Warming our hearts towards immigrants and refugees

A hardening of attitudes toward immigrants and refugees is increasingly noticeable in Europe and North America of late. Terrorist attacks in France and incidents in Germany have instilled fear of foreigners. Even countries traditionally friendly to immigrants are tightening their borders. Right-wing movements are on the rise everywhere and are calling for harsh measures. Some American politicians are demanding the building of bigger walls and mass deportations. How are we to think and respond?

I am convinced from past experience that deliberately moving toward people, in search of understanding, is a critical first response. I traveled from London to Calais (France) in mid-January and witnessed the desperation of thousands of people marooned in the “Jungle” on the edge of the English Channel while seeking entry into the UK.

An English friend from Christian International Peace Service, who regularly visits residents of the “Jungle,” guided me through makeshift shelters past lines of plastic latrines. We were on our way to a meeting with leaders from the Somali, Afghan, Ethiopian and other communities where problems regarding food distribution and the impending demolition by French authorities of a portion of the camp were being discussed.
I was struck by the Somali and Afghan leaders’ amazing hospitality.

“Have a seat, sit down right there,” they stated, pointing to rickety chairs as if they were thrones. “Would you like some tea or some coffee?” they insisted.

What grace, what dignity! Would that we would express such hospitality! These were not victims needing pity but people taking responsibility for their communities and families—after having braved great perils to make their way through war zones, refugee camps, and across seas as scouts to find a place of security for their families.

I was stunned by how well the different national groups had apparently organized themselves in this squatter village of some 3,500. There were sections of the camp housing Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Kurds, Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Sudanese and others—with stores, a barbershop and cafés. We drank sweet black tea in a makeshift café full of Iranian men, followed by another meeting over tea with Ethiopians followed by tea and baklava in a rustic Afghan tent restaurant. Yet despair and agitation were also palpable.

I met a man from Eritrea outside the door of the makeshift library, “Jungle Books,” which held dictionaries and novels in the languages of the camp’s primary residents. I asked him how he was, and his honest response still haunts me. 

“Are we human beings? Are we human beings?” he said, gesturing toward the sprawl of blue plastic tarps and muddy trails through the camp. “And this?” he gestured with disgust. “We have come here for this?” 
He told me how he’d left a desperate situation in his homeland with hopes of a new life, which was so obviously blocked before him by UK government immigration policies.

I asked him if I could pray for him, and he declined, stating that he was Orthodox. I told him I had great respect for Orthodox Christians, and this moved him enough that he accepted my prayers.

Most of the camp residents resist any contact with French authorities, not wanting to be processed outside of the UK, their final destination. Yet now France is warning that the camp will soon be demolished and people will have to leave. But where will they go? France claims they will deport many to their countries of origin. Yet there are many unaccompanied children present in the camp and others who most certainly would be in grave danger if returned home.

The movement of millions of people from impoverished countries and war zones into Europe is creating a lot of fear and anxiety. People of faith must resist attempts of politicians and the media to incite fear or false compassion. Followers of Jesus are called to face people and issues with open eyes and compassionate hearts. Jesus warns in Matthew 24:12 that in later days “because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.”

What is Jesus calling his followers to endure? I wonder. It seems Jesus is calling those who follow him to endure the lawlessness without letting their love grow cold. It is the one who endures without their heart growing cold who will be saved. So how do we endure in these perilous times?

I have been inspired in my readings of the Gospels to see people and problems the way Jesus sees them—with a heart of limitless and practical compassion for the masses.

“Seeing the people, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

Jesus modeled and invited a Kingdom-of-God governmental strategy, mobilizing his followers into direct action. “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, beg the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:37-38). There is certainly an unprecedented opportunity to directly show Christ’s love to vulnerable people from many unreached nations who are right now on our very doorsteps.

When 5,000 were hungry after listening to Jesus’ teaching in a remote place, he told his disciples: “You give them something to eat.” Jesus himself multiplied their limited loaves and fish, distributing provision through his disciple colleagues, expanding their and our imaginations regarding how we are to think and act toward people in need.
The source of Jesus’ compassion is his and our Father’s tender love and compassion, poured out by the Holy Spirit as a free gift to those who ask. As we receive for ourselves the Father’s free gift of grace and boundless affection, we will be enabled to live in the security of our heavenly status as God’s daughters and sons. It is from this place of security that we must respond to those whom God puts before us or calls us toward.

Our heavenly immigration status makes us “strangers and aliens” here on earth, and this identity must trump our earthly identities. Being committed to “on earth as it is in heaven” will put as at odds with the realism of this world—and yet the higher realism of Jesus’ Kingdom must be our standard. Dear friend, let’s step further and deeper into a renewed prophetic imagination for these times, guided by Scripture and God’s abiding Spirit.

"The Poor Have the Gospel Preached to Them"

My own calling into Jesus’ mission to announce good news to the poor, release to the  prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed has been re-affirmed in recent months, with special emphasis on equipping and mobilizing people towards the not yet reached.

My calling to pursue graduate studies in theology in France happened in the midst of an intense period of leading regular Bible studies with poor and minimally-educated peasants in Honduras. I was continually inspired by Jesus’ teaching ministry in the Gospels, which took place in fields, villages, and seashores as well as along the road, and in homes. Jesus’ passion was that “the poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Luke 7:22), and that inspired my conversational search for good news in Scripture with people outside of church settings. After a number of years we began to feel tired and in need of input ourselves.

How could we grow in our effectiveness in bringing the Gospel to the poor as Jesus did? Jesus offers himself, God’s beloved Son, rich wisdom from heaven to the broken world in his self-emptying love (Philippians 2). We wanted to contemplate these mysteries and receive more in-depth training, somehow bringing the best we could find to those often considered the least.

I currently minister regularly in jail and prison and here in our Tierra Nueva faith community, yet our recent Certificates in Transformational Ministry at the Margins  (CTMM) have been mostly offered in more advantaged places (Washington State, London and Seoul)—though attendees are mostly ministry workers serving the excluded. In October I told God of my desire to train ministry leaders in places of greater deprivation. Within a few weeks I had received two invitations to offer our CTMM in Kenya, and invites to Nigeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and to minister in prisons in North Carolina and London.

This January Gracie and I attended a five-day listening prayer retreat on Robben Island, organized by a Cape Town-based ministry called The Warehouse. Robben Island was the site of an infamous prison used by the South African governments during apartheid times to house political prisoners—including Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe and countless others. Robben Island is now a museum with tour buses bringing groups around the island six days a week.

Our group of about 50 ministry workers and activists from across Africa and other continents stayed in the once minimum-security prison unit with bars and razor wire still intact, now converted to host groups in a still rustic setting near beaches occupied with African Penguins and nesting Oyster Catchers.

On the second day we broke up into groups of twelve and each went on walking tours of key sites on the island: the leper cemetery, the lime quarry where prisoners did forced labor, the maximum security prison, the home where activist Robert Sobukwe lived under house arrest and was kept from speaking to anyone for years.

I was moved while we were visiting the lime quarry to learn that inmates shared their knowledge with each other as they worked, turning this forced labor site into an underground university where they practiced “each one teach one.”

While visiting the now-empty maximum-security prison I was deeply affected as I read captions in many of the cells describing the lives of the inmates who had done time there.

As I stood and contemplated the cell where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his life I found myself overwhelmed by the gravity of the many years people spent there and continue to spend the world over suffering the cruel and unusual punishment of confinement. I was filled with hope to see that all these cells were now empty-- reminding me of a vision and prayer I’ve had of Skagit County Jail being completely empty of inmates. Nelson Mandela emerged from 30 years in prison a skilled statesman leading South Africa into a new era with great wisdom and tact.

After our group left I stood in a long corridor of the empty cell-block, and then walked slowly along, looking into each cell. I imagined a man in every cell and put my hand through the bars, grasping an imaginary hand in a gesture of solidarity. Suddenly it was like I saw all the cell doors popping open and men with heads held high, looking somber but confident, walking out one-by-one to freedom. Just then I heard a voice in my head: “I want you to write a training curriculum to raise up prisoners as pastors and leaders—agents of transformation.”

This is something I’ve been called to do for quite some time—to put together a curriculum for leaders on the margins, a module-by-module discipleship and leadership development course that can be used in prisons but also outside. The call felt re-affirmed and strong. I walked into the yard and found a member of our group who from Zimbabwe. He had spent time in prison, suffered torture and now works as a human rights lawyer. He laid hands on me and prayed for me there in the prison courtyard, and I have been pondering this project ever since.

After Robben Island Gracie and I made our way to Zimbabwe via Pietermaritzburg, where we offered the first module of our Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins to over100 pastors and leaders—all of whom serve impoverished communities with increasingly run-down infrastructures and unemployment as high as 90%. 

We felt deeply encouraged by our time, witnessing unusual humility and spiritual hunger, visible in an eagerness to learn, openness to the Holy Spirit and a passion to communicate good news to the poor. We will likely return to offer the next module of our CTMM and are in conversations with others in Kenya and Congo about potential cohorts there. We appreciate your prayers for wisdom and clear direction to further develop our training programs, to recruit and raise up more trainers and respond to recent invitations in other countries.

Note: The People’s Seminary is offering Certificates in Transformational Ministry in the following locations in 2016.

·      Glasgow, April 21-23, and Jersey, September 17-19,  see www.tierranueva-europe.org or write info@tierranueva-europe.org

·      Burlington, Washington, October 5-8, write tps@tierra-nueva.org and see www.thepeoplesseminary.org

Stepping into protective husbandry and midwifery: following Joseph’s lead

Joseph’s role alongside Mary and Jesus has struck me afresh, inspiring me to follow and promote his way of being present to emerging, often marginalized and ever-threatened agents of God’s Kingdom.

I came upon these thoughts as I met with Julio and Salvio for our weekly pastors training course at Tierra Nueva, and used them as we commissioned Salvio and Chris the following Sunday as Tierra Nueva’s newest pastors. This reflection continues to clarify as I met last Sunday with six Hispanic inmates in Washington State Reformatory who each appear to be stepping into pastoral callings.

Joseph models a sort of spiritual husbandry or midwifery desperately needed today in our world. He is alert to an evolving role that includes adoption, accompaniment, protection, and guidance to assure divine destiny for his charges. He is a shepherd, parent, bodyguard combined.

From a broad sacred history perspective Joseph comes to serve and guard in ways the first Adam failed at, embodying the human father’s role to raise up the new Adam and all future children of the Father (Romans 5:18-19).

The first Adam failed to protect Eve from the serpent’s predatory deceit. He stands beside her passively while the serpent falsely depicts God as ungenerous, untrustworthy, unreasonable, deceptive power monger. The man does nothing to put the creeping thing under his feet. Nor does Adam protect or intervene when his firstborn son Cain becomes enraged at his second born Abel. Adam does not model mastery over the sin that crouches at the door, and Cain succumbs to jealousy and anger and murders his brother with no resistance from Adam.

“Does this still happen today?” I ask the men gathered in a circle in the prison chapel last Sunday.

My friends give concrete examples from their upbringings and lives of crime to illustrate passivity in the face of threats and temptations. One man tells of ignoring a warning from a pastor who prophesied his demise should he continue selling drugs. Now at the end of a seven-year sentence he’s keenly aware that he needs to pay attention continually.

Julio is especially inspired to use his natural on-point alertness to trouble for the good. Julio seems to instinctively know where every cop (even undercover) is within any given neighborhood he enters. He is increasingly alert to predatory spiritual powers and watches over people who attend his nightly Psalms reading group like a Kingdom of God vigilante. We read about Joseph in Matthew 1-2 and find inspiration.

In the new garden in Israel at the eve of the First Century AD the new Eve, Mary, conceives the Savior, the new man, through a divine act when the Holy Spirit comes upon her. Joseph plans to send away his pregnant fiancé away rather than marry her or publically disgrace her. An angel appears to him in a dream, telling him to take Mary as his wife. He doesn’t sleep with Mary until after Jesus’ birth to protect the integrity of the divine Paternity. Joseph offers covering and legitimacy to Mary and adoptive father to Jesus— a necessary protection as threats to his life are immediate.

We read together in these various Bible studies and at the commissioning service Revelation 12, which speaks of this new beginning in cosmic terms. 

In heaven a woman clothed with the sun is with child. A dragon stands before her ready to devour her child, “a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” There’s a war in heaven and “the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (v. 9).

A loud voice in heaven declares the victory of the child: “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night”, who is “enraged with the woman… making war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus (v. 10-11, 16).

“Do you see signs of this accusing, warring aggression against God’s children today?” I ask the inmates. The question is so obviously answerable that it requires no discussion. Our prisons are filled with the accused. The blood of young men and women are flowing everywhere, most visibly now in news stories about Chicago, California, Yemen, Syria, El Salvador and Honduras.

These accusing, threatening powers of death are embodied in human rulers there in the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, and we read on about Joseph’s important role as the on-point guardian. 

When Herod hears that the King of the Jews is born in Bethlehem he sends troops to kill all the baby boys. Once again an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, warning him, saying: “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.” Joseph responds immediately, taking the child and his mother while it is still night and leaves for Egypt.   

Then after Herod dies Joseph is once again recruited into his adopting and guarding ministry. An angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream telling him to take the child and his mother back to Israel. When Joseph hears that Herod’s son is reigning in place of his father and is afraid to return to Bethlehem, his own keen observations are confirmed by a warning dream, leading him to settle in far away Nazareth instead.

Joseph like his namesake Joseph son of Jacob pays attention to his dreams, ends up in Egypt and eventually acts wisely to counsel Pharaoh regarding food provisions, offering covering for Jacob and his sons. Joseph, descendent of Adam through Seth according to Luke’s genealogy embodies and models the first human’s original call to serve and watch over any and everyone born of woman as they step into their spiritual adoption as children of the Father of Jesus.

We end our gatherings reading how the woman’s children “overcame him [the dragon] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death (v. 11).

In each of my recent gatherings people have felt convicted by passivity and mobilized towards a new active resistance and protective orientation towards sheltering and nurturing God’s threatened but victorious church. The inmates lament their failure and inability in their incarcerated state to be present to protect their wives and children, and long for a new opportunity. People are inspired to pay closer attention to how the Spirit is alerting and guiding them. I wonder how Joseph’s example might inspire us to encourage our governments to offer refuge and support to the most vulnerable (like Syrian refugees awaiting resettlement).

We end our times together by me leaving them with a Scriptures about being alert to read on their own (1 Corinthians 16:13; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:6), ending with a reading from 1 Peter 5:8-10

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

A Call to Arms: The Weapons of the Spirit in the Face of Violence and Terror

Last week when I heard the news about the attacks in Paris, I was outraged and deeply saddened—a sentiment that has increased as the week’s events have continued to unfold, giving way to a clarification of Jesus’ distinct and compelling call.

Familiarity with the theatre and the cafes where people were shot has made these attacks close and personal, disturbing me to the point of occupying most of my thinking this past week. Five of the six attacks happened quite close to the neighborhood and church where we lived and served in 2011 and 2012. Our then 16-year-old daughter Anna and I attended a Jesus Culture concert at the Bataclan Theatre—the same venue where 89 people attending the Eagles of Death concert were gunned down a week ago today.   

One French friend told me that what most unsettled her was that six attacks happened simultaneously, setting off a cloud of insecurity and fear across all of Paris. This fear has now spread across Europe and North America—catching us up with much of the rest of the world.

Fear and insecurity had already overwhelmed Lebanon and Turkey in recent weeks due to suicide bombers, and the Russians have now officially attributed the downing of their flight over the Sinai Peninsula to a bomb. Refugees continue to flee Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and other places due to war, and Palestinians and Israelis live with threats and violence every day. Everywhere we look, violence produces terror, begets acts of vengeance, and accelerates the cycle of killing.

How are we to respond? My first reaction was a longing to be there in Paris with our friends and the church communities we know and love. I emailed friends, struggled to pray, poured over the news, and prayed some more. A few thoughts come to mind as I seek God’s wisdom regarding responses to current events, combined with links to articles I hope you find useful.

1) Love and worship the One God, Father, Jesus the Son and Holy Spirit with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Find your security in God’s unfailing love and care. Jesus says: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money, security, safety)(Matthew 6:24). Let God’s perfect love drive out all fear.

2) Inform yourself through reliable news sources, such as Oliver Roy’s article on the strategic limits of ISIS. Most secular news media, however, focus on the negative, provoking insecurity and fear. The more hidden work of God’s Kingdom goes unreported.

While sleeper terrorist cells and dangerous individuals are indeed imbedded in most countries, activist followers of Jesus committed to love and good deeds are also imbedded everywhere, far outnumbering jihadists. While hundreds of European jihadists do return to Europe after fighting alongside ISIS in Syria, many Christians also return to Europe and North America from schools of transformational ministry around the world. While many more Christians still need to be mobilized, Jesus followers share the Gospel, care for the homeless, reach out to immigrants and refugees, visit the sick and elderly, care for the disabled, visit and minister to prisoners and engage in countless acts of love. The church in France is steadily growing, and many of our French friends tell of an increase of spiritual hunger since the attacks against Charlie Hebdo in January 2015.

3) Pray for God’s comfort and for peace. Intercede for the French people; for the families of the victims; for immigrants and refugees; for Muslims the world over, for men and women involved in ISIS and other terrorist organizations (see this), for European leaders and our own leaders in these dangerous times. Pray for the church and for people of peace to be further mobilized everywhere.

4) “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21), Paul admonishes persecuted believers. Rather than being caught up in the wave of fear and agreeing with policies that emphasize destroying enemies in the interests of national security, or prohibiting desperate refugees from making their way to safety, focus on what it looks like to deliberately overcome evil with good! Let us think on and pray about this!

5) Move in full alignment with the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead—not with the ruler of this world, the thief who “comes only to rob, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10). When the sons of Zebedee ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven (think “hellfire missiles”) on the Samaritans that have refused Jesus entry, Jesus rebukes them, saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:55–56). For over 34 years I have ministered to violent men, seeing many give over their lives to the God of life. Let us join Jesus fully in his commitment to seeking and saving those who are lost.

6) Actively love your enemies and pray for persecutors. Mourn the death of enemy combatants rather than celebrating their destruction. Earlier on November 12, the same day terrorists struck in Paris, a US drone attack annihilated four men in Raqqa, Syria, including the infamous Mohammed Emwazi, otherwise known as Jihadi John—the British man who brutally beheaded a number of Western hostages last year. The following day, November 13, a US airstrike killed Abu Nabil, the head of ISIS in Libya. These acts, together with France’s heavy bombing this week of the ISIS stronghold in Raqqa, will most likely increase animosity, radicalizing and mobilizing still more jihadists and fueling more reprisals that will lead to still more violence and death.

Those who kill will themselves suffer greatly, as a recent interview with American drone operators in Nevada clearly shows. Followers of Jesus must actively follow Jesus in our treatment of violent offenders—distancing ourselves from all killing as we seek first the Kingdom of God and the righteousness visible in Jesus’ earthly life.

7) Actively engage in Jesus’ ministry as he lived it in the Gospels, in the company of believers who love each other. This is the only compelling alternative that can compete with jihadist adventurers seeking a utopian vision. Jesus embodied the Father’s lavish love for sinners, proclaiming forgiveness and love made concrete through healing the sick, embracing outcasts, casting out evil spirits from the tormented, confronting oppressors, and preaching the good news of “on earth as in heaven.” Let us step forward into this ministry, empowered by the Spirit, seeking to share this vision and recruit new followers before others recruit them.

8) Welcome immigrants and refugees rather than agreeing with growing moves to exclude them. Now is the time to embrace the most vulnerable people into our nations, seeking ways to humbly and intelligently serve them—bearing witness to God’s life-giving love in Jesus.

9) Be willing to suffer and die in active love and service of God so that the world can see the extremity of God’s care. Muslim fighters willing to blow themselves and others up to advance their cause demonstrate a high level of commitment—albeit it producing the evils of death, chaos and terror.

In contrast, martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero declared: “The only violence that the gospel admits is violence to oneself. When Christ lets himself be killed, that is violence—letting oneself be killed. Violence to oneself is more effective than violence to others. It is very easy to kill, especially when one has weapons, but how hard it is to let oneself be killed for love of the people!”

An army of totally surrendered Jesus followers out to demonstrate God’s grace and power on behalf of the poor and oppressed will advance and penetrate into the places of greatest darkness and need, announcing and embodying authentic hope.

In this climate of fear, God’s perfect love in Christ must be proclaimed like never before, countering the rhetoric of opportunistic politicians with a more compelling vision. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses,” writes Paul from his cell as a persecuted apostle of the suffering Messiah (2 Corinthians 10:4). Now is the time to arm ourselves for battle with the weapons of the Spirit embodied by the Savior of the world, who has won the battle by “losing,” by giving up his life as a ransom for many.

Please read this insightful letter from a dear British friend ministering in France for many years, Andy Buckler, and pray as he indicates.

***

From Andy & Uta Buckler

Paris, 18th November 2015

Dear friends

I am writing this letter five days after the terrorist attacks on Paris, whose indiscriminate bloodshed has caused at least 129 deaths and hundreds of wounded. It has been a difficult time, and we have been very grateful for your ongoing prayers and messages of support.

The recent events have brought about a strange atmosphere in Paris. Three days of national mourning and a state of emergency with hundreds of arrests on charges of terrorism, and police and army everywhere... underline the reality of the continued threat. But unlike the attacks last January, there is no mass outpouring of emotion, no big demonstrations. We're told the security threat is too important, but it also feels like people are determined to get back to normal life as quickly as possible, if only to show that the terrorists have not succeeded... Except that the nervousness and emotions are not far beneath the surface.

Last Sunday I preached at Saint Denis a short distance from the stade de France where three terrorists blew themselves up two days before. The service had been planned with a missional theme, with young people giving testimonies about their evangelism experience abroad last summer, and commissioning for a small Fresh expressions initiative in central Paris due to start next week. The service went ahead and was great, but I found myself really challenged about what it means to be witnesses in the current context.

"You have heard that it was said 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy', but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". (Matt 5,43-44)

Over the last few days, we have been passive witnesses to terrible events. But as Christians, we are of course also called to be active witnesses of a different reality that Jesus calls the kingdom of God. It is easy to loose sight of this Gospel perspective in a media saturated society where attitudes are so easily forged by powerful images and strong emotions.

This doesn't mean we retreat into an escapist world, seeking to deny reality and its pain and sorrow. But rather that we believe that God is present in the midst of the pain of this world, precisely where we do not expect it, or where are tempted to think that he is absent. God's love is greater than hate, his life stronger and more real than the forces of death at work around us.

Last weekend I also spoke at two of our regional synods on the theme of being an "Eglise de témoins" (our term for a mission shaped church). There too it felt strange to be talking about mission in such a painful context (especially in the Paris synod), and yet it seems precisely at this time that being a witness is so important. As citizens of the world we are witnesses of the terrible events that shape us, and yet as citizens of God's kingdom we need also to be courageous witnesses of God's other perspective which brings peace and hope.

Being witnesses of both at the same time is not easy - it involves being weak and hurting, and yet spiritually discerning, refusing to let our earth bound perspectives determine our identity or shake our confidence.

In Christ, we can become prophetic signs of his presence, through simple, but radical love. Sometimes such signs come in surprising ways. I was struck by the reports of numerous people last Friday night opening their homes to those caught in the attacks and with no way of getting home. The media called this a "surprising gesture of fraternity and solidarity", which it was! But I like to think it was also a sign of God's light in the darkness.

So do pray that Christians here would be able to be and to discern around them signs of God's loving presence in this difficult time. Pray for the local churches that are opening up their doors for people to talk and pray. Pray too for the small teams from different Paris churches that will be available to talk and pray with people around the different sites where the attacks took place. This is a good initiative, but requires great spiritual sensitivity in the current climate.

In this climate, we hear a lot about the terrible effects of "radicalism", often said as if any sort of strong religious conviction necessarily breeds intolerance and hatred. But what we desperately need today in its place is not simply a collection of consensus-based human values (although these are good), nor an insensitive proselytizing zeal, but a new form of radicalism - the radical love which comes from and through Jesus Christ. 

It is the radical love of Christ that enables us to love not only our neighbour (which is hard enough!), but also our enemy. It opens the way to forgive and forgive again. To pray even for forgiveness for those who "know not what they are doing".

This goes far beyond what politicians can possibly suggest. It is totally unreasonable and unrealistic. In fact it is impossible, unless the lifeblood of Jesus himself is running through our veins.

But it is also a treasure that shines through our contradictions, mixed-up emotions and pain. And it is promise and hope in our disorientated world.

We really need to pray that God will give us grace to allow this radical love to shine through our acts, thoughts, words, prayers, however simple and insignificant they may seem to be to us.

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor 4:6-7)

Please continue to pray for France at this time.

Andy Buckler

Secrétaire National Evangelisation et Formation

(National Secretary for Evangelism and Training)

Eglise Protestante Unie de France