August 1, 2007

Dear All,

Most of the letters that mission personnel write tell the good stories that highlight the positive moments of their lives. Let me step out on a limb here and try something different this month. I want to keep everyone motivated and maintain the synergy back home, but I also want you to travel with me on the road that tests everyone who follows Jesus.

Jacob Goad, PC(USA) missionary in Peru.

The thing I find the hardest about believing in Jesus is that he’s not joking when he says to the rich man to follow the commandments, love his neighbor, and to give his possessions to the poor. As a believer of Jesus in Peru, I find that the context of inequality in this passage speaks to me profoundly.

In a country where millions of people still live on less than two dollars a day, buying a seven-dollar pizza makes me feel like a spiritual pansy. That’s what I ate tonight, a seven-dollar personal pizza, and now I am sitting here thinking about Jesus in my apartment that I rent by myself, while almost all of the rest of Peruvians share space and energy.

Now I know some of you are saying to yourself, “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Jacob. It’s not like you live in some mansion in the Hamptons.”  Tis’ true. I don’t live in a mansion, but to know that there are mouths not being fed because of my more-than-occasional fancy eating and entertainment is enough to tell me that Jesus is speaking to me here. Who knows? He might be speaking to you.

It appears that Jesus was mostly a spiritual teacher. However, he also taught us that there is a higher law than our societies’ laws. The reason I believe that Jesus’ teachings will remain forever true is that they speak to our spiritual realities and challenge us beyond our perceptions for what’s “enough.”

The spiritual challenges posed by Christ have social implications for all believers. As Jesus spoke spiritual truths, he vexed the structures of his society and was ultimately killed for proposing a new sort of society with a just ruler.

The delay of the parousia has us all perplexed since the first century. Is it by mercy that Christ has delayed his coming until we begin to understand the message of the Kingdom? It is frustrating, has much changed about inequality since the time of Jesus? Nope, in fact it’s worse.

Sometimes I get together with a group of folks in Lima to pray. There is an elderly Roman Catholic gentleman who comes to this group. Several of the others pray with energy and enthusiasm. But when the Catholic gentleman begins to pray, it is as if God has opened him up to the vision for something new. He doesn’t have anything flashy to say, but what he says reflects a rich transformation because of Jesus’ life of compassion and genuine love for the poor.

I hear God speaking through this man’s calculated thoughts and longing for a new Kingdom on earth. I think he sees something in Jesus that many of us miss because of our “ticket to heaven” message of salvation. Initially, it may sound un-Presbyterian, but that “ticket to heaven” message is easy come, easy go.

All of this reminds me of the concept of “cheap grace” that Bonhoeffer talks about in The Cost of Discipleship. Ultimately, is the way we’re living honoring Christ’s sacrifice? In the same work, Bonhoeffer says, “Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race.”

Under the Gestapo’s oppression in Germany, I wonder if Bonhoeffer’s reflections about Christ weren’t laden with conscious thoughts for his own society.

In light of Jesus’ message of eternal peace and prioritization of the poor, I ask myself, what is God calling me to change about the way I live?

Self-searching,

Jacob Goad