Author: Colum Cille

“I heard you having trouble to get used to here?”

So began the meeting this morning, as our supervisor walked into the room to discuss our decision to leave the school.  After many unheeded complaints about classroom conditions over the past few months, my wife was sexually assaulted by a student in class.  The school’s response has been to chalk it up to trouble adjusting to the culture.

The supervisor’s summary has become all to familiar to us.  Since we first attempted to address the issue, we’ve received similar responses with remarkable consistency.  Upon hearing about the sexual assault, one of the more sympathetic of our coworkers replied, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re having trouble adjusting.  It’s hard to be away from home.”  The teacher in whose class this happened, and who was supposed to be in the class at the time assisting my wife, was less sympathetic.  She refused to discipline the student because, “I don’t think it happened.  It’s just an affectionate culture.  And anyway it’s your fault.  Maybe next semester you can work on classroom management.”

After a week of these responses, with the school having done nothing either to improve conditions or even discipline the student, we decided to leave our positions.  On one hand, the decision was easy – as our only American coworker said, “Well, yeah, the school’s giving you no choice.”  This has been and will continue to be an unhealthy place for us if we stay.

On the other hand, we lament the decision.  The school and our coworkers know that we are Christian.  Culturally, breaking a contract is a serious offense, and they view our leaving as breaking the contract, despite our protests that the school has broken a number of items in the contract.  We don’t take this lightly.  We want people to think well of us.  We are leaving behind friends.  We are giving up opportunities to serve the kingdom.

We also know that the gospel is beautiful but costly, and asks us to have the same mind as Christ, who took “the form of a slave” for our salvation (Phil 2).  An old tradition describes Christ selling St. Thomas the Apostle into slavery so that he can bring the gospel to India.  Some see the story as describing God’s sovereignty in an unfortunate situation.  Others think St. Thomas sold himself into slavery because he couldn’t otherwise afford the cost of the journey.  Either way, the story is shocking.  Americans don’t usually think of something being more important than our personal freedom.

As melodramatic as it is to compare our situation here to slavery in the first century, I’d like to think that I would be willing to stick it out here if we prayerfully felt that was our calling.  And there is a sense in which our supervisor and coworkers are half right.  Learning to deal with the issue in this context would be a necessary part of adjusting to the culture.  I also have to confess I have mixed motives in leaving.  I’m relieved to have the out, and every condescending “Oh, having trouble adjusting?” directed to me or my wife cements the decision.

After much prayer and counsel, we did decide to leave, and we may have to leave the country as a result.  As one can imagine, it’s been a trying time, and continued prayers are appreciated.

 

One of the most discouraging aspects of our time so far has been our complete inability to communicate with anyone other than each other.  We spent the past summer studying a different language expecting to go to a different country.  Plans have changed in a hurry, and we’ve yet to quite catch up.  The language is one of the most difficult to learn in the world, partially due to it’s emphasis on tone.  Oh yeah, and I’m tone deaf.

A week ago, while eating at a local restaurant we frequent on weekends, the husband and wife who run the establishment began to argue.  Although the tension between them was obvious to us before, this night it reached a new level.  They started to yell across the room.  Their children left – where, I don’t know.  Other customers began to laugh.  The conflict ended with the wife going to the back in tears.  As we finished our meal, I went to the back to pay.  I felt frustrated I couldn’t say anything, but I tried to make eye contact.  If nothing else (and I’m pretty sure it was nothing else), I hoped the eye contact would at least show that I didn’t think her pain was funny.

A few days ago, we were approached by a beggar.  Unable to communicate or understand what he was saying, I froze, as is my wont.  Luckily my wife pointed to a nearby restaurant, and, after a confusing process of ordering our food, we ate together.  I decided to ask him to teach us some of the language, pointing to food items and asking him one of the few phrases I know in the language, “How do you say this?”  He was a better teacher than I’ve come across in my time here – patient and understanding.  He never once raised his voice in that universal language teaching act of desperation, “Maybe if I say it louder….”

As I have said before, I still believe the kingdom of God is built with small, seemingly insignificant gestures.  I just find myself praying that even my tone-deaf, inarticulate mumbles can somehow contribute.

 

We’ve visited an underground church in the area.  It was a beautiful experience.  We are grateful for the fellowship and hopeful this contact might lead to opportunities.  I’m considering contacting the leadership and offering a “Bible class” for the leadership or whoever is interested.  May God’s will be done.

In my last post, I tried to rethink the idea of God’s holiness in a way that makes better sense of the biblical narrative’s descriptions of His persistent, gracious presence with sinful humanity.  To give a short summary, I think the metaphor of God’s being “separate” or “far from” sin (spatial terms) often gets taken literally, with unfortunate consequences for how we imagine the church’s mission in the world.  In this post, I want to explore this idea more concretely, sharing some personal experiences.

For a long time now, I have tried to be aware of how my purchases contribute to unfair labor practices and other structural evils.  I believed – simplistically, I now realize – that participating in sinful structures, like the ones which encourage the exploitation of workers to increase profit margins, is sin.  Ignorance is no excuse, I thought; we are responsible to be aware and proactive.

A major influence on my convictions was, in fact, a story about Aydun.  I read an account of a pastor in an underground church in Aydun, who, upon being arrested, was sentenced to several years in prison.  During his prison term, he was forced to work without pay at a factory on the prison grounds which manufactured Christmas lights sold in America.  The irony of celebrating Christmas with lights manufactured by someone imprisoned and enslaved for following Christ made me sick.  Though I still think complicity with structural evil is sin, I have realized nuance is needed.

Upon arriving in Aydun, I have found that avoiding participation in structural evil is impossible here.  It is impossible to know who is making what I buy and under what conditions.  For all I know, everything I buy is potentially made under conditions like the Christmas lights in the story above.  Unlike in America, where it is now a consumer trend and good business to be socially and enviromentally conscious, there are no options.  Even if I was to try to avoid compromise, I cannot go without eating.

There is simply no way around it.  To live in Aydun means to participate and, in however small a way, to contribute to the structural evils at work here.  This fact has made me realize it’s impossible to completely avoid participating in structural evil even in America; the problem is just more obvious in Aydun.

To the best of my knowledge, I have three options.  First, I can just not care and refuse to think about it.  Perhaps I could rationalize that if its unavoidable (or even just really hard) it must not be sin, so I should just live with it and keep going my merry way.  Second, I can still try to find a way to avoid complicity in the structural evils.  Perhaps I just need to look harder here to find options.  If holiness is taken literally as separation, then maybe I need to leave, to go somewhere which would not compromise my holiness, which would present less dilemmas.

Third, I can strive for distinctness from sin while still being present and so complicit in a sinful world.  I hesitate putting it like this, it sounds too messy for the label “holy.”  But I think that is because it is a derived holiness, it is not a holiness I have or earn.  In short, I’m stuck.  I can avoid personal sin, but there’s no separating from the sinful world, no way to avoid complicity in the structural evils all around me.  The only path to holiness is continual repentance.

Like Jeremiah, the only way to both follow God and remain in a sinful world is to lament the evil in this world, an evil that is my evil due to my complicity, however unavoidable.  To both follow God and remain here requires God’s forgiveness.  I cannot boldly ask for God’s forgiveness unless I acknowledge my need, unless God reveals to me the sin which surrounds me which He has already conquered in Christ.  Sin, personal and structural, should make us sick, but it should also drive us to Christ, where our holiness is found.  True repentance (to keep it from looking to much like the first option) should entail taking whatever small steps before us to avoid complicity and, perhaps more importantly, working for the kind of changes that make avoiding complicity possible.

 

(I’m kind of shooting from the hip here.  I’m not sure I have all the dots quite connected yet.  If I’m overlooking something, I’d love a correction or two.)

 

Growing up, I was often taught that holiness and grace are two distinct aspects of God or moments in God’s dealings with sinful humanity.  God’s holiness was almost always discussed in spatial terms, God’s being far from sin and evil.  The church’s holiness was often viewed similarly as a physical separation from sin and evil.  As much as possible one should isolate oneself, the logic went, from contamination unless specifically called to be a missionary to whatever group.  Even then, the would-be missionary was expected to stay inside a spiritual haz-mat suit, “witnessing” while never being affected by the outside.

While there are plenty of sciptural passages which utilize spatial imagery for God’s holiness, with Ezekiel’s account of God’s glory leaving the temple being one of the most haunting, there is also a sense in which God’s holiness is revealed in His persistent presence with sinful Israel.  As Hosea claims in a passage describing God’s compassion, God is “the Holy One in your midst” (11:9).  God’s being “the Holy One” is revealed in His refusal to be anything other than Israel’s compassionate God.

Additionally, throughout the scriptural narrative, God sometimes punishes by sending away, but God goes with those who are punished.  For example, God kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden, but He still enjoys intimate conversations with humanity after this (Gen. 3-4).  God sends Israel into exile, but He goes with them and brings them back from the nations (Is. 43, Dan. 3).  God is never above the fray, but remans always the Holy One in Israel’s midst.

While remaining scandalous and unexpected, the incarnation thus fits neatly into Israel’s overarching narrative.  John no doubt attempted to convey this consistency in God’s character with his words, “the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us” (John 1:14), linking the incarnation with the Tabernacle, where God dwelled in the midst of Israel during their wilderness wanderings.  God’s presence among a sinful people was nothing new, John realized; His coming in the flesh was.

The incarnation, then, is the clearest revelation of what God’s holiness means.  God’s holiness is always that of “the Holy One” in our midst.  God’s holiness is not ultimately separation, but a distinctness from sin even while persisting in overcoming that very sin through His presence.

The church’s holiness, if it reflects the holiness of God as revealed in Jesus, is similarly not primarily separation.  The church’s holiness is a distinctness from sin even while persisting to witness to God’s victory over sin through speech and action.

Incarnational ministry, if it is truly “incarnational,” will be marked by this kind of holiness, the simultaneous presence in the midst of sin and distinctness from sin.  Incarnational ministry has no need for spiritual haz-mat suits.  Like another prophet with an intimate knowledge of God’s holiness, Jeremiah, we should be affected by sin, but respond with solidarity in repentance.  We should be so in the midst of this sinful world while being so focused on the Holy One, that repentance and laments naturally flow out.