may 2009 newsletter...
where to begin...
It's the end of the school year. My exams are written and waiting to be administered next week. I have a stack of research papers to shuffle through. I'm looking around the classroom and wondering what to change next year. I'm even stirring around in some attic room of my brain, mulling over next year's classes and how to structure them. The Seniors just had their last Monday morning in high school. And somehow, bemusedly, I look around wondering if I actually ever began.
I completed the curriculum. I covered the World Wars and the Rise & Fall of Great Empires. I turned a few students here and there on to the study of history. I demanded some reading and writing and thinking. I even managed to squeeze in a few class discussions about issues that matter more than Louis XIV and his high heels, or John Adams and his penchant for skinny-dipping in the Potomac.
I also participated in more than my fair share of gripe sessions about school policies that don't really matter much anyway. I failed to speak up enough with colleagues, when I found a line of discussion morally, even spiritually, objectionable. I gave up trying to relate to some, when I got frustrated or annoyed.
Have I begun to carry out the purpose for which I came?
This Sunday, a visitor from Afghanistan shared with the church here a little of what is happening there. He spoke of prayer and discussion and how he begins relationships. He explained the need to wrap an arm of brotherhood around an angry Talib and say, with him, "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," or, "God is Great." From this joint declaration, and from the extended arm of brotherhood that remains extended, he can move on to discuss the one sinless Prophet, Jesus, and why we can pray confidently in his name. This man has spent thirty years outlasting the political interventions of earthly powers and superpowers in the region. He walks with a limp from an old bullet wound. He stood in a congregation I've struggled all year to appreciate and talked brokenly about the precious nature of Christian fellowship-what a profound privilege we enjoy. I was ashamed of how easily I have settled into the daily grind of rushing through lesson plans and buzzing from task to task, mostly mindless of the people God has placed around me.
I have not yet begun to look for how to wrap my arms around sisters and brothers here and keep my arms extended. I have not yet begun to find the praises I can say together with those who believe so differently than I do. I have not yet even begun to see people as brothers and sisters. I keep returning this year to the miraculous concept of Incarnation.
Incarnation means so much more than simply taking on Middle Eastern skin, chopping a few boards, and growing a beard for a few years. Jesus did not shirk from complicated, murky human relationships-on the contrary, He welcomed a prostitute into the home of a respectable bourgeois family. He did not avoid the company of those He could not trust-on the contrary, He appointed them His disciples. He did not measure His actions with a view to avoiding the criticism of others-on the contrary, He fearlessly healed and forgave even on the Sabbath, heedless of the murmuring around Him. Most significantly, He did not count costs-on the contrary, He had no home at all on earth. He commanded his disciples to carry nothing with them on their journeys, not even a walking stick. He took his position as the ultimate scapegoat. And then He conquered the punishment, death itself.
Trying to walk in this path He set in front of us seems totally impossible. I can't do any of these things. But Paul says in the eighth chapter of Romans, "...we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
I have not yet begun to love my brothers and sisters here. I have, however, begun to hope that God will continue to redeem me and that I have a place in expanding His Kingdom of redemption. We have been saved into the rich hope that one day we will charge into complex, murky commitments to people who no one else acknowledges. We have been saved into the hope that we will be made trustworthy. We have been saved into the hope that we will shamelessly heal and forgive those who wound us. We have been saved into the hope that we will give all-home, time, even our bodies to demonstrate the extent of the love of God. And we have been saved into the hope that every cost to comfort we begrudgingly count out now has already been paid.
My prayer this month is that we all would learn how to hope well, that the Spirit of God would help us in our weakness by praying on our behalf the words of hope that we cannot express.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Amy