I love that Jesus loves us in the fresh love of a bridegroom and in the same depth of an old lover who has gone through the years next to his beloved. His love is wild. And breathtaking.
I love how extravagant He is.
In so many ways, coming off of a weekend at Mumbai, I have had no clue about where to compartmentalize the dead bodies on the streets of beggars, the slums that never came to an end, and the brokenness of a people who have never tasted freedom. Where does that kind of observation go? Where do my hands help? Would help even do something?
It isn't fun to see something that wrong. Walking away from it is quite possibly the best antidote for the depth of the ache in my heart. If I turned away from the slums, I can always pretend they aren't there. If I walk on the other side of the street, I don't have to talk to the prostitutes and pimps. Blindness is such a sweet and cruel cure.
In so many ways, I needed to talk through this weekend with someone. I needed someone to agree with me that everything I saw was wrong–even if they hadn't seen what I had. I needed a heart to break. I needed to see tears. Because my own heart can't cry over that. I can't process it. But, the images. Oh, the images. They aren't leaving. They are stuck to my brain like the humidity of an Alabama summer morning is to my skin.
In some ways, I can't offer those slum families my tears. They don't want or need my pity. Pity isn't something that exists in the Indian/Hindi culture anyways. As I learned this weekend, no Indian takes account for the wrongs they have committed. You can't even say, "I broke something" in their language. The words of ownership over something wrong don’t exist. Instead, you say, "The lamp was broken." Thus, there is no road rage. No ownership of sin. No wrongs ever committed. It’s even taboo to say ‘No’ to someone or something. Which is why looking at slums and seeing anything other than apathy isn’t right in the Indian culture. It's the way things are.
I think Jesus does want brokenness for us. I think He really does want us to step, if only for a moment, into their despair. Heck, that's all the gospels seem to be pointing toward. "Religious people, look to those who suffer and see Me. Because when you find Me among those who suffer, you will find that answers have nothing to do with tidy doctrine and religious answers." Jesus really is all about messiness. And going into the wretchedness of slum life and sitting in the stench of humanness.
It was incredibly odd that this weekend Jesus chose to take me through the most painful parts of Mumbai. It’s strange that He chose to make me sit down and have lengthy conversations with people who chose to act on what they saw. I really just wanted a weekend off. I needed some space to breathe. But, I’m starting to realize that maybe breathing is about moving. Maybe breathing is less about taking something from the air and is more about an exchange of one chemical to another. Oxygen, after it hits our bodies, is transformed into carbon dioxide. Maybe it’s not about just taking from Jesus what He wants us to receive, but then taking our receiving and turning it into something more beautiful, more lovely and more worthy of the sacrifice that He handed down.
I know that Jesus wants something for each of us out of this mess. I know that He loves the slum like He loves everyone else. But, oh, what will He say to us if we do nothing for the beggars, the slummers and the prostitutes?
I love discipleship. And I love worship. But, if those things don’t cause us to move out of ourselves, I don’t think anything else will.
