So, we made it through back to back political conventions. Each convention working to excite their base and convince the American people that they have the corner on what the country needs and the other party will crash the U.S. into a guardrail after an all-night frat party. Now, I understand why there are stark differences in what the candidates believe about what direction the country needs to go. All one has to do is take a look at who attends each convention to understand that politics in a conversation in culture and preservation. Each party is populated with people who carry a particular ideology and are fighting to either maintain it or birth it. Two things struck out at me. One is how both parties ride on the idea of change. No one wants to be viewed as a washington insider. All want to be Lincoln, Kennedy, and Davy Crockett all wrapped into one. The second observation - is how each candidate is working to convince the voters that their side is God's side. Maybe that's not the thing that amazes me as much as how well it works. Political rivalries have become holy wars - the "liberals" vs. the "evangelicals". Both maintaining that God is most passionate about the issues of their party. Truth is - they might be right.
God's revelation makes his political perspectives really clear. He loves justice, mercy, life, caring for the poor, compassion, and a culture that seeks Him.
As followers of Jesus, we should continue to be about these things. Where it all falls apart is that our hopes in political parties often leaves us in conflict because no party will represent the heart of God because they don't understand the heart of God.
God's policies are driven from his heart. Much of politics are driven from fear or from want. Followers of Jesus approach these things differently. Let me illustrate what I mean.
I remember when I first met Bonnie. It was a cold, wet day in Chicago - as were many days in Chicago. I was with my wife at the McDonald’s at the corner of Foster and Kedzie - a few blocks west of our apartment in the neighborhood called “uptown”. Since we had gotten married, as often happens, we didn’t see our friends from college as much as we did when we were together every day on campus. One of these friends was an Englishman named Gary. Gary was majoring in multi-cultural studies because of a desire to go into mission work. He had this desire since he was a teenager traveling the world on mercy ships. He always had stories of amazing adventures around the world - which to a midwestern boy who was on his first big-city adventure was like talking to some kind of lion-tamer. Now this globe trotting, mission-focused friend of ours was bringing a girl for us to meet.
This visit wasn’t just a happening. It was one of those visits that friends do as they make the rounds introducing the person they are planning to marry. They seek approval and integration. Gary was starting a new life and we were about to meet her.
We liked Bonnie. She had met Gary at a mosque downtown. Visiting a mosque was part of an assignment to better understand islamic culture and muslims in general. As I recall, Bonnie had made the first move. She too was interested in a life of missions - thus creating a natural bond that was about to result in matrimony. Gary was thrilled - and as his friends, so were we.
It was no real surprise the day we got a letter from Gary and Bonnie letting us know they were on their way to the mission field. I assumed they would be heading back to the mercy ships - Gary’s first love - but it seems these ships had no openings. Instead they were off to Lebanon.
The reports I heard from Lebanon were just want I would expect from Gary. He had opened a bookstore and coffee shop in Sidon and spent his days in dialog with people who would come to exchange ideas. He had been able to see a few men respond to the gospel and had the beginnings of a simple church. Bonnie had taken a job as an assistant in a women’s clinic where she cared for women in a society where the needs of women are often of low priority.
It was another cold and wet day in November 2002 when I picked up the newspaper that was lying on the floor at my wife’s parent’s home. The front page was filled with the normal “feel-good” Thanksgiving stories. As I read through the paper I saw the article: “Christian Missionary Killed in Lebanon”. It had a picture of Bonnie and a brief description of the events. It seems that the doorbell rang at the clinic and when Bonnie opened the door she was shot three times. Her husband, my friend Gary, was ushered out of the country and was on his way back to the United States with the body of his wife.
10 days later, at a memorial service with the world press watching, a grief-stricken Gary got up and made the statement:
“I forgive this man, because Jesus has forgiven me.”
There is no one less deserving of forgiveness than the man who takes a life. In one irreversible instant, the gunman took away a future - destroying the lives of family, friends, and anyone who would have been touched by Bonnie’s life. Here is my friend Gary performing an unspeakable act - forgiving the man that robbed him of his world.
I can’t speak for my friend, but my guess is that missions took on a different meaning from that point forward. From his words I hear that his life wasn’t about getting people to agree with his religious viewpoint. Gary’s life was pushed open to reveal the heart of God. As for Bonnie, she wasn't there for politics. She didn't represent the U.S. or democracy. She was there because love pushed her there. Her heart was driven by love for people - and her life demonstrated her actions. She didn't need a law or a society to agree with her. She didn't the political table set to embrace people.
Many who hear Gary's story might assume that he became a leading voice in the war on terror - supporting any policy that brought justice (revenge) to the people who dared do this. He did none of this. Gary continued to give his life away to the people of Lebanon - embracing and revealing a God who want's to embrace them.
Jesus was great at telling stories that would resonate with the people who heard them. He told stories about farming, religious or social gaps, or whatever else moved to the core of the weary ears that heard him. Sometimes there are arguments as to whether or not the Bible’s descriptions of God as Father are sexist. The feeling is that a male deity allows for all manner of chauvinism and abuse. Certainly, those who read the scriptures with an eye that ignores the wholeness of God do tend justify their own brokenness. Yet, in the story that Jesus told to the group gathered before him, the one who was to represent God simply had to be a father.
I will accept that I’m a bit biased and speaking from my own limited experience. I have never been a mother and have no sense of the heart of one. From my observations the mother/son bond is deep and lasting. Men know how to treat women from their mothers, enjoy great care and nurture from their mothers, and stereotypically enjoy the softer side of life from her. The relationship between a father and son is complex. It’s often misunderstood and misdirected - sometimes resulting in irrelevance or absence.
From the earliest recorded histories, sons were socially understood as the continuation of the father. Kings hoped for a son to be heir to the throne, but even for the rest of us - our boys carry our names to the next generation. Whether it’s nature or nurture - men understand that their sons represent themselves. Boys are the life of the father continuing on beyond the limits of a lifespan.
Jesus' listeners would have been horrified by the insolence of this boy and celebrated the destruction of his life in a pig pen. They would have been waiting with eagerness as Jesus described this wretch crawling home humiliated -begging to be a slave. "Sweet justice" they would have thought - expecting the father to take his revenge and restore his honor.
The rest of the story has become such a part of our cultural cannon that we lose it's impact. The fact that this father was on a constant lookout for sign of his child's return - AFTER that child had humiliated him and squandered his wealth was offensive. Hugging him, forging him, and then CELEBRATING him? That's just ridiculous. Notice the robe went on the boy before a bath. He still stank of his bad decisions - the father was just glad he was home
Our lives, as followers of this God, must be driven by this heart. Our job is not adjust culture so that we can fulfill our call of love - but to love anyway. Whether our society embraces our beliefs or is opposed to them, our platform is the same as God's - reconciliation.
Here is our bottom line, we exist to reconcile people to God (see 2 Cor 5). That reconciliation will result in greater justice, more compassion, care for the poor, and healing to the planet. Let's run, embrace, and party.
