathered to their fathers", there remains another generation to take their place.
God either gets it all or He gets nothing. He doesn't leave us the choice to accessorize our life with a little Jesus. As if I can live my life the way I choose and "season" it from time to time with some Jesus. Like He's there to give my life a little spiritual flavor. God is not some spice. Some condiment. Some add-on to life. He is the Life.
I am simply a guy who got ambushed by Jesus over twenty years ago on the campus of the University of Colorado. And I am still working out the details. It's a lifelong process. You don't learn it in school. You don't naturally fall into it in life. Putting Jesus first requires an almost relentless intentionality that is not easy.
Today I go for my annual heart check. I'll spend about a week on the treadmill. Stress test. EKG. The whole work up. My doctor will meet me in a place called Gojo in a country called Ethiopia which is literally on the other side of the world. He won't be gentle...Why do I do this? Because of something Jesus once said to me. "I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many."
Her name is Wanda. She is an older lady who is living in the later stages of dementia. She loves horses and it seems like the only memories left to her are of the horseshows she attended when she was younger. Each Sunday she dresses up in her western style clothes, puts on her makeup, and comes to worship with her caregiver.
We live in constant danger. Bombarded by messages through mainstream and social media. So much information is being thrown at us on a daily basis, it is hard to separate truth from lie. Fantasy from reality. So much of how we think about life or think about the people in our lives or even think about ourselves is shaped far more profoundly by our culture than by the truth God has revealed in the Bible.
In the midst of a crisis, the caregivers are often forgotten. Not only by the community they serve but even in their own minds. They will tell themselves they should be stronger. That their struggles are not as bad as those they serve. That they can get through it. That things will get better once the ordeal is over. This gets compounded by the image of strength they project to those around them.
Today is one of the most challenging days of the year for me. Good Friday confronts me even as it comforts me. The death of Jesus calls for nothing less than a radical, literal relinquishment of my own personal rights. There are no loopholes. No exceptions. No justifications for getting out of it. If I want to follow Jesus, I have to be willing to go to a cross. To relinquish every right I think I have...in exchange for the right to suffer. To be persecuted. To be the victim of injustice. To follow Jesus involves a cross. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else. There's just no way around it.
Christians are not given the right to retaliate. To repay evil for evil. Eye for an eye. When we suffer injustice - like being forcemarched by Roman oppressors for a mile - we offer to go two. When someone begs from us, we do not have the option to pass them by. When faced with enemies whether personal or corporate, real or imagined, domestic or abroad, we love them. We pray for them. We follow the example of so many of our brothers and sisters around the world who face their persecutors with the love and grace and compassion of Christ. (See Matthew 5:41-44)
I have been told I am naive for holding to such views. Many have given me different scenarios under which returning violence for violence is necessary. All kinds of justifications are offered in defense of the "eye for an eye" principal. But on this day - Good Friday - such justifications pale in significance to the cross where my Lord died. Where my King completely and totally and utterly gave up his right to retaliate. To respond in kind. To pay back evil for evil. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. On this day, all justifications for necessary violence cease as I gaze on the face of the one who loved me so much he was willing to die. Throughout human history, our race has pursued violent means to accomplish peaceful ends. And we have so little to show for it. Does anyone really believe we will achieve peace in the Middle East? Or stop the genocide in Sudan? At best, all we human beings can achieve is a ceasefire. A demilitarized zone. An uneasy period of detente between the outbreak of hostilities. Why? Violence begets violence. Always. Unless one eradicates the enemy completely.
Jesus offers a different way. The way of true peace comes when we - who belong to a different Kingdom and who serve a crucified King - willingly give up our need for revenge and retaliation. We give up our right and our need for justice in this world. We come to grips with the fact that this world is sinful and broken and evil and we will not find what we are looking for this side of heaven. It doesn't mean we shouldn't work for such ends but it does mean we should stop using the weapons of this world to do so. Instead, we lay hold of the fact that our warfare is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The weapons of our warfare are not worldly but mighty in God to tear down every stronghold and every high thing that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Rather than strap a cross to a shield and march off to kill, we should willingly go to the cross ourselves just like our Savior. Just like the disciples. Just like the early Christians. Just like the Chinese Christians today or the Ethiopian Christians who are changing the world through their willingness to truly give their lives for their faith.
I love this quote from Paul Scherer - writing in 1943 during WW2 - "We are living in a world where there is something so incorrigible; so vast and demonic that God Himself had to get into it and die before anything could be done about it...the surest claim we have comes from a Person, whose very presence it is that keeps His will alive. Against him men do not revolt; against him men break and destroy themselves. What he says, life repeats and at last enforces. But every soul must make it's own choice, standing on it's feet with the eyes of God upon it in the face of Jesus Christ." From the cross, Jesus looks down on our world. Looks down on each of us. He looks beyond all our achievements. All our accomplishments. All our so-called power and wealth and influence. He looks into the darkest, deepest recesses of our souls with this gentle, persistent, haunting command, "Come follow me."
