Questianity
11 PM greeted me the other night with a text message from a close friend who had received a death threat.
He received it because of me. Because of the work that LOVEboldly is doing.
It’s hard to describe what it feels like to know that people I love are risking their reputations, jobs, and general well-being to align with me and/or LOVEboldly.
It makes me protective. My first instinct is to tell them to get out, to run while they can. I wouldn’t want the most terrible experiences of reconciliation work for anyone I love. The everyday process of sticking your hands in the dirt of peace-building between groups in conflict is not glorious, trendy, or inspiring. Sometimes it’s just mud – dirty, sludgy, ignoble, ordinary mud. Sometimes it’s violence and threats of violence, character slaughter, victim and savior complexes, and the grief of suicide, homelessness, joblessness, poverty, abuse, family rejections, and broken marriages.
Sometimes I’d rather not have my friends get muddy. But when they get death threats and respond with love that breaks boundaries and calls us to embrace even our enemies, I am humbled and proud to call them my friends. In Jesus’ hands, the dirty, sludgy, ignoble, ordinary mud of reconciliation work made the blind man able to see again (John 9). Those leading reconciliation efforts have eyes that are hungry for that kind of mud – not just on their face, but on everyone else’s too. The dirt and spit of reconciliation work, which others would use to hurl at their enemies, become, in the hands of our Savior, the ordinary and sludgy vessel used to deliver His healing power with a loving touch.
When I remember this, my instincts change from surviving to thriving. I tell my friends to stay with it, to never give up on reconciliation work. The fire that is shut up in our bones cannot be replaced by something that would burn us any less. I wouldn’t want anyone I love (or even those I hate) to miss out on the fist-pumping, hand-clapping, jump-up-and-down, celebration that occurs when the mud of God’s reconciling and healing work victoriously gives people their sight back.
Praying through my anger today, I was reminded. Jesus called us all to lives that would get us crucified sometimes. There is no glamour or award we hold up for creating enemies or experiencing hatred, as if we should ever seek to earn such a thing. But we do accept it’s a part of the life of Jesus and so will likely be for Jesus-followers as well. Reconciliation is a hill worth dying on, if we must. After all, Jesus did it. He carried that cross up to that hill and he died on it for the sake of welcoming all into the kingdom of God. Every once in a while I suppose we’ve got to follow his lead.
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