Tag: forgiveness

Encountering the Enemy

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encountering the enemy

illustration by Seth T. Hayne for CAPC Magazine

I wrote this piece awhile back, but today my feature article for Christ and Pop Culture Magazine–on nurturing peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through film–has been made available  for free.

At a moment in history where more people around the world have been displaced by violent conflict than ever before, now is the time to ask ourselves hard questions about our role in cultivating conflict or peace. Now is the time to question the narratives we tell ourselves about war, vengeance, “redemptive” violence, and enemies. The same ignorance and fear that generates war in the Middle East and Africa and pushes refugees to the shores of Europe and North America also plays out in our own society as alienation between people of different races or faiths, and as destructive relationships between individual people. Forgiveness of others’ sin, and repentance for our own, are both central to the Christian faith. So for those of us who seek to be shaped by the life of Jesus, enemy love and reconciliation should be central to our understanding of our role in the world.

As a Jew, Reena Lazar has worked towards reconciliation in Israel/Palestine by finding creative ways to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth face-to-face with “the enemy” (each other). Yet the wisdom she has accumulated in the process is applicable far beyond the scope of this particular geopolitical conflict.  Her work has much to teach us about building bridges instead of walls, regardless of the role or the part of the world in which we find ourselves. Head on over to Christ and Pop Culture to read the article.

Forgiveness in the thick of it

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          In our house, we host a weekly event after Tuesday night community dinners called Creative World Justice. The purpose is pretty much what it sounds like—to worship, learn, and brainstorm together about the creative steps we can take towards promoting justice in the world, as individuals and as a group. We’ve just begun a series exploring violence and nonviolence, and last night I had the privilege of leading a discussion on nonviolence in the Bible, particularly in the life of Jesus.I’ve read these verses so many times myself over the years, and I’ve often taken part in theological discussions and detached, intellectual conversations in which we have discussed violence on an impersonal, even hypothetical level. We hold the world’s problems at arm’s length, arguing back and forth about historical wars, current large-scale conflicts that are far enough away to exist for us only in newspaper headlines, or potential scenarios of aggression or crime in which self-defense would be necessary.

But last night, Jesus’ words and example of forgiveness and enemy love had never felt more powerful. The room was full of people for whom violence is a personal issue. Many of them grew up in violent homes, were abused as children, belonged to gangs when they were younger, had boyfriends or husbands who beat them up, or perhaps served jail time for beating up someone themselves. One woman came into the discussion reeling from the news that a close friend had been the victim of an extremely savage crime this week—one which may yet take her life; it remains to be seen whether she will make a recovery in the hospital or not. Is it offensive or even ridiculous to talk about forgiveness against the backdrop of such vitriolic hatred and evil?

Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness and nonviolence are difficult for us all, but especially for so many people in that room, whose lives have been shaped in significant ways by violence. I really respected the courage of my new friends to take his words seriously and to grapple with them right in the thick of it all. I admired their humility and honesty in sharing the difficult emotions and the fragile places in their lives that have made it difficult for them to respond to violence in any other way than with retribution. Some of them are also very new on their journey with Jesus, and I was inspired by their passion to soak up this new way of being in the world.

In the face of so much raw honesty and pain, I was humbled myself by the reminder that this nonviolent path is not a solution that I have to hand out to people. It’s not anything I have mastered myself, and it certainly is no short-cut or cure-all for the pain. It’s a difficult and lengthy process of inner transformation, and it is a learning curve that we are all on together, stumbling and backtracking and finding our way forward again. But it is a potent anecdote to the fight-or-flight world and the survival mentality that we’ve all been raised with. In fact, it is exactly in the thrall of horrific violence that forgiveness and creative, compassionate resistance are needed: to overcome evil with good.

Pursuing the Kingdom of God: The battle without and the battle within

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          Andy and I are in Colorado Springs for a few days after a twelve-hour drive from northern Arkansas, where we spent three weeks with his family.  We haven’t been doing much, besides sitting around talking with people and trying to keep warm around wood-burning stoves, heating vents, and fireplaces.  But these weeks have left a lot of space for reflection, and He seems to be raising new questions and insights in our minds all the time.  At this point, we have far more questions than answers, but here is a bit of what’s been on our minds.
What a paradox it is that we as humans dread and crave God’s judgment at the same time.  We dread His judgment when we call to mind our own guilt and shame over wrongful actions, evil thoughts, and selfish desires.  We crave His judgment against those who have wronged us or who have wreaked havoc on our society by perpetrating horrible crimes like rape, murder, or other kinds of heartless oppression against innocent, vulnerable people like women, children, and the elderly.  I have been recognizing these two impulses within myself recently: burning indignation against injustice, and yet thankfulness for God’s mercy when I soberly realize the roots of those outward expressions of evil within myself– pride, anger, jealousy.  In Vancouver, it was easy to feel outrage towards a man picking up a desperate woman who was prostituting herself on a street corner, or towards busy shoppers who avoided eye contact with the panhandlers on the sidewalk.  But if I am honest, then I must admit how easily the impulse to pursue what I want ahead of the best interests of others rises within my own spirit, or the way that apathy often finds fertile soil in my mind.  In pursuing the Kingdom of God, we must be willing both to fight for justice in the world, and to courageously face the evil within ourselves and invite God’s purifying flame to test our hearts, separating out the wheat from the chaff.  After all, it is only the pure in heart who will see God.