VillagePastor

More Words from Martin Accad

Read this article published by Christianity Today for the insight of a Lebanese citizen deeply pained by the recent crisis between Israel and Hezbollah, and the response of the international community. The author is Martin Accad, Academic Dean at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, as well as a personal friend of mine and brother in Christ. Dr. Accad was teaching a course at Fuller Seminary when the bombing began, and is now unable to return to his family.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/129/42.0.html

Spinning Out of Control

There are times this world seems to be spinning out of control. Having been to various countries in the Middle East, including Beirut three times, it is painful to see the destruction currently happening. It really grieves my heart. And while both politicians and columnists and militaries offer their solutions, the only way to reform the Middle East, or the world for that matter, is with a profound change in the interior - the heart. Economic, political, and cultural reforms rarely accomplish this. Institutions cannot shape this. I am convinced there is only one hope, one I saw firsthand during my first visit to Beirut in the late 90’s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

I remember the sight of numerous villages that still had the scars of civil war. In fact, flying into Beirut, the city on approach looked like one large open wound. I saw homes that, like rotting carcasses, were still left standing because of course, this was the intention. In their driving hate, villages would often shell villages, attack neighborhoods with the aim, not of destroying homes, but ripping everything apart inside, so that the owner would have to more than rebuild, he would have to tear down. I remember walking into one of these homes one day, long since stripped of its life, and what was left of its blackened walls seemed to still keep screaming rage. It was all unnerving.                                                                                                    

But then I met George, a Christian worker living in Beirut, who told me how neighboring Christians were reaching out to Muslims, mutual enemies who once shelled each other. Followers of Jesus were extending the same grace they had received from Christ. It was another way of tearing down to build back, only tearing down the walls of hate and building civility and compassion in their place. Only unconditional forgiveness, which Christ alone offers, can replace the endless cycle of vengeance. This is why our church recently sent 34 short-termers over to Lebanon to offer medical care in Palestinian camps, encourage educators, and partner with those who have invested years building bridges—all in the name of Christ. It’s not about taking sides. As God made clear to Joshua centuries ago, He doesn’t take sides. What’s critical is that we are on His side, the side of mercy and justice.                                                             

But I fear that too many in the church in the West are driven more by geo-politics or misguided dispensationalism or talk-radio than gospel. The reality is that there are forces at work that are beyond geopolitical control. A radical Islamism is taking advantage of the unemployed and uneducated teenagers of today and any and all who have no hope. Many of them will be tomorrow’s terrorists. And while bombs and missiles may set back their agenda (I hope Thomas Friedman and others are right here), the fear is that all of these are but seeds, sowing tomorrow’s generation of hatred on both sides. And it will only lead to more empty homes and more empty men.

                                                         

No recent film has shown the utter futility of vengeance like Spielberg’s Munich. One man and his team are sent on a counter terrorist mission to systematically take revenge for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. And they are largely successful, though not completely so. Revenge is never complete. Meanwhile, the other side is carrying out its own retribution, tit for tat. At the end of the story, those among the living are nothing but empty shells. Whatever gain was paid with a portion of their souls.                                                                                                                     

Christians who are cheering for the military of Israel, or looking to American leaders to come up with a diplomatic solution, or hoping for democracy to flourish, or hoping in the United Nations, are short-sided. There is no long lasting hope apart from the gospel. The last 50+ years have proven this. Our best efforts need to be in praying for the church to be strong. This is the moment for the church to be the light in this very dark world, be it in Damascus or Jerusalem or Beirut. For the church to be caught up in its petty differences would be to miss a significant opportunity to advance God’s kingdom.                                                                                                                  

Preaching John 13 this past weekend, I could not help but see the relevancy of John’s words for today. In the midst of a satanic conspiracy, set in motion to destroy Christ, verse 3 and following reads, “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God…got up and took a basin and towel and washed His disciples feet.”  In the midst of events seemingly spinning out of control, there was Jesus, with everything under control, doing His work of mercy. Should it be any less for us who call ourselves followers of Jesus?    

Leaving...and Coming Back to Church

I'm sitting in one of my favorite places this time of year - looking out over the Pacific from a cabin in Cannon Beach. High tide has shifted to low tide. It is the time of year when, as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, our shoulders come down from around our ears. Taylor is a former Anglican pastor who writes about her own decompression.

For her, it occurred when she transitioned from a large urban church in Atlanta to a rural place called Clarksville, where she could shepherd a smaller parish. But for Taylor, she found herself eventually back in the same crisis she found herself in in Atlanta. Eventually, she left the church. She describes her transition in a book titled, Leaving Church, a book I just finished.

It's hard to put into words how this book has affected me. On one hand, I feel like a fellow pilgrim on a similar journey. What she felt like at the end of her time in Atlanta, I felt at the end of my time in Wassenaar, The Netherlands. There was a tiredness so deep it had seeped into my bones as well. And as Taylor put it, "I could not reach the greenness for which my soul longed." What drew her to leave the church to enter the world of academia, in part is what drew me to move from pastoral ministry to the classroom. Her crisis has been my crisis...a transition from life so absorbed in ministry that I lost sight of personhood. As she puts it, "My quest to serve God in the church had exhausted my spiritual savings...cost me a fortune in being whole." One of the things that almost killed her was being a professional holy person. I've had to stop and ask myself - is this true of me?

Only by leaving the church does it appear she has found her identity. Here were some of the questions she began to ask herself:

• "Has my role cut so deeply in my soul I didn't learn who I am outside of ministry?"
• "Do I look at life only through the windows of the church?"
• "Can I set it loose in its own pasture at night?"
• "Is Christ my model such that I constantly feel I disappoint?"
• "Am I so encased in the church I could not survive in the world outside of it?"

But as I continued to read on, I felt my journey and hers began to go different ways. First of all, I've come back to pastoral ministry. Not that I've left the classroom. I just felt I wasn't fulfilled outside of a deep involvement with the local church. Second, Taylor's was a crisis, in part based on the church being forced to take a stand on issues, while she was discovering that for her, faith is far more relational than doctrinal - that God is not found in right ideas. For me, I believe God is found, has to be found, in both. The book has to be ahead of the people I'm called to love and serve - not behind, as she argues.

Finally, Taylor seems to be on a journey toward finding her humanness, one that has been aided by getting out of the walls of "Mother Church." In the process, she has realized there are numerous ways, religions, to becoming fully human. I'm not sure how to interpret this. For me, I increasingly find myself trying to figure out how to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus - which I believe is the only way toward becoming fully human. There is no other way (John 10:10; 14:6).