Over The Mountain of Justice

Oren and David's new bunkbed that was built this week.

It’s definitely dry season now in Bujumbura – the Congo mountains have faded, the air is already thick with dust, the leaves of the shrubs in our garden are beginning to wilt and droop. But tonight we are enjoying a dramatic surprise thunder storm – always impressive as the thunder echoes against the mountains above us. And very welcome, since it’s been a hot day.

I’m writing this week’s blog for Paul because he’s just about out of steam and we want to post something. It has been a blessedly normal week for us, with some fun moments in between. We had the real pleasure of sharing an evening with the parents of our South African friend Jeanette, along with her husband and daughter, still in the middle of the crusade they helped to organize. It’s always very special to meet family of our friends, because it helps us to understand more about where they come from and their roots. Otherwise, we tend to feel or see ourselves and other expats as somehow independent beings, cut off from context.

On Thursday, our friend Naja invited us for lunch in between the school sessions. Our kids love playing with their kids and we had a very relaxing time together – somehow it was so much more pleasant than going home for lunch. There was some uncertainty about their ability to remain in Burundi, but by a miracle last week, they received permission, and plan to stay for another year or two. So we are thankful and enjoyed finally being about to talk about their concrete plans for the future. Later that evening, Oren insisted on starting to decorate for his 7^th birthday party – a week early. More on that next time…

On Friday, Oren had a further French victory: he brought another French book to class and read for his classmates for show and tell. We’re really proud of him for working hard on his reading. He’s even said that he’d like to read his French books every night, “just for fun!” Also, Oren is collecting marbles. Apparently, marbles duels are all the rage at Ecole Belge again. If you hit your opponents’ marble, you get to keep it. Oren thinks this is unfair and doesn’t want to play because he doesn’t want to lose marbles. But still, by the end of the week he had 17 marbles. He got some by sharing his snack, and others because various kids were very nice to him!

And we had an enjoyable evening with some members of our team on Friday: Yolanda came down from up-country and so Janelle and Jennifer also joined us for ice cream and dinner (in that order!). We had really interesting conversation, trying to understand together more of what is happening with the regional conflict in Eastern Congo. We also discussed the government ban on fishing right now. Apparently a few weeks ago, some mysterious person dumped a lot of chemicals in a river and this waste killed thousands of fish. It’s very sad to hear this. Obviously, this was illegal, but there is no one prosecuting or upholding the law in this matter, particularly if it may have been done by a profitable mining industry. Those of you living in countries with environmental regulation, give thanks! Meanwhile, here in Burundi, we’re cutting down on our fish consumption…

Oh, the other excitement of Friday was that the carpenter we hired came back with all the pieces of a bunk bed. He had really done a great job of following our sketch, and added a tidy little single bed above the top half of the kids’ queen sized bed. Oren was THRILLED. And then, when his Kenyan friend Graham came over, the two of them played like someone had built a jungle gym in his room. Later, Paul constructed a great frame for a new mosquito net over both beds, cutting down on some of the jumping. The carpenter also worked on a multitude of other house repairs and will come back this week with a repaired table and guest bed. It’s definitely been the season of getting things back in order.

In the evenings, Paul has been spending time thinking and writing and preparing for the sermon that he delivered on Sunday. It was a powerful message and I’m not just writing that because I’m his wife.

Our church has been working through a series of sermons on reconciliation, trying to develop a Christian worldview in advance of what will happen in the political realm with the imminent mounting of a National Truth and Reconciliation commission in Burundi. In fact, the government has asked the church to take on an important role of assisting with the process of reconciliation, but all are stumped by the problem of how to get there.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God      ~2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (NIV)

Paul started by affirming that we as Christians are called to the ministry of reconciliation – it’s another, better way to talk about the ministry of making disciples in the world. But we need to be honest, and recognize that there is a risk when we step between enemies. We need to look hatred in the face and understand how deep and bitter it can be. And so Paul had us also read Psalm 137, all the way to the very end (a rare experience in any church) where it describes the exiled, enslaved poet from Jerusalem longing for revenge and justice for what he has suffered: Blessed is he who dashes the heads of infants against the stones!

It is horrifying rage – we don’t like to imagine that many of us “civilized” people feel this way. And yet that is what the Hutu genocidaires must have felt as they dashed the heads of infants against the wall of the Nyamata Church in Rwanda. It’s what many New Yorkers including Paul felt should happen in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept 11. This kind of hatred and rage is real and needs to be faced. But more than that, there is one who sees all the crimes committed in this world, and who does not let them pass unpunished, and that is the Lord God. He sees injustice and he will one day right all wrongs.

Paul made the point that when we want to journey from the realm of Truth to the realm of Reconciliation, we must climb over a high mountain. The mountain is called Justice. And we as Christians name that mountain Calvary. There will be a real celestial Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and every one who has ever lived on earth – from Idi Amin to Mother Theresa, to every widow and orphan on the streets of Calcutta or Bujumbura – will stand before the Judge. The light of his perfect truth will reveal everything hidden, and each one of us will agree that we have no excuses and deserve full punishment. And there will be no free forgiveness for anyone, not even Christians. In God’s economy, sin is a very serious matter and no murder, rape, wife beating, child molestation, will be overlooked.  Every crime against humanity (great and small) must be punished and the only escape is atonement  (Someone innocent stands in to take the punishment of someone guilty). The grace we receive when we come with full confession and acceptance of guilt is that Christ agrees to be punished fully for what we have done. Justice is served. And only then can we be fully reconciled to God, adopted children in his family. Grace costs a tremendous amount. And it requires full confession and surrender before the judge. What we risk currently in Burundi according to Paul is a Truth and Rationalization Commission – everyone making excuses for his or her crimes, based on the wounds inflicted in the past. But rationalization will only lead us further to division. We cannot get around the mountain of Justice; we must go over it in order to get to the other side.

The theology of Paul’s sermon was very good, but what was even more powerful was his personal story about how he experienced grace first hand. It’s a good story, but much better told in person than on the Internet. One of the major threads was that the vulnerability of some Christian men in New York led Paul to recognize and confess deep sin – and he was reconciled to God by divine grace. Only then did he have the courage to face the consequences of his sin – and was again met with human grace and acceptance. This experience of undeserved, costly grace fueled Paul’s desire to share the incredible love of God with men in prison back in New York. In fact, the Tres Dias movement and the Kairos Prison Ministry really changed the way that Paul thinks about preaching: personal testimony is far more powerful than intellectual Biblical argument. So this wasn’t just sermon, it was a rollo! A shout out to the Kairos brothers for the gift of this experience.

Hearing Paul’s story tremendously moved the congregation. One woman wrote him today to say that “In 15 years in Burundi it is the first time I have heard someone be so honest and make themselves so vulnerable from the pulpit.  I love that God allows us to go through such difficult things to give others hope.”  Later in our cell group that evening, we concluded that the “ministry of reconciliation” really happens when we are willing to share our own stories of grace and reconciliation with God. And this starts by being vulnerable about our own weaknesses and failures – the things for which we have been forgiven. A story shared in a private moment (not just in a sermon) can have a powerful impact in preparing the hearts of others to receive grace and forgive their enemies or ask for forgiveness.

 

After church, we took a few hours to join a couple of German friends at a new hotel. It was a lovely little spot, with the ambiance of Zanzibar (minus the ocean!) and our kids enjoyed playing in the pool and hiding in the garden. Oren made quite a long photo essay of the place with many shots of foliage and flowers.  The photos on this blog are just a few of his portraits of our family.