The Decision: Why

After promising a sequel to yesterday's post, I'm not so sure I can put it into words. After three false starts, my brain stalled on the starting line. I took a break a bit ago to recover, walked down to the mailbox, thought, prayed, and breathed deeply. There are storms somewhere close by. I can smell them. I am back now and ready to try again. Perhaps I picked up the story in my first three drafts too late in the timeline.  Maybe I need start the account further back, way back, to the year I was left alone in Cass Lake.

How did my parents know at the end of 11th grade that I would graduate valedictorian if I stayed behind in Cass Lake during 12th grade when the rest of the family moved to an air base in Michigan? I remember hearing rumors among my classmates when the class standings were published that spring suggesting that my classes had been weighted heavier than my competitors to make it possible for me to be valedictorian. I remember thinking it was possible. I had beaten the salutatorian by only a quarter of a point. I remember not being unduly bothered by the whispers. My dad was a teacher. I assumed that had something to do with my class standing if indeed my classes had been artificially weighted to my benefit. Yes, I was a little embarrassed over the privilege I enjoyed as the child of a former faculty member, but not deeply embarrassed. The fact that I was white and the salutatorian Native American did not register with me at all, not that is, until this summer in Saipan.

It was during a city wide prayer meeting this summer that I had an "aha" moment, a flash of insight about myself. The Protestant churches on the island had banded together, despite their denominational differences, to put together an outreach event, timed around a Franklin Graham visit to Saipan, scheduled for February 2020. I attended all of the preparatory meetings this summer and marveled as Baptists embraced Charismatics, Filipinos embraced Koreans, Islanders embraced everyone, while Nazarenes, Independents, Methodists, and parachurch organizations all had an equal place at the table.

That night the Filipino pastor, who chaired the proceedings, opened our time with announcements and remarks. The room was packed, every row filled except for my row, which was empty but for me. Two latecomers arrived while he talked, Filipino women, who joined me in my row. I removed my purse from the chair next to mine. The women moved close and one leaned in to whisper in my ear, "You can put your purse there."

"I'd rather sit by you than my purse," I said.

They sat. They sat close. So close that we were three women on two chairs in an otherwise empty row for the remainder of the meeting. I felt wanted and loved! It meant so much to have them want to sit close to me. I was the only white woman in the room, one of only two Anglos there that night, but  I felt at home. Welcome. Part of what was going on.

Eventually, the Franklin Graham representatives stood to speak. I allowed my mind to drift. I had attended meetings such as this one in the past when I had volunteered as an altar worker at a Billy Graham Crusade years before. I hadn't enjoyed the experience much back then, and was amazed at myself for agreeing to do it again. But, sitting next to the women, I found I truly did want to do it again, here, with these people, in this place. If the gospel makes an impact next February, it won't be because of Franklin Graham. It will be because the Spirit of God moved through a group of people who have deliberately chosen to love their neighbor as themselves. "And I'm here with them, " I thought.

I could feel God's love that night, his pleasure with us. It had been palpable as we sang together in English, our only common language. After the speakers quit talking, a magnificently palpable Presence settled over us during the prayer time as we all prayed in unison but each in our mother tongue. Or tongues in the case of the Charismatics. As I prayed, I found myself unexpectedly confessing the sin of racism, although I didn't use that exact word, I don't think. I was so aware that night of the plight of the Filipinos in Saipan, whose story mirrors the story the Mexican immigrants are telling on mainland USA right now, that I was stirred to pray. Many people face a real deportation, a great sin it seemed to me. In my mind, as I prayed and confessed the "sin" of my country, I felt like I was Daniel in Daniel 9. Unlike Daniel, however, I did not pray for myself in my prayer.

And that's how the "aha" happened. I began to think about the role Filipino people play all around the world, usually behind the scenes, to make life a lovely place for privileged people to live in. Then the thought came to my mind. "I am a privileged person." Why had that never before occurred to me? I had a Filipino maid servant as a teen. That fact alone made me a privileged person. What blindness on my part! I began to feel chastened. I changed my prayer subject and finished the evening on a high, so glad I was part of that group.

It wasn't until later that the Lord brought up the valedictorian issue. Yes, my classes may indeed have been weighted because my father was former faculty, but the fact that it took 45 years to begin to work through the valedictorian issue indicated something was really wrong inside me. Let's think about this. I was white and the salutatorian Native American. I see now an appalling blindness regarding the largest elephant in the room back in 1974. On the heels of Wounded Knee 1972, in 1974, located in the middle of the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, Cass Lake was still reeling from the turmoil surrounding questions the American Indian Movement was raising within the community on what it meant to be an aboriginal American. I see now that in my valedictory address, I missed an opportunity to align myself with their concerns. Instead of asking in my valedictory address why my grades had been weighted heavier than other students', I delivered a lame speech on a nothing subject. I should have asked the question. Was race involved?

But I didn't ask it because I didn't even think about it. Race never entered my mind back then. I was completely blind to it. The sin wasn't my blindness, it was the fact that I had ignored the whispers, downplayed them as irrelevant to my life. Whether my class standing was a matter of race or privilege as a faculty kid, whether my grades had or had not in fact been weighted, the firestorm in Cass Lake in 1974 over racial injustice demanded my involvement, especially as a class leader. I knew about it but chose not to join the conversation. To me it was an "us and them" issue, I clearly remember thinking let them settle it. It has nothing to do with me. That was the sin. My refusal to join the conversation. And it took coming to Saipan for me to see it.

The same phenomenon continues all around us in today's world. People are blind, governments are blind, nations are blind, religions are blind to the elephant in the room. The thing nobody wants to talk about or identify themselves with is a pervasive, I might almost say universal, "us and them" mentality that seeks to divide rather than bind people together as God intends.  What will it take to open our eyes to the truth of what really lies hidden in our hearts? What will it take for us to open our mouths, to join the conversation from a platform of humility? What will engender a willingness among us to make connections with people who are not like us? To let others take the lead. To believe that the only way to get a clear picture of the heart of God is to look through the lens of every culture and not just your own. For me, it took a move of God in my heart. For institutions, big or small, it will also take a move of God, similar to what is happening in Saipan right now.

And that's why I want to go back.

I want to be involved with the churches in Saipan who are working together for the February outreach event. I want to see if their mutual affection and association persists after the event is over. The whole thing has the smell of a revival in the making. An awakening to the truth that Jesus meant it when he said, "Love God with all your heart; love your neighbor as yourself."

What might the world become if we actually did that, loved God and neighbor? What might the world become if we worked to recognize in each other the image of God, and then act toward each other the way we would act if the Creator himself was standing before us? This cuts right to the meaning of the gospel. It puts the church on the front line of reconciliation and restoration of human injustice. Which means the church must take the lead in asking itself the hard questions. I will leave you to brainstorm what those questions might be.

Below is my current reading list. I am on my second time through for several of them. I am confident that God who has begun a good work in me, in us, in the church, in the nations, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, will complete that work. Ours is a time of optimism. It is also a time of challenge. Will we be open to the work of God today?

May God grant us the spirit of wisdom and understanding in these days. Amen.

Amy

FOR FURTHER STUDY:

• A The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right by Lisa Sharon Harper
• Africa Bible Commentary edited by Tokunboh Adeyemo 
• The Next Evangelism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity by Soong-Chan Rah
• The Journey of Reconciliation: Groaning for a New Creation in Africa by Emmanuel Katongole
• Doxology by Geoffrey Wainwright
• What Has Jerusalem to Do with Beijing: Biblical Interpretation from a Chinese Perspective by K. K. Yao