The Journey Begins Again . . . With A New Blog To Boot

Hey Everybody!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for: a new blog! Rebecca and I are back in Memphis, moved into our apartment less than a mile from Advance and right in the middle of the neighborhood, and are already diving in to life, work, and worship in the inner-city. ALREADY we can see how Jesus used our time in Kenya to get us here; thus far the Lord has brought us, and we're confident that He's got good plans for us ahead.

So here's what you need to know: the new blog is a collaborative effort between our family and our great friends Brandon and Lily Russell (neighbors and coworkers as well!). You can follow us at www.theunrememberedgate.wordpress.com Make sure you RSS us, put us on your Google Reader, sign up for email reminders, or SOMETHING so that you can remember to keep up with us.

Thank you so much for your support, love, prayers, and encouragement!

Other ways to stay in touch:
Phone- 901-849-6345
Twitter- Follow @michaeljrhodes
Or just come visit the office at 769 Vance Avenue, Memphis, TN 38126

Set A Stone In Nairobi

Becca receiving the traditional Kenyan farewell gift

 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us,” –I Samuel 7:12-

This is it. This is the last blog post to be written from this side of the pond. In a little over 72 hours, Rebecca and I will be on a plane that will take us away from Kenya for all of the foreseeable future.

Amidst all of the chaos of mixed-emotions and packing fever, I can’t help but wonder what the real missionaries feel like at this point, what someone who has spent 10, 15, 20, or even 30 years feels like when they realize that they’re about to leave behind friends they may not meet again, their second home, and a huge portion of their life’s work. I can hardly imagine that. But what I can say is that for us the strongest emotion now is one of deep, deep gratitude to Jesus.

In our blog, updates, meet and greets, prayer letters, and conversations, Rebecca and I have tried our best to be honest about the struggles we’ve faced living here. The work with the farmers has been taxing and overwhelming, and even now it’s often difficult to see whether or not we’ve had much of an impact. We’ve experienced severe road rage in the daily life-risking activity of driving in Nairobi, we’ve been overwhelmed by myriad cultural differences that can grate on you like nails on a chalk board (particularly in terms of being asked for money), and we’ve been irate and undone by the stories of deep injustice we hear daily about so many of the politicians, schools, churches, NGOs, and businesses. And yet, the last two weeks leave all of this covered by a deep sense of thanksgiving.

Govind teaching Michael how to do Koroga Bonga: Stir and Talk

Each of our farmers groups gathered specifically to send us off Kenyan style. Each group lavished us with gifts from hand woven bags, to banana leaf canvas paintings and hand-carved gourds. And then, each and every group told us how much they loved us, how we had become good friends, and how they would continue to pray for us. One of the goals we had from the beginning was to be people who connected with folks on the ground, who ate the food our friends served us and slept in the guest beds they offered us. At each meeting I was amazed by how clear it was that this had happened. God honored our efforts and the Kenyan people are among the most hospitable and gracious on earth. We truly feel like we have mamas, babas, ndugus, na dadas in the faith all over Central Kenya (mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters in Kiswahili). At our pilot project send-off, one of the leaders stood up and thanked us for helping them see the resources they had that they hadn’t recognized, and helping them to work together to use those resources. Creating that kind of experience was a full half of what we hoped for with that group, and by God’s grace it seems to have happened. We made so many mistakes! We can be nothing but be thankful that God used us all the same.

Our experience in Nairobi has been more of the same. Last Saturday I was in an accident which was not my fault. Under the weight of culture stress, car stress, leaving stress, and all-round sinfulness I succumbed to the temptation to be pretty completely unChrist-like to the lady who hit me (who claimed it was my fault). Followers of the blog: this should sound familiar (remember the police incident). I went to church the next day ashamed of myself, feeling like I had failed Jesus and wondering how I ever expected to represent him well in all my lousiness. I girded up my loins and led worship for the last time at NCF all the same, and received the body and blood of Christ through communion afterwards. And then the church gathered around Rebecca and I, gave us incredible gifts, and spoke of the great maturity, love, and passion with which we have served at NCF. Afterwards every demographic of our extremely diverse church came up and thanked us for serving, expressed their love for us, and told us how grateful they were for our friendship. Over and over again people said, “From the very beginning, you were reaching out and befriending people from every group in the church.” And finally a close friend came up to me and said, “I’ve seen lots of people come and go here at NCF, but I’ve never seen two people showered with love as much as you guys.”

Rebecca and Michael wearing our gifts with Pastor Joe and his wife Elfi

And in that moment I realized: the good I do is not my own, it is Christ who lives in me. But for Christ uniting Himself with me through the power of the Holy Spirit, I am nothing but that angry jerk on the side of the road. All of our righteousness before the Lord is like filthy road-rage rags; but Christ has shone through Rebecca and me in ways we did not even recognize with a light that is not our own. Let the Lord be praised! And we are so grateful.

Later that evening all of our friends from Nairobi came to a good-bye party thrown for us by the church. We have slept at the homes of 5 different families in the last 9 days. We have feasted, partied, remembered our time here, and grieved our departure with dozens and dozens of brothers and sisters in the Lord who showed hospitality to these two American aliens and strangers on our sojourn through this foreign land. We have seen Christ in the hands and feet of our brothers and sisters, and seen how Christ has worked through our grubby hands and feet to do the good works he prepared from the beginning of time for us to do. And we are grateful.

Two farmers and Beth, who will continue working on the pilot project

“Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’ve come.” So says the great hymn. The story comes from the Old Testament when Samuel rallies the Israelites to return to the Lord. They gather together and fast and pray and repent of all their idol worship. While they’re there the Philistines come after them, but Samuel says that the LORD their God will fight for them. And so they cry out to God, and God answers with loud thunder and sends their enemies into confusion, and Israel wins the day. Afterwards Samuel raises a stone at Mizpah and tells the Israelites to remember “thus far has the Lord brought us” when they see it in later days. Samuel had been around faithless Israel long enough to know that they would be tempted to forget God’s goodness when things got rough in the future; so he gave them a stone to help them remember Yahweh’s everlasting faithfulness.

Us with the Khans, who run a ministry for people with handicaps

As many of you know, Rebecca and I are coming home with a vision for our next several years. Rebecca is applying to programs that would qualify her to teach in one of Memphis’s struggling inner-city schools. I will be returning to work at Advance Memphis, where I will be trying to “do justice and love mercy” by helping low-income African-American adults in the 38126 zip code develop economically through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’re hoping to find a place to live in or near that neighborhood. Having seen racial, tribal, and socio-economic reconciliation among Africans and Asians, we feel called to enter into that work in a place where our own tribe is involved in the problem. We’re excited and very, very nervous. The work will not be easy, and because of our time here we’re more aware than ever of the complexities of poverty and injustice, and the depths of our own inadequacy and sin.

So here we raise our Ebenezer. With thanksgiving and hope we’ll remember the long drives through the thousand tiny farms filled to overflowing with electric green life. We’ll remember the friendship of hundreds of farmers, some of the world’s poorest of the poor from the slums in Nairobi, and Christian brothers and sisters from some of the world’s least reached places (like Pakistan and India). We’ll remember that despite our great personal failure and sin, Christ nevertheless baptized our half-hearted efforts and turned them into stones built into the kingdom of God. We’ll remember the power of His presence to us day in and day out through His word, prayer, the Eucharist, and the faces of brothers and sisters from every corner of the globe. Come what may, we call ourselves to remember and each of you to remind us, “Thus far has God brought us. And we have confidence that He who has brought us here shall bring us home.”

Having climbed Mt Kenya, about to head down. Cue the symbolism.

Thanks be to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy!

Thanks for following us in this journey. Keep checking the blog for a few State-side reflections and eventually a link to our new blog (location TBD). Pray for us, write us (michaelandrebeccarhodes@gmail.com), visit us (Memphis), and call us (901-849-6345 from December 27 onward). Your encouragement, financial support, prayer, friendship and love have helped make all of this possible. When we look back at all we’ve learned and what God has done in us and through us, we believe it has been worth it. But more importantly than anything else, let each of us now, when we celebrate the time of Christ’s visiting us on Earth during Advent, remember the great things the Lord has done for us with great gratitude and full joy:

No more let sin and sorrows grow

Nor thorns infest the ground!

He comes to make His blessings known

Far as the curse is found!

Peace,

Michael

Lesson #7- The Body and the Bride

Finally, Rebecca and I have been overwhelmed by the power of the church. In our individualized, ultra-mobile American culture, the church can seem on the surface to be little more than a voluntary-society. In Kenya, we have seen glimpses of how the church as the community of God can change the world.

Kenya is one of those countries that has had a long history of all sorts of organizations of every stripe trying to create positive change within the society. Billions of dollars and probably millions of people have tried to make Kenya a better place. But only one oft-overlooked community in Kenya has the specific promise of the Creator God that they will be the hands and feet of the King in His world, and that community is the church. If we look at the metaphors the New Testament uses for the church, metaphors like “people,” “family,” “bride,” and “body,” all of them are incredibly intimate and personal. The church is less like an association you join than it is like a community you inherit as a birth-right, a community which demands your highest allegiance. Our first births bring us into the world heavily committed to our biological families, to the nation we live in, and to our ethnic group. But our new birth in Christ brings us into a community that Christ says claims a greater allegiance even than these. And that is the church.

We have seen the best and the worst of the church here. We have seen pastors abuse their spiritual authority in despicable ways, and we have also seen pastors and parishioners alike literally lay down their lives for the gospel. Whether with our friend Julias, who has taken a massive pay cut to pastor a small church in the village and yet finds a way to take care of 30 orphans in an orphanage that the church (whose total tithe is probably around 300 dollars a month) somehow manages to support, or the entire fellowship at New City Nairobi, which has stood together as a witness to the love of Jesus that reconciles enemies together before God and takes care of the needs of its congregants at the deepest levels, we have seen Christ changing the world through the hands and feet of his church.

There are some things that now, in the middle of packing and saying goodbye and all the emotions of leaving, I simply cannot find words to express or explain. The experience of church here in all of its body-of-Christ fullness is one of them. I can only say that after two years of seeing the poor and vulnerable be abused by churches that failed them on the one hand, and seeing new life and hope springing forth among the poor and spiritually broken in churches that embody the kingdom on the other, that we are more committed to the church than ever before. The church in our minds and hearts can no longer simply be the place where our family chooses to go and worship on Sunday mornings; it is the community that demands our highest allegiance at every level of life. We have been given the task of embodying the kingdom: to demonstrate in word, deed, and sign what it looks like for a people pulled from every corner of the globe and from every economic status to recognize the reign of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. We are the hands and feet of the Creator. As Tim Keller said, we are the aliens and strangers in the world who nevertheless are radically for the world in our love for our enemies, our generosity to the poor and broken, our moral purity, our love for each other, our fervency for the Lord, and our proclamation of good news that is found in no other place but in Christ and in his church.

We live in a time in which more and more people are looking around at their lives and seeing the fragmentation and isolation that comes from our Western culture’s rampant pursuit of individual choice and total rejection of outside authority. People feel alone. Maybe one of the reasons why the old methods of evangelism seem to become less and less effective is that they address one’s connection with God but ignore one’s connection to the world. But the blood of Jesus not only reconciles humans with God but humans with humans. The blood of Jesus brings us together, and the feast of communion anticipates that great feast in the new heavens and the new earth in which every tear will be wiped away and people from every tongue and tribe and nation will worship the Lamb. It is in the church that we come to the Table, and take the bread and the cup, and proclaim the Christ’s saving blood “until he comes.” And it is in the church that Jesus gives the world glimpses of what his rule and reign will look like. We in the church have an immense challenge, and an incredible opportunity. And it will cost us all of who we are. But one thing we’ve learned in Kenya is that it’s worth it.

May Jesus Christ make us His hands and feet through the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Father.

Michael

Lesson #6- Citizens In The Kingdom Under The King

So if Christ is the King who is coming to reclaim His world, what about us? What do we do? What's our role?

We all know the simple (but not easy) answer: Jesus calls us to follow after him. To take up our crosses. To wash each others' feet. To go and make disciples. After the resurrection, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says "as the Father sent me so send I you." That, coupled with Paul's insistence that the church is the body of Jesus makes it pretty clear that we're to go about living like Jesus is Lord, telling others about Jesus, and embodying the Kingdom of God in our local contexts.

And of course a huge part of this is serving the poor. Moreover, an even more difficult part of living in the shadow of the kingdom is to treat the poor as contributors, even especially valued members of the kingdom community ("for theirs is the kingdom of heaven") rather than as passive needy recipients.

I think the thing that has struck Rebecca and I over the past two years, though, is how often we confess with our mouths that we are servants of the King of kings who has come to make His blessings known throughout the cosmos, and then we deny it with our lives by going about our work half-heartedly or without careful thought. It is so easy, especially when we're working with the poor, to think that just because we showed up, we've done enough. After all, our intentions are so good, and a whole bunch of other folks just stayed home . . . right?

 The nugget of truth here is what John Calvin meant when he talked about how Jesus' work not only cleanses us from sin but even makes our shoddy works great in his kingdom. Jesus takes our filthy-rags righteousness and makes it into something beautiful. But this mentality can become an excuse to neglect careful thinking or hard work.

We almost titled this post "The Importance of Professionalism." While at the end of the day I don't think that language captures the fullness of what we're talking about, I think it's crucial for each of us to realize that Christ doesn't want our leftover moments and half-baked thoughts; He wants our biggest dreams and greatest efforts. If we start a business we probably do all sorts of feasibility studies and serious research; if we want to do medicine we go to nine years of school. But somehow when it comes to working with the poor, we can fall into the lie that all we need are good intentions.

In her memoir about her conversion from orthodox Judaism to Christianity, Lauren Winner writes about how a Jewish mentor of hers would always use sparkling water to make the bread for Passover. Initially Winner wonders why, considering how it costs more and makes no difference in the taste. But eventually her mentor tells her that the bread is an offering, that it is consecrated to the Lord, and that no expense is to be spared. I think that that's a good metaphor for what God wants for us when we serve Him; He wants us to quit bringing those sickly lame lambs and go find the biggest snow-white sheep we can find.

Again and again we have been challenged to read more, ask more questions, talk to wiser counselors, and to work harder. There is so much that we can learn about how to serve in whatever capacity we find ourselves in simply by taking the time to do some research and by hanging out with the more experienced folks around us. Listening is one of my weakest skills in general, but a number of counselors have surrounded me in our work, and we have witnessed real improvement as a result.

The question for all of us as we look at our lives of service is, "Are we offering the first fruits, or the mealy rotting left-overs?" How can we grow in our ability to serve the poor and the marginalized, to work for justice, to do mercy, to care for the widows, orphans, and aliens in our own communities? Who is doing these things well around us that we can learn from?

I've never lived under an earthly king. As an American, I tend to hold fast and loose to authority, and to consider charity and service volunteer activities that I enter into out of my own beneficence. The problem is that my real citizenship isn't in a democratic republic founded on individual freedom. My real citizenship is in a kingdom under the King of kings, who demands my allegiance and service, and who is calling me to get on board with some projects He's working on. I think if I really pondered this and took it to heart, it would radically increase the level of seriousness and energy I'd put towards the work. Maybe that's true for many of us; regardless, it's something Jesus has really hammered home to Rebecca and me these last two years.

May we all grow in our zeal for the Lord's work, and in our willingness to shape our lives around service to Him.

Michael

Lesson #5- Jesus Is The Risen King

It has not been easy for Rebecca and me to begin learning the lessons which we've highlighted in the last four posts. I expect that many of you might be discouraged simply by reading how two folks who've spent two years trying to help the poor are heading home with the sneaking suspicion that it's all more complicated than they ever imagined. And in the face of our own sin-sick hearts, the sin-sick hearts of the poor folks we want to help, and the sin-sick cultural, political, family, and economic systems in which we live, we need more than the slice of humble pie we blogged about in the last post.

And in the face of all of this each of us has essentially three options. We can give up in the face of the difficulty. Or we can learn more, work harder, give more, try our darndest to love more, and simply seek to live better lives in the face of the pain and brokenness. Both of these are long roads that lead to nowhere, and every world religion basically walks one or the other of them: escape from the world, or become a good enough person to fix it.

Every religion save one. Only in the Christian faith do we find a third answer, the answer to which Rebecca and I find ourselves driven to over and over again. And that answer is simply this: Jesus is the Risen King.

The Biblical narrative tells us mostly what we already sense in our hearts to be true: that though we were made for greatness and glory we ourselves have done something so horrible that at times we can barely find anything good among the wreckage of what we should be. And though God spoke in many times and in many ways to our forefathers, yet all of them fell short of the glory; none were able to save. So God Himself took on the flesh of fallen humanity, overcame the temption of the Satan who had lured Adam and Eve out from under the Father's protection, took on hell face-to-face at the cross, and overcame all the power of sin and death at the Resurrection. Jesus has won the victory against the sin that hides in our hearts, in the hearts of our neighbors, in all of our human structures and systems, and in all the principalities and powers of darkness.

So often we talk about the cross and the resurrection as Christ's saving work on our behalf, that we might have eternal life with him. And oh how true that is! But that glorious truth only makes sense in a larger story, the story of the God whose world ran away from Him, and who suffered death to bring it back. God walked among us in the person of Jesus, declaring the good news of the kingdom of God, the good news that though the world had rebelled, God Himself was bringing it back into its proper obedient place under His feet.

And this is the solution also to so many of the squabbles the church has gotten into lately. Should we do social justice work? Is evangelism more important? What about the environment? Is the gospel directed primarily to me as an individual, or is it a community thing? One side accuses the other of following an other-worldly faith that's no earthly good; the other side responds that eternity matters more, and that it is the saving of souls that matters most. But either one without the other is a half truth! The Christ has come! And as Paul so powerfully declares in Colossians, through Jesus all things are being brought back under the rule of Jesus! All things! He comes to make His blessings known far as the curse is found! This is the solution to all of our broken marriages, to the lusts of our hearts, to the injustice of our political systems, to the brokenness of our cultures, to the sinful hearts of rich and poor alike, and to the groaning created world that cries out around us. Jesus created it all for His glory, and though sin has marred it for a moment, He is bringing it all back to Himself for eternity.

In the cross and the resurrection Jesus won the victory over death, hell, sin, and all the powers of darkness.  So where do we run when feel beaten down by our own inadequacy, or by the brokenness of the cultures or political systems in which we live, or when we're overwhelmed by the sinfulness of the folks we work with, or when we're broken by the blackness in our own hearts? We run to the King. He is reconciling and restoring all of it. And He calls us to work alongside Him.

Robert Webber talked about how the early church fathers saw the Biblical narrative as being creation-incarnation-recreation; they believed that the entire cosmos would be recapitulated, that it would be restored to its former glory under the reign of Jesus. And it is this idea, this belief in Christ as King of the cosmos, reconciling and restoring all things, that has comforted us in our weakness, challenged us in our sinfulness, encouraged us in our efforts, and called us to greater striving alongside our Lord.

And the angels will cry "Hail the Lamb," who was slain for the world, "Rule in power!" And the earth shall reply, "You shall reign, as the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords!" Sunday is the first day of Advent, the beginning of the Christian year, and the kick-off for a season of reflection on how our Old Testament fathers waited for the coming of the Messiah, and how we ourselves await his coming again. This Jesus, who traded "sapphire-paved courts for stable floors" is the only hope for creation. And in the face of all the struggle and suffering in the world, our answer is now and ever shall be: the King has died. The King is risen. The King will come again.

May we all acknowledge the rule and reign of Christ in our hearts more and more every day of our lives.

Peace,
Michael

Lesson #4- Humble Thyself In The Sight of the Lord (and the farmers, and your neighbors, and your work, and . . .)

One More Farewell Party

The last three posts of this series will focus on the power of the gospel, both through individuals and through the church. But before we get there, Rebecca and I can’t help but mention what must be one of the most dramatic lessons of our time here in our own lives. It could be summed up this way: we know less than we think we know, we can do less than we think we can, and we’ve messed it up more than we thought we did. Or in our oft-repeated phrase, “(Fill in the blank) is just really, really complicated.” But in light of the previous posts on what the poor have to offer us, and about how complex the culture and structures are, if we want to use Biblical language, I think what we’re really talking about is the importance of humility.

So you show up thinking, “Hey, I’m educated, I’m a “doer,” Jesus is on my team! Let’s help some poor folk!” And then you actually meet some of those people, and their authentic faithful dependence on God shines light on your own materialism, and shames you in your spiritual whininess. And then you see how hard they work, and how the system is stacked against them so that your projects and plans somehow seem very small. And then you find out that your thoughts, your attitudes, your involvement in the world is actually part of the problem, that you’re part of the system, that you’re “the man!” And suddenly you find yourself feasting on a fat ‘ole slice of humble pie.

And the complexity of it all becomes overwhelming! And you begin seeing that all your simple solutions don’t work, mainly because you don’t understand as much as you thought you did, nor are you as smart as you thought you were. At least that's our story. And I think for us, and for lots of fairly well-intentioned folks like us, you come to an almost existential crisis.

So what do you do? For starters, you take off the Superman outfit, put away your Messiah complex, and start afresh. And as far as we can tell, the only place to start is where the earliest Christians started: “Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord.”

And that’s what the next post is all about.

Peace,
Michael

Lesson #3- Culture: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Cross-cultural bible story telling with our missionary friend George Mixon

Every missionary everywhere deals with culture. While sometimes in our home countries we can remain so blind to our own cultural assumptions as to forget that we have any, the moment you get off the plane in any other place you’re smacked in the face with the reality that groups of people think differently from other groups of people.

Broadly speaking, missionaries tend towards one of two poles in dealing with cultural differences: either you tend to see the cultural differences positively, as unique expressions of other image bearers from whom you can learn a great deal, or negatively, as a unique set of sin patterns and habits which a given group of people has.

Or, in case that sounds real technical, you either say: “Wow, these Kenyans are so hospitable and kind, I can really learn from that!” Or you say, “Why don’t these crazy Kenyans learn how to drive?”

Rebecca rocking some cross-cultural garb with friends Hash, Deepa, and Aman

Rebecca and I have trekked from one pole to the other and back on this spectrum (and many other missionaries do as well), and our conclusion is this: People are fallen. People are made in God’s image. Culture reflects both of these theological points in powerful, visible and hidden ways. In other words, love it or hate it, culture is a big stinkin’ deal. Ignore it, embrace it completely, or reject it totally, only at your own peril.

My marriage counselor Robby Holt predicted two historic days that I should expect in my marriage, but he made it very clear that there’s no way to predict which day will come first. One day is the day when I would say “Oh my goodness, I never knew Rebecca was such a HUGE SINNER!” And the other day would be when I would wake up and say “OH my goodness I never knew I was such a HUGE SINNER!” In a sense this is what happens to people who spend time in a foreign culture as well. For a while, maybe, you just see all these sin patterns and habits ingrained in a culture. Then one day you wake up and see new, equally horrible, sin patterns in your own.

For instance:

(1) Abusive authority, corruption, and haughty attitudes toward the poor reign supreme in this culture sometimes. (2) A cultural aversion to shame keeps what I would call Biblical confrontation from happening very often, and also often keeps parents and pastors from preaching about Biblical sexual standards. (3) The cultural practice of dowry makes it nearly impossible for poor folk to get married, which means that parental commitment to tradition encourages promiscuity and co-habitation: take marriage as an option off the table, and sexual fidelity becomes mighty difficult. (4) And a cultural complacency about asking for money means I get hit up for cash by people from the wealthiest to the poorest on a regular basis.

On the other hand (picture Tevyan from Fiddler on the Roof now), (1) my culture doesn’t even know the poor anymore. White flight, zoning, suburbanization, segregated churches, and just downright personal effort make sure that the rich hardly ever even see poor people; oh, we’re more politically correct most of the time, but Kenyans almost across the board live among and help support the poor in their midst way more than we do. Which is worse? To be friends and family with the poor and occasionally let pride get the better of you, or to escape pride over the poor by making sure you never see them? (2) Compared to the rest of the world our “upfrontness” and “forthrightness” is just a code word for being a jerk; we’re ruder, meaner, and downright crueler on average for all of our “openness.” We leave churches, families, friends, whatever, at the drop of a hat because of our constant quarreling. (3) Dowry may be outdated but it was meant originally to bind families together for their mutual benefit. Compare that to our own totally individualized, “me-oriented” society in everything from family to church. See above: we leave churches, spouses, whoever, assoon as it doesn’t fit us, and, as a young person I can say confessionally we don’t hardly give any respect to anyone older than us or other than us unless they happen to agree with us, whereas here, a greater sense of respect and admiration for the old means that wisdom gets passed down more effectively. And (4) I don’t like people asking me for money because I live in a society built on greed! Kenyan culture lives by this crazy idea that “to whom much is given much is required” (who said that again?) and everything in me hates it! Why? Because my culture idolizes money to such an extent that it tells me I have money because of my hard work and I get to do what I want with it! Which is more Biblical? Give to those who ask? Or make sure you’re totally financially self-sufficient and learn how to get rid of beggars and borrowers who want to take what’s rightfully yours?

And these are just a few examples.

Cross-cultural fire instructions (Appliances? Tackling?)

Culture makes communication, relationships, worship, and everything else that matters much more difficult. But cross-cultural involvement also makes all these things richer as well, by reminding us that some of the things we assume are Biblical aren’t. At best, a cross-cultural community allows each culture to bring its strengths to balance another culture’s weaknesses and to have the reverse done to them in their turn. And, when this happens, it’s beautiful.

Which leads me to one of the most prevalent sins worldwide, a sin that crops up in every corner of the globe, and goes oh-so-often-unnoticed even in the church. I’m talking about racism.

See, as soon as we think about culture as both a danger and blessing, then we realize how damning it is to look at another culture or ethnic group with disdain. And one thing that’s obvious in Kenya is the power of doing just this; racial stereotypes are so powerful here. “Kikuyus are thieves,” “Luos are just violent,” “Indians steal our jobs.” And I shouldn’t have to remind any American reader that we do the same thing to each other back home all the time. You can’t have the body of Christ without having cultural collision. And so racism not only leads to violence and hate and injustice, but it deprives us of the very person of Jesus, who reaches out to us through his church.

And, honestly, that’s one of the number one reasons we’re coming home. Being in Kenya has given us the opportunity to see the devastation of racism, and also to see the incredible resurrection power released through Biblical racial reconciliation in the context of our time at New City Fellowship Nairobi. But it has not given us an opportunity to participate fully in that reconciliation. We’re outsiders. Kikuyus don’t like Luos, and none of ‘em like Indians, and maybe a few folks are still ticked at the Brits, but nobody’s got any problems with us. But that’s not true everywhere. There are places where confessing with Nehemiah our sins and the sins of our forefathers takes us right into the heart of racial conflict. And having seen where the Spirit of God leads His church in the context of racism here, we want to be led into new places back in the neighborhoods where we are participants in real and living racial tension and strife.

The story of Babel teaches us that culture has at least some of its roots in sin. But both Isaiah and John’s apocalyptic vision remind us that at the end of the ages the kings of the earth will bring their best gifts to Yahweh and to the Lamb. Culture is a double-edged sword, a spring mixed with salt water and fresh, but that’s not where the story ends. Jesus isn’t content with life as we know it. He has traded the one ethnic people of God for the plurality of the kingdom, and yet he also rejects all “melting pots” as well. Christ is redeeming culture, claiming culture, overcoming culture, creating a symphony of praise out of a cacophony of voices. And it’s time that all of us open our eyes . . . and start singing.

Peace,

Michael