Easter season greetings from Havana, Cuba!
I am writing this newsletter to you from the condominium on the 18th floor of a building facing straight toward Key West. My hosts Angel and Yvone are very nice and it’s been a good stay.
I have been learning a good bit here in Central America. I have now visited every country, plus Cuba at least once and have also been to Mexico, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. I see some persistent themes that may be helpful for us at Sanctuary.
1. Love is a greater power than any other. The areas where love abounds, even in the midst of poverty and other violence, are places where hope is springing up. The places where indifference reigns, are just the opposite. They are dark. Cuba is pretty dark. People are very indifferent. They want change, but they don’t change. Aren’t we all a bit like this? On the other hand, I found the most hope in all of this trip in El Salvador and Honduras, though they are also the most troubled. Brave people have chosen to love well in spite of danger and they refuse to be afraid…and these communities are healing. In our North American spiritual lives we underrate love for theological correctness, procedural purity and petty fights over music selection and volume. We listen for what we want to hear in sermons and miss the Word of God and his call to his missionary people. I have never been so convinced that the simple message of love is one we must learn to take seriously. “Beloved,love one another, because love is from God.”
2. Self-Interest in runaway magnitude, destroys. In the USA, Panama and here in Cuba, self-interest lords itself over community health and vitality. Everybody is hustling everybody for something. “The Wolf of Wall Street” lurks in the hearts of most of us. The enlightened self-interest of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” was a model for community prosperity and the flourishing of the many, not the slyest foxes among us mining the majority for our own gain. The communities I see flourishing roll the gains of enlightened self interest into the safety, education, welfare and sense of community-spirit wherever they go. Those of us who see ourselves as God’s missionary people, faithful to Jesus call to “Go therefore and make disciples of all peoples” and the Jesus that urges us to love and serve, invites us to live beyond total self-interest and toward a more living distribution of our gains.
3.Differences in viewpoints. Sigmund Freud posited a theory about our human brokeness creating a proclivity to wage ideological warfare over insignificant differences – to elevate those issues to a war-like state. Here in the Global South, people don’t see America divided by conservative and liberal. They see us in one unified viewpoint regardless of who is in office. Again and again when I ask about that people say, “Bush…Obama. Just the same. They are America.” Think of the non Christians of the world. What do they say of us? Mostly, they see us a cluster of warring tribes who differ over tongues, good works, holy living, homosexuality, women in ministry, church music, Bible interpretations with obscure acrostics like TULIP, etc. By engaging in this ideological war of “insignificant differences”, we do violence to Jesus great petition to the Father, “that you would make them one, just as you and I, Father, are one.” While we wage noble wars with brothers and sisters with whom we disagree socially, politically, morally and theologically, we make a laughingstock of Jesus words, “By this will all persons know you are my disciples: by your love”.
4. Activism over passivity. In the midst of a world where it is hard to love purely, live for others beyond our self-interest and develop a magnanimous and unified spirit in the midst of differences, it’s quite easy to shut down and be passive. We learned to cope as children by doing the “take my ball and go home” routine. It had some value. But, most of that value was in self protection at the expense of engagement and the growth of working through tough relations. In North America, many people, some of my dearest friends, have just quit being a part of faith communities. “Church is a hassle”, “I was hurt when…”, “that decision they all made…I just got so mad, I quit. I don’t go anywhere anymore.” We have all felt this way at times. On the occasion of Easter, we realize Our Lord felt much uncertainty, anxiety, rejection, hurt, pain and the misery of public death. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Three days later the history of the world changed. What if we all developed a commitment to ‘stick with it through thick and thin”? What if we reactivated people who gave up church, not by saying come to my church, the music is great, people are really nice and the pastor gives an interesting message (many weeks :))”. Instead we could invite people back on a new agenda: a) become a sincere sold out follower of Jesus, b) learn to grow in love, tolerance and serving in community, c) live into Jesus call to change the world into a place of faith hope and love. Imagine an invitation to a challenging, meaningful and adventurous life that doesn’t have anything to do with a consumer experience?
Christ has Risen, Indeed.
He has died for us.
Let us LIVE FOR HIM.
Much love,
Randy Rowland
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