Well, I tried to post this earlier and lost the internet connection, so here I go again.
I have read that St. Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the gospel everyday and if necessary, use words." I find myself wondering if Francis thought words made presenting the gospel easier. I don't.
My daughter has been teaching refugees english, math and life skills to help them integrate into the world of Atlanta and the United States. Part of the life skills class curriculum teaches them to look their supervisors in the eye when talking to them to let the supervisor know they are listening. In the culture they come from, looking a superior in the eye is a form of disrespect and they told B that they could not do that. My daughter did not feel she could continue teaching this because it was making the kids ignore who they were, where they had come from. Some refugee teens had said that after being here for a while, they felt as if they had lost their "soul" because they could not BE themselves and live out their cultural experience here in the states. B did not want to add to this undoing of these kids. She had respect for them and their culture.
It is so easy for us to take into account who people are, their culture and background, when they come from another country. It is even easy to take into consideration the fact that someone may be very young and may not have had the life experiences or education we have had.
It can be very difficult, however, to accept the fact that someone who is older than us, someone who seemingly lives the same life we have lived, may come from a different "place." We expect people who live in America, who eat what we eat, who talk like we do, who attend the same church we do, who have been around longer than we have to be able to understand things we say just because.
What we forget is that people who grew up say 50 years or more ago, grew up with a different perspective than those of us who were born more recently. Life experiences and the attitudes and teachings of those around us have a great influence on our own beliefs and priorities. Living and learning with people who lived and learned themselves from a different age has a major effect on our thought and belief processes.
Scripture shows that Jesus taught and preached through parables using examples from things that those listening could relate to. He spoke in terms of where the people were, not necessarily where he was. This is how people understand the messages we are to preach and teach. It does no good to use examples from quantum physics as examples when talking to me because I would have absolutely no idea what you were talking about. If, however, you spoke in terms of radiology, child rearing, maybe even insurance (on a very limited level), then I could relate and what you were saying would actually mean something to me.
Jesus respected the people he taught and it showed through his speaking. Yes, his messages may have been very difficult for them to swallow, but at least they understood and could relate.
If B can respect the refugee teens and understand that their cultural experience is a valid thing to be taken into consideration when speaking to them, then why do we find it so hard to do the same with people we know and love? No one is the same, no one comes from the same place, has the same life experience, education or beliefs. It makes no difference what the message is or how evident it may seem to you or I. If we don't take into consideration the person we are talking to, the message won't get across and can ultimately make that person feel demeaned, condemed or less of a person.
I am not sure if any of this makes much sense, but I guess that is what a blog is for - just to get things out. If you are reading this, I hope that you take into consideration that these words are mine and come from my life experiences and the culture I was raised in and the culture I currently live in. I hope that you will not reject them as the rantings of an uneducated mother of 2, but instead, let them provoke you to think and hopefully be more considerate of others when you preach and teach.
Peace.
4 comments:
I promised Dana I would be nice.
So just some thoughts.
For the most part, you are right -- very good thoughts. You shouldn't downplay yourself like you did at the end, cause I don't buy it. And I shouldn't say you are right, I should say "I agree with you", but unless we think we are wrong, then we are just playing language games, which of course we are doing anyway, but at least we should play them well. So, yeah, you are right.
I love that quote by Assisi, and I think it rings true, to some extent. It speaks to the need of doing rather than just speaking -- and that is important.
BUT, your comment about words not making the gospel easier to present concerns me.
We should distinguish between three terms: DOING, SPEAKING, and BEING .
[I want to insert here an whole argument about how speaking is a form of doing, but I hold back, and treat them separately.]
We cannot BE without both SPEAKING and DOING.
Our call as Christians and disciples of Christ, as I understand it, calls us to BE followers of Christ.
If we speak Christ without doing as he did, or do as he did without speaking him, then we FAIL to BE Christians.
It is not enough to simply act as Christ did -- because only language can bring sense, order, and understanding to our actions.
THIS IS THE ALL IMPORTANT PART: As Christians, we are not simply trying to BE better people, or make other people lives better -- we are living into a vision of the kingdom of God. In other words, we are living into, or becoming, the BEINGS of the KINGDOM, which requires both speech and act.
***WARNING: Polemical Statment Ahead -- Not Directed at You***
Anyone who thinks they can BE a follower of Christ and the gospel without words, and especially the Word of God, needs to read John again. Unless of course we don't take scripture to have authority, in which case what's the point of any of this? I don't know how to say that without being polemical, sorry Dana.
[Someone will want to insert an argument here concerning the way in which action itself can be seen as a language, and of course they would be right, so we see it is a deep subject...]
Anyway, my point is that we need both SPEAKING and DOING in order to BE like Christ, and that is what we are called to be.
The conversation I really want to have, which deals with your blog, is on the culture of the Kingdom -- but I'll save that for another time, or for my own blog.
I also want to say that even though Dana was showing respect for the cultures of her refugee friends, she was also assigned to teach them how to opperate in ours. There is an argument to be made there, but I've said too much already.
I love the long post -- please keep it up.
Peace of God
Also, I've added you to the Desert.
Here's the thing: I don't know how to say some of the things that I want to say in a way that isn't going to upset someone. That doesn't mean that I don't respect or love or try to understand whoever it is that I'm talking to.
The way I see it, being able to talk about these things that are of such ultimate importance, being able to talk about them with the knowledge that they will probably upset one of us, that is showing the greatest respect and love. Not talking about these things, I'm finding, is much worse.
That said, I know that my parables are not up to snuff, and I know it comes out disrespectful sometimes. I'm still working on balance.
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