Full-scale riots and irascible old ladies

I had a conversation with a friend earlier in the week and, typical of this friend, he got me thinking. He was lamenting the tendency of the church to look just like the world around it. I see his point, to be sure. But God often works in almost imperceptible ways. Sometimes we must look for even the smallest signs of grace. This story--written while my family and I were in Nigeria some years ago--came to mind.

Ogbomosho, June 1998

The political climate has been stormy here lately as well. As I sit here at my desk in our bedroom, I can hear the sounds of shouting and rioting in the town... I came home a little while ago from the office because I thought the sound of shots (teargas, not bullets, from what I've heard) coming from outside the compound might alarm Nicolien. You've all probably heard that Chief Moshood Abiola died yesterday, apparently of a heart attack. Abiola was the president-elect of the annulled 1993 elections, whom the late General Sani Abacha then threw into jail in 1994. After General Abacha's sudden death last month (June 10th), Nigerian hopes (and especially hopes in this part of the country) were fixed on Chief Abiola: perhaps the military would finally go back to the barracks and allow Abiola to be the president. This hope was probably unrealistic. Nevertheless, Abiola's death comes as a great shock and deep disappointment to many people. Hence the rioting. (We'll stay put until things calm down, of course.)

Nicolien just came in with some of the latest news. She says that the Yoruba people here (we're in Yorubaland and Chief Abiola was Yoruba) have been blaming the Northerners for Abiola's death (the military leadership is Northern). Apparently the Yoruba have been stopping Northern truckdrivers (from the Hausa tribe) and are not allowing them to pass. The road has basically been blocked. Fortunately, we haven't heard of any violence here in Ogbomosho. (Scratch that: Nicolien just told me they destroyed the property of the Hausa chief here.) One concern is that a few missionaries on vacation here from the North went out fishing early this morning, before things became unsettled. We'd like to reel them back in at this point, if we could.

My own experience with rioting is fairly limited, I'm thankful to say. Unfortunately, my closest encounters have been of the church kind. I think I mentioned the time I went to preach at an Igede church, only to find the thatched church shelter empty when I arrived a few minutes before the service was to begin. The church had emptied when the Igede people had heard of an Igede - Yoruba dispute in their village. Fortunately, the matter was resolved fairly quickly and the people were able to return to church. That I had planned to preach from the book of Habakkuk (which deals with the problem of suffering and violence) that day was no mistake, I think.

I made a more intimate acquaintance with rioting at church sometime last February. As most of you know, my family attends a very small church out in the leper colony. The people who attend church there are the living dead in many ways. Shunned by family and society, these victims of Hanson's disease are desperately poor and physically debilitated. I told you the story of Mary Atonwa, the elderly woman from the leper colony who died so unexpectedly (to me at least) and who was buried rather unceremoniously in an overgrown field by the church. Her life and death were not so much tragic as pitiful; it is certainly true of her that "if for this life only she hoped in Christ, she is of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor 15:19). Ultimately, it is the Christian hope of resurrection from the dead (like our Lord) that gives meaning and purpose to the suffering and trials of those who believe in him. That's easy to forget, though, when you're hungry, physically handicapped, and short on cash.

When we arrived at the church that Sunday morning it was clear there was a problem. Once again, no one was in the church (shades of the Igede experience). In fact, no one seemed to be inside at all. Instead, everyone seemed to be outside, shouting at each other and occasionally brandishing pieces of wood or other makeshift weapons. It was mass confusion. And here we were, the missionaries and the (non-Yoruba) student-pastor, not a one of which could speak Yoruba with any fluency (this situation was well past the polite-exchange-of-elaborate-greetings stage). To tell the truth, I wasn't too keen on wading into the brawl; on the other hand, I was even less enthusiastic about standing around until people started clubbing each other instead of attending church. So the pastor and I joined the running around and shouting, except that we were speaking English and half-begging, half-commanding people to go to church where we could settle the issue in a more Christ-like manner. After no little struggle ("put that wood down!" "go to the church!") and not a few false starts (halfway to the church and my man breaks away to begin shouting again), we finally managed to get most of the people into the church and seated. Whew.... Now what?

At first I sat down in the pew, very relieved that my student (and not I) was the pastor. What a mess. Then it dawned on me that as a resident missionary and the pastor's teacher (and elder), I would almost certainly be expected to take a leading role in what followed. Oh joy. So I walked up to the front, spoke briefly to the pastor, and found myself sitting next to him a moment later, on the program to give the message for the day. From what little I had been able to gather from the pastor and church leader, it seemed that some people in the church had been upset over what they considered to be an unfair distribution of clothing given to the church. As I understood it at the time some of the people didn't want the newcomers to receive any of the gifts. I was disturbed by this, to say the least. When I got up to speak I told the story of the good Samaritan, Jesus' answer to the Pharisee who asked "Who is my neighbor?" I tried to make clear that the answer to that question cannot be defined in terms of family or village or tribe or nation, that God is one and his people are one, that we are called "Christians" because we are called to be like Christ--in his self-sacrificing love as well as his resurrection glory. After I finished, the wife of the late chaplain of the whole leper colony came in and spoke for a while as well.

I'd like to say that the whole church was immediately overwhelmed with remorse and a dramatic transformation took place even as I spoke. The process was a little more drawn out than that. I'm happy to report (instead) that we didn't return to a full-scale riot immediately after the church service, even though a police officer was waiting outside the church door and ended up carting off five or six people for questioning at the police station. The situation was well enough in hand by an hour or so after the service that the pastor and I felt we could safely leave. We promised to return later that afternoon to check on things. And that's what we did. When we came back around mid-afternoon things were very quiet and I was inclined to leave them that way. However, the pastor and the chaplain's wife insisted on having a village meeting (images of Riot Redivivus in my head), so for the next two hours or so we listened to every possible side of the story. Actually, there was more than one story and each story had so many sides that I ended up being completely confused. Finally, with Solomonic wisdom I proclaimed that there was no way to resolve all the knotty and tangled issues: those who had something to forgive simply needed to forgive (as Christ forgave them) and those who had something to confess and ask forgiveness for needed to do that too. Then we joined hands and sang--in Yoruba or English--"Blessed be the tie that binds." When the pastor and I left, there was only one irascible old lady still shouting.

I'm not sure why I've shared this whole story in such detail, apart from the fact that it made a big impression on me. It certainly isn't your typical "inspiring missionary story." Maybe this story is a bit more true to life, though. God can and does work in dramatic ways, sometimes. More often, I think, he moves in small steps, a little bit at a time, in many different ways and with more than one means of grace. I don't know about you, but for me a movement from full-scale riot to one irascible old lady shouting is a pretty good illustration of progressive sanctification. It's not perfect peace yet, but it's moving in that direction. And one day there will be perfect peace.

Speaking of peace, things seem to have calmed down in the town. I don't hear any more shouts from that direction. The guys who went out fishing have returned too, so that's good. Come to think of it, the sun is out now too and shining more brightly than it has for a few days. Things are definitely looking up.

Categories: Africa, Sanctification

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The temple presence of God

My wife's parents have been in town for almost two weeks now. That's something, because my wife is Dutch and, well, so are they. So they've come all the way from the Netherlands to be with us. Our family has been blessed to see them more often than we might expect, given the distance, but it's still very special when "Opa" and "Oma" come to visit. It's one thing to tell them about all that's going on here; it's quite another for them to be here and eat dinner with us, talk in our living room, meet our friends, see their granddaughter run cross-country, take a stroll on the downtown mall together. It's a gift and we're grateful for it.

The gift is even greater when God comes to visit. Katrina and Rita may suggest an absent god. John's Word is better, indeed... This was, uh, brought home to me in the last class my friend and I have been teaching on the Gospel of John. The week before we had considered the way in which the Word/Wisdom of God comes to a surprising in-the-flesh expression in Jesus: "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us" (John 1:14). In this class we picked up on that theme of tabernacling--of God dwelling among his people.

The story of the temple in the Old Testament has a strong tragic dimension. Built as the climax to God's covenant with Israel, the tabernacle itself--and, later, the temple--is destroyed because of the people's faithlessness. Even so, God repeatedly promises to rebuild his temple and dwell once again with his people (e.g., Amos 9:11-12). It is this rebuilt eschatological temple to which the prophets look: the ultimate hope of God's permanent presence among his people.

Strangely, perhaps, the story of Israel's temple becomes the story of Jesus' life. It begins with a tabernacle, in which the very Wisdom of God is enshrined (John 1:14). Incarnation as greater-than-Sinai tabernacle construction!

And the story moves inexorably to its appointed conclusion. In only the second chapter of John, Jesus judges the temple of Herod ("Do not make my Father's house a house of trade") and announces its replacement: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up... But he was speaking about the temple of his body" (John 2:14-22). Death as temple destruction. Resurrection as temple restoration.

One day, at the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth, "the tabernacle of God [will be] among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them" (Rev 21:1-4). In the meantime, a place has been prepared for us: a newly renovated Father's house, in which we are invited to dwell. For Jesus in in the Father, and the Father in him; and we are in him, and he in us (14:11,20).

In Jesus God has already made himself a temple-home among us. One day he will move in for good.

Categories: John, Temple, Resurrection

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Wisdom and the Purple Rose of Cairo

I still remember seeing The Purple Rose of Cairo when it came out in 1985. I was in Europe, studying in Munich for my second semester abroad in college--but even more intent upon spending as much time as possible with my Dutch fiancee a bit further north. It was during one of those times in the Netherlands that we went to see, as it turned out, the latest Woody Allen flick. Only one scene from the entire movie remained with me: the image of poet and explorer Tom Baxter leaping off the movie screen into the life of Celia, a forlorn depression-era waitress (which clip you can see by clicking the movie poster above).

That was the image that came to mind... when a friend and I began preparing to team teach a class on the Gospel of John for a church fellowship this semester. The Gospel of John opens in a dramatic way: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. And the Word was God." Picking up on a long-established tradition in Jewish circles--one in which a personified Wisdom aids the Lord God in creation and eventually makes its way to Israel in the form of the Mosaic law, John casts Jesus in the role of Wisdom with a surprising twist to the old story. Wisdom is no longer embodied in the law and enshrined in the temple; it is enfleshed in Jesus, who becomes the new temple of God's presence. While the Mosaic wisdom of old did make its home in Israel, Jesus is rejected by those who should have received him as the proper climax to the story of Wisdom.

In the Woody Allen film Celia's search for 'real' happiness is as fruitless as Tom Baxter's quest for the purple rose of Cairo. The incursion of film and fantasy into the harsh realities of this world is by its very nature temporary and illusory. "I gotta speak to you," Tom says right before he makes the leap. The Prologue to John speaks a better Word, one which truly becomes flesh and tabernacles among us.

Categories: John, Wisdom, Movies

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Bill's not-so-excellent adventure

The other day I listened to a Christian speaker develop the topic of "excellence." Though the speaker was a likeable man with passion and charisma, my heart sank as he spoke. He defined Christian excellence almost exclusively in terms of achieving high-quality performance in every area of life.

One illustration was particularly revealing... He mentioned visiting people's homes and seeing the doors to so many rooms of the house closed. He concluded that this indicated a lack of "excellence" in cleaning the house, in which every room should be clean and spotless. What can I say? It reminded me of a close friend of mine who once had a church leader judge her spiritual maturity on the basis of whether she detailed her car every week.

Admittedly, I'm not exactly a paragon of excellence in these respects. One need look no further than my own lackluster 1994 Buick with the gaping hole in the front right fender for evidence of a certain lack of, uh, excellence in automotive upkeep. And you'll probably find some doors closed in my house when you come to visit, if I can just get the kids to remember to keep them that way.

And yet, to be honest, sloth is not exactly my besetting sin. If anything, I am more likely to make an idol of excellence, to let my contentment on a given day be determined by how much I get done, how clean the house is, how well my children behave, how well I'm feeling, and so forth. Indeed, I consider it something of a victory that I'm more willing these days to let certain areas of my life be less than excellent in order to focus on things that are more important.

Even this doesn't get at the heart of the matter, though. Surely there is room for exhortations to excellence in the body of Christ, even if some of us are working more on being less perfectionistic and demanding. What really disturbed me was the utter absence of the gospel from this presentation. No references to creation or the fall, to redemption or restoration. No references to the cross and the resurrection. No reflection on the ways in which any of these revealed truths should motivate, affect, redefine, or empower 'excellence' in our lives.

I write all this only because I am convinced that a distinctively Christian approach to a thing must consider it in the light of the cross and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ (themselves answering or announcing creation, fall, redemption, and restoration) and our present position between the ages. This is true of "excellence"; it is also true of suffering, politics, sexuality, apologetics, hermeneutics, environmentalism, business, and every other aspect of life or thought.

Let's call each other to God-honoring, Christ-centered, Spirit-dependent excellence in that pursuit. And I probably need to wax the car at some point too.

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Theology on rye

Perhaps you've heard about "Theology on Tap," a Roman Catholic ministry which has been dispensing large draughts of good theological conversation, often at a bar or grill, for some 25 years now. Well, a group of graduate students and I had our own version of "Theology on Tap" this morning at the locally famous "Bodo's Bagels." Call it "Theology on Rye." Marble rye, to be exact.

This particular Bodo's has its own fascinating history. The third of three Bodo's in Charlottesville, it finally opened its doors on the Corner after ten long years... Ten years, I might add, of local anticipation, anger, doubt, and, yes, perhaps even a sense that the empty store with the “Coming Soon” sign was the only Corner institution by the name of Bodo's we were likely to see. So I suppose it was appropriate that our little Bodo’s band this morning spent most of its time discussing, well, eschatology—the ways in which another institution is already here even as we wait for a final Coming.

Our passage for the day was Galatians 5, but that didn't stop us from discussing the political implications of the Gospel, the relationship of flesh and the law, the continuity (or lack thereof, as the case may be) between Israel and the church, and so on. Indeed, Paul's fundamental and redemptive-historical contrast between flesh and Spirit (see previous posts!), in Galatians 5 as elsewhere, leads quite naturally to such questions. The main point there is to draw out the ethical implications of living according to the Spirit (and its age)--as opposed to regressing to life in the flesh and under the law. Along the lines of our discussion of Romans 8...

On the political side of things I made a point this morning which I owe to Russell Moore's book, The Kingdom of Christ: that the "already" and the "not yet" of our place in redemptive history affects our understanding of the extent to which the kingdom can work itself out in society in this age. For the purposes of this post I'll concentrate on how understanding the "not yet" of the kingdom helps to avoid premature triumphalism (my point in the discussion this morning)--or, for that matter, unrealistically high expectations--in the present age. Moore puts it this way (p. 79):

A clearly developed evangelical theology of the "not yet" keeps... a historical vision at the forefront, while dismissing every secular attempt at utopia as, at best, a pretender to the throne. Thus, evangelicals can affirm, as did George Eldon Ladd, the conclusion of E. C. Gardner: "Christian eschatology means the end of all social and political utopias which expect to achieve a perfect pattern of peaceful society by human means and human strength." Thus, a Kingdom-oriented, inaugurated eschatology can inform evangelicalism by reminding the movement that, as Carl Henry has counseled, all secularist and evolutionary models of utopian progress have "borrowed the biblical doctrine of the coming kingdom of God but cannibalized it."

We have, then, no reason to despair and every reason to hope: the kingdom of God will come in its fullness to this world. It will come with Christ at his return. And yet it will not fully come before that time, whatever we do. In that way our hubris is chastened even as our hope is kept alive. Which is just what we need in the wake of Katrina.

Categories: Moore, eschatology, Katrina

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"Adam, where are you?"

Russell Moore has written a piece entitled "Christ, Katrina, and My Hometown." This is what the "already" and the "not yet" looks like in a world groaning under tsunamis and hurricanes. An excerpt follows:

As Christians we know something about Katrina that the rest of the world just can’t know: This is not the way it is meant to be. The Psalmist reminds us that God originally put all things under the feet of Adam (Psalm 8:6). But the writer of Hebrews reminds us that we do not yet see all things under the feet of humanity (Hebrews 2:8), although we do see a crucified and resurrected Jesus (Hebrews 2:9). The apostle Paul likewise reminds us that the creation itself groans under the reign of sin and death, waiting for its rightful rulers to assume their thrones in the resurrection (Romans 8:20-23). The storms and the waves are one more reminder that the "already" has not yet been replaced by the "not yet."

Against the backdrop of the hurricane, consider the contrast between the prophet Jonah and the Messiah Jesus. Like Jonah, Jesus is confronted by a seemingly murderous storm, with his fellow travelers convinced they would perish. Whereas Jonah the sinner could only still the storm by throwing himself into its midst, Jesus exercises dominion over the winds and the waves with his voice. Mark reminds us that the boat's occupants remarked: "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?" (Mark 4:41).

The CNN meteorologists can explain the hurricane only in terms of barometric pressure and water temperatures. We know, however, that at its root this natural disaster isn't natural at all. It is a creation crying out, "Adam, where are you?"

Categories: Moore, Katrina, Sonship, Romans, Eschatology

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