"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."
Ephesians 2:14-16
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I am a runner.
Every day, after donning myself with my running vestments (usually shorts and a ratty t-shirt), I walk out onto the front porch, draw in a breath of the murky Tulsa air, and then begin my morning jog. After turning up Pittsburgh avenue, I then take a left onto 21st street, and jog for three quarters of a mile before I turn right on Jamestown avenue. And there ensues a ritual that has become one of the favorite moments of my day: my interaction with Johnny.
Deeply embedded in the collective consciousness of Tulsa's past is one of the worst acts of racial violence in U. S. history. In 1921, in the middle an oil industry depression (Tulsa was once called "The Oil Capital of the World", having built its early wealth through oil) and massive unemployment (mainly of white people), a mob of jealous, angry white folks marched through the Greenwood district of North Tulsa, burning down houses and businesses, looting, rioting, and killing all through the night. When all was said and done, Greenwood (which had been dubbed "The Black Wall Street" for its prosperity) was burned to the ground, leaving hundreds of blacks dead and thousands more displaced. In fact, the displacement of the black community ranks as the greatest in U. S. history until Hurricane Katrina. Once-prosperous black folks were now living in tents and being forced to clean up the mess in Greenwood with no pay. In the years and decades the followed, virtually no action was taken to restore what was lost; even the dignity of an official apology from the city for its failure to protect the black community never emerged. The wound is very real. And very deep.
Johnny is black. An elderly man, quite possibly old enough to have lived through the riot and certainly old enough to have inherited its violent memory and devastating effects, Johnny works as a crossing guard at 21st and Jamestown. Old, frail, with a back so crooked that he strains to look you in the eye, Johnny is a fixture on the corner, directing traffic and making sure kids get across the street safely. And so for months now, every day, when I turn up Jamestown, I make it a point to say hi to Johnny.
"Mornin' Johnny!" I'll cry out through my labored breathing, "How we feeling today?"
"All right..." he'll answer. "How are you?"
"Just trying to keep moving! Have a great day..."
"You too!" he'll reply as I jog away.
The interaction is short. Very short. And my relationship with Johnny doesn't really go beyond 21st and Jamestown. But there is something right about it. Something that smacks of grace and peace in a world that's filled with collective memories of hatred and violence. For a brief moment in time, in the middle of a city that hatched one of the most heinous acts of racial violence in our country's history, the nerve of violence - fear - is cut. And strangers receive each other in small acts of love and generosity.
In Matthew 5, Jesus charted out an alternative vision of reality for his followers saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called sons of God" (5:9). I admit that it's tempting to turn the call to make peace in a violent world a matter of taking the appropriate sides in theological arguments, of coming to assent to the appropriate ideological abstractions or to be committed to a certain set of appropriate social and political theories. But important as such issues are to engage in, what should never be lost on us is that it is one thing to define yourself by an abstraction, quite another thing to actually follow the Crucified one in small, local, concrete ways. I mean, suppose a lock-down, air-tight, open-and-shut case could be made in one of these arguments for one side over the other. Would anything substantial be gained? The conditions that give rise to large-scale conflict would still persist, the nerves of violence in our world still bursting with pain. And the gritty work of making peace in a world at war would still lie in front of us. It's just not as easy as argumentation, and rhetorical flourishes make not a world at rest. At some point, the hard work must begin. We must enact peace in local, small ways in the name of the One who already has gone ahead and made peace between enemies.
I'm inclined to think that part of the reason we do this is because coming out right in an argument placates our sense of guilt over not living out the Messianic reality we confess. It's simply easier. Much easier. Easier to choose a side than to make friends with an old crossing guard, easier to read books and write blogs denouncing large-scale violence than to work with your neighbors to defuse the conditions that give rise to small-scale violence on your block.
And perhaps, still more, the reason we do this is quite simply because of our impatience. We want the kingdom. And we want it now. And because we don't push the buttons and pull the levels of international geo-politics, we retreat into diatribe, thinking, albeit subconsciously, that if we just make the one slam-dunk argument and get enough people to agree, the problems of our world will be solved.
But they will not. The work will STILL lie in front of us. The horizon of pervasive, final peace will still lie outside of our grasp, demanding that if we would taste it at the last, we must enact it first, in all the spaces we now inhabit.
Mark records Jesus saying:
"'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.'
"Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'" (Mark 4:26-32)
There's a sort of covetousness, an impatience that lies deep in our souls. We want to sow the seed AND be able to predict the outcome. The need for control grips us in ways we are hardly aware of. For the kingdom to come, we want to employ a strategy, enact a program, vote the right people into power, pass the right legislation. But the kingdom, Jesus says, does not work that way. It is not manageable, not reducible to a system or argument. There is mystery. Deep mystery. And it is not the biggest, broadest thing in our world. Not a program or system or ideology that millions assent to that will ensure world peace.
No, the kingdom, Jesus says, is like a seed. Multiple seeds. Multiple acts of love and grace and generosity that lie just on the horizon of a brand new world, hinting at that world, but never disclosing its fullness. For the kingdom, we must always remember, is a gift given to us, never something we attain through argumentation or programming. We hear whispers of it when we make friends with old crossing guards, and hope for the day when the gift of grace and peace given in those humane moments becomes pervasive Reality. We lurch towards newness, and hope for the kingdom that lies just outside our greedy grasping. It is gift. It is grace. It is worked for, but not earned. And when it comes, the credit for its coming will not go to our arguments or our programs, but to God, and only to God.
As we journey from Easter to Pentecost, I am reminded of a poem written in the honor of Oscar Romero, an El Salvadoran bishop of the Roman Catholic Church who was murdered while performing the Mass for speaking out on behalf of the poor and victimized in the Salvadoran Civil War:
"It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
Amen. Give us grace to be your workers, Lord God. |
