Do something that won't compute

 In church this morning, the first reading was from Daniel, the story of the emperor making his 90-foot tall golden statue and requiring everyone to pause and respect it when the music plays. Maybe that sounds quaintly archaic, but in fact it pretty accurately describes 2022.  People in power decide what to promote, and it is usually publicly visibly impressive, expensively exclusive, directly connected to political ascendancy, and the consequences of ignoring the trend could be dire. . . . not that most of us want to do so, because we are so embedded in the culture around us. For instance in  some parts of the world this week movies, music, awards were the central story, in others football and politics, in others weapons and negotiations. But the goal of being shiny, and winning, seems pretty universal. Even for our students in chapel, we could be unconsciously modelling that our goal for them is to win our tournaments, make the best grades, dominate the competition, work hard, promote our name, make our donors and parents proud.

Cheering on the girls (above), chapel (below) . . . without making them idols we pray.

Along comes Jesus, another couple of weeks until Passover, moving towards the centres of power but turning expectations upside down. Answering questions with more difficult questions, throwing out phrases like whoever doesn't hate his family and forsake all can't be my disciple, walking into risk and refusing to call down angel armies. Pastor Mike preached this today from Ephesians 2. Grace, not glory, saves us.

Someone posted this poem this week, which puts that in 21st century North American terms from Wendell Berry (Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front):  

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

So how can we look back on the week, and find things that did not compute, that won't make sense for next week either? In our area, we see people who love the world by caring for the malnourished or teaching medical students or training counselors or coaching kids, all with zero fanfare and mostly lurching steps forward. Here in Bundibugyo this week we were delighted to have Waller Tabb back in town as a translation consultant, remembering the years and years of faithful work he and partners spent to complete the New Testament in Lubwisi and now continuing to work remotely with local translators on Joshua and Genesis and Psalms, thinking about how to consistently represent place names and describe the mysteries of God in a language that until this project had never been written. We spent a day at a burial, walking that odd line of ours of being historical and yet outsiders too. Another day Scott met with district leaders to explore how to best react to the estimated 23,000 refugees that have permeated the border from Congo after brutal ADF attacks  . . . because most prefer to stay with family and move freely back and forth to their gardens, so only about a hundred actually sleep in the designated transit camp. They are driving up numbers accessing our BundiNutrition program, which has led us to apply for more funding via a grant we could really use. Other long meetings addressed our tedious and complex NGO re-approval process and implications for work permits. In between we continue to receive visitors, old friends with greetings and others with medical problems or financial strains. And we work on Christ School and team issues, and mourn power outages and snakes. It often feels like too little, too weak, too ineffective, in the wrong places. And I often feel like I'm more tired than is reasonably explicable. 

Waller and Aristarchus the translation consultants, with our team

This is the translation work in process, Waller in the back room far right.

Jesus said to value Him above shiny success and even above family togetherness, which bites harder leaving kids than it ever did leaving parents.

But the last line of the poem shines out. Love someone who does not deserve it. Yes, that's our story. We are loved. We are the people who don't deserve it. We can walk into the does-not-compute territory because we walk there with Jesus. We can stake our lives on grace, not profit, because love is the truest reality of the universe.

Two weeks from today we'll be celebrating Easter, and frankly I don't feel ready for all that is on our docket leading up to that. But that's the message of this year for us: we aren't enough, it does not compute, because grace balances the equation outside of the Daniel 3 structure of the world. 

In the theme of LOVE, surprise ENGAGEMENT of special intern Sarah Grace to her visiting boyfriend Drew. We are rejoicing with them!!

Rainy season brings rainbows to team meeting . . . 

Team CSB support! The McClures primarily, but happy to join.