(Photo: Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. 1 hour drive from my front door)
What are we really ready to work for, together? It's just too easy to post a statement, make sure I'm aligning myself with public opinion, protecting my 'brand'...barf! We rightly should march, protest, attend public gatherings to listen, learn...but a part of me asks "What really is going to be different about my day to day life, and how does my own marriage and family need to change to love the people of my city?" I don't think were the only middle aged white people asking ourselves honest questions...going back into our racist family history...getting honest about our own lack of effort in understanding cultures and people groups that just aren't like us. Please let me share some honest thoughts about Jesus, my friendships with families from other cultures, and a few things that I think any one of us can do to join what I believe is a Gospel-centered movement right before our eyes.
I’m personally so thankful Jesus defines what “loving your neighbor” is. First, for Jesus, love is an action. Love isn’t a sentiment or feeling. Love isn’t an “I agree with you” or a social media “like”. Love means you are willing to take some sort of sacrificial action step to bring greater freedom to someone that is oppressed. This is the Gospel. While we were still in captivity to our sinfulness, Jesus gave His life to bring us into a new family of freedom, directly into our Fathers home, eternally secure in His love. In Luke 10, Jesus teaches us to love our neighbor by depicting a story with an immigrant (Samaritan) in a Jewish culture, being the hero and rescuing the Jewish traveler...Samaritans were considered “half-breeds” literally half Jew, half Gentile. This is one of the times Jesus plainly addresses the racism of His day, Jewish hatred of Samaritans. Jesus plainly states that a Jewish priest and a Levite Jew walk past and leave the beaten man on the road. The hero of the story? In verse 33, The Samaritan “saw him and had compassion”. And the rest really is simply fruit of that Jesus-rooted, gospel-hearted Samaritan. His compassion for the beaten man compelled him to action- right then, and right there, whatever it took to care for the man.
In my own life, there have been so many friends from other cultures and backgrounds that have taken care of me. I went to college in Moorhead MN and met my first real black friend Phil. Phil helped me begin my journey to knowing and understanding the grace of God. He showed me what following Jesus looks like on a college campus. I threw in the trash all my negative feeds of black culture - a pile of 30-40 gangster rap CD’s to be exact- all because Phil wanted me to see you could fight for real change by staying conversational, respectful, without dropping an F-bomb every other sentence. (Gives you an idea of what my potty mouth was like back then...and still could easily resurface given the Vikings have a bad game).
I went to Kenya my Junior year of college- my friend Sam welcomed me to stay with him for those 3 months while teaching me about Kenyan culture, politics, economy, & church community. We would walk for about a half hour in the 105 degree Kenyan dry heat to bring the gospel and discipleship lessons to Kenyan villages. I would always feel uncomfortable being the white guy to tell his people anything...instead he shoved the microphone in my face, encouraging me that “they need to hear white voices that love them”. I learned that the United States isn’t the only kid in the sandbox...and that the sandbox is really big...and we need a lot of sand toys to build things together. Anna & Is time in Turkey further showed us that Turks (and most we have met outside of the states) are the most hospitable, kind, caring, and gracious people in the planet. We miss our friends there dearly and hope to return once we are empty nesters.
Recently, we’ve been honored to live in St Cloud MN. It’s a city with a growing diverse population, with many immigrant and refugee families from various countries. I’ve especially loved building close friendships with a few Somali families, Iraqi families, and also Turkish students at our state college. One of Anna, the kids, and I’s favorite things to do is open up our home for friends that enjoy a Turkish coffee, or Somali tea, or a gathering just to play cards, do a dinner together, discuss Jesus and the hope of the church where God desires to bring together all tribes, tongues, and nations. We too often forget His Church is THE PLAN to bring us together and build each other up with listening open-minded friendships. Again, Jesus is the perfect model of this- never once did He force someone from another culture to agree with him. He instead went into homes, had meals with strangers, showed grace to the broken hearted wherever they were, inviting friends to become His followers. We want to be like Him!
So are you really ready to work together for this? Let me share just a few basic things we’re trying. I say trying because this isn’t magical stuff. It’s messy, tiring, and humans will sometimes hurt and wound you. We need to keep trying- keep asking Jesus to use us to be like the good Samaritan and also to be honest about our wounds so other “Samaritans” can help us. People not like us- families outside of our normal social pools. Here’s 3 simple things;
1) Study your City/State. American history (First Nation oppression, black slavery, anti-Asian American policies) is riddled with systemic oppression (redlining, gaslighting, etc) But let me encourage you to go one step further. What is YOUR city’s story? We all have those skeletons in our closet and need to address them truthfully, lovingly, and responsibly. For instance my city and state was forcibly taken from my Ojibwe friends and their kids were forced into “mission houses” where awful things were done in the name of Christ. Currently we are sharing the love of Jesus and building gospel community with our White Earth friends together, friends reaching friends, pouring our resources into their communities who are facing the highest rates of drug use, economic disparity, and mental health needs in our state.
2) Find the closest group to you, that is doing something about systemic oppression or racial inequality. Last week I had one of the most amazing lunches with my friend John Smith who leads our local Promise Neighborhood organization. It’s not fancy but we’re delivering food and supplies to families most affected my COVID, and we’re hosting community lunches for folks to come together and hear one another’s stories. We’ve seen many ideas to bless our city come out of these lunches! We’re hungry for more- no pun intended!
3) Set aside a time to listen to the Scriptures about race, equality, oppression with your spouse and kids. We recently chatted with our boys about Luke 4, where Jesus uses the word “release from” oppression as one of his core missions in the earth (that makes it ours too). The Greek word “aphesisl” literally means to “release from” as if the person or thing released is set free to do what they were called to do. What if we were just as passionate, and worked just as hard, to be sure oppression didn’t simply end, but that those oppressed would be truly released into their God-given callings, roles, destiny on them...the good works the Lord has already planned for them from eternity past? These are the kinds of things our kids need to chat about - core Gospel issues of our day- so that they know Jesus and Jesus-people are actually have some relevance to our cultures today. And then bring them to your community lunches and let them listen, share, get involved as well!
As I continue lamenting, grieving, processing, listening, learning, being and doing different...I go back to being a young teenager having family dinner on our TV trays, watching the Minneapolis news and hearing about all of these black men being arrested. Comments like “throw all those black bastards in jail and throw away the key” were too common in my home. I was angry that my own family, the people I love so much, could say, feel and believe such terrible things about other cultures. All I could do was turn on MTV in protest, listening to Dr Dre, Ice Cube, Snoop Dog. I now know why I wanted to identify as a wanna-be gangster rapper (and novice beat-boxer). I had no other outlet to identify with black friends and show them I support them, to express my rage at those who hurt them, to personally care for them, and to hate the systems that created the mess in the first place.
Now I’m older, and I plan on doing things differently. And I plan on giving my kids a home free of those harsh, critical, biased words, and asking them to hold me accountable if I ever cross the line. I plan on giving my kids outlets in my city, meeting friends that aren’t like us and inviting them over for dinner, or going into their homes to learn about their lives. I plan on inviting them to discover the beauty that Jesus is all and in all (Colossians 3) and represents all cultures, building a new family that is not labeled by our differences.
Reach out to me if you’d like any other friendship helps to really do this together. I am hopeful for the journey ahead as we dream about all tribes, tongues and nations living, worshiping, working together in our new heaven and earth our Father is creating for us.
Are we really ready to work for this, together...on earth as it is in heaven?