Caminem lluny
I joke. Nay, I should say, I joke a lot. My specialty is subtle plays with words and feigned misunderstanding that can easily pass for me just being mistaken, or stupid. Quite often they take a minute to get, or they’re so subtle as to go unnoticed. But several years ago when we moved from Columbia where we had lived for several years back to Kansas City, I found that all of a sudden jokes that my friends in Columbia would pick up on and find hilarious fell completely flat. Suddenly I felt so unfunny, and so misunderstood. But I slowly learned to connect and joke with these new people as I took time to learn what they thought was funny.
It’s easy to assume that my neighbor and I will understand each other, especially if we speak the same language and are generally culturally similar. But it’s increasingly clear, especially in this political environment, that it’s quite possible, and even probable, that those in close proximity may actually be worlds apart. Sometimes the ways others see the world make absolutely no sense to us. And yet somehow Jesus sends us, crossing streets, aisles, cultures, or oceans, to be his ambassadors bringing HIS kingdom of reconciling, healing, redemptive love. But on order to do that, we might have to do some work to bridge the gap. We have to understand in order to be understood.
We are going far away {caminem lluny} to a people not our own. We have to learn a new language, a new culture, and different ways of seeing the world in order to fully love and express Jesus. And likely so do you. Just like us, you are sent to someone. Who? What are the foreign ways of thinking or speaking that you may need to learn to truly connect with those to whom God has called you? Have you ever thought of it that way? There are likely people around you every day who the Lord loves and is drawing you to love, too. They are likely people who make no sense to you, and maybe who kind of bother you. It’s so easy to get comfortable in our own cultures & circles, but Jesus came and crossed all of those barriers to love and save his people, and we are all called to do the same. The distance doesn’t matter, but how far will we go?
Our prayer is that we would all increasingly see every area of our lives as realms to which God’s life-giving kingdom needs to come. Our kids, coworkers, hairstylists, friends all need the life of Jesus and we have the joyous call to embody the very life-giving love that each of us so desperately needs. “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” We pray that in our neighborhoods, families, jobs, wherever we are, the Lord would open our eyes to those around us He is calling us to radically and sacrificially love. Distance doesn’t matter. How far will you go?