The Olympics gave us a taste of "on earth as it is in heaven", in ways the community of those who have been loved and redeemed by relationship with Jesus should do. This is the point of an excellent book I just finished by Jamaal Williams and Timothy Jones, In Church as it is in Heaven. Their story of a multiethic city church in Kentucky demonstrates that our unity as humans, as believers, is a gift to us that reflects God's uncontainable glory (way bigger than any one culture, language, race) and blesses the world as we employ our unique talents to the world's needs. As a church we have not always been a picture of heaven, so we can learn from the Olympics.
For those days in Paris, we celebrated the excellence of people of all sizes and gifts and colours, from five continents, 206 countries and the refugee team. We listened to anthems and raised flags and marvelled at the art, costumes, parades, music. We were on the edge of our seats as a runner came from behind to win, or as a gymnast flew through the air in perfect rotations, or as a javelin was thrown an unbelievable distance, or the table tennis serve was too fast to even see, or the climbing walls were ascended with the most fragile holds. We looked up St Lucia on the map, or researched the difference between Korean and Japanese martial arts. Over and over we exclaimed with wonder at the human capacity, body and soul.
Peruth Chemutai of Uganda with Silver in the 3000m steeplechase. . we also had a men's gold in the 10000m from Cheptegai
Because not all the highlights were the gold medals. Some of my favourite moments were the ways the (mostly) women cheered and encouraged each other, seeing silver medalists genuinely cheer for the gold from another team (Simone and Jordan bowing to the Brazilian). Or also the USA marathon men who were nowhere near the front, staying at the finish line to congratulate everyone who came in after them, or the relay team that did NOT win getting grilled by the press and refusing to blame each other, standing stalwart in "we did our best and this wasn't our day".
The Olympics highlight diversity by everyone being assigned to one of those 206 countries, but unity by everyone having an even playing field to compete on. Sort of. Many Africans compete off continent, either they or their parents moved to a place like Europe, looking for safety or better facilities or financial support for their family, or maybe they were forced overseas long ago by human trafficking . . . in the women's marathon, 9 of the top 10 finishers were African, but 4 of those 9 ran for off-continent countries.
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The Sudanese-Canadian about to pass most of the pack to get silver, behind the Kenyan . . .
The church could learn from the Olympics--how can we hold the paradox of celebrating each person's unique background, genetics, artistry, story, as one sliver of the prism of colour that makes up our God of light? And at the same time find the connection that we need as a community, to work together to make the world liveable for all? How can we enter new cultures without turning them all into bland amalgamations? We've spent our life trying to honour this little pocket of Uganda's language and culture, music and traditions and food and dress and style, while also equipping our CSB students with the English skills and math/science background to move into the world. Both-And. No easy answers.
About two hours after this photo and yet more prayer, the bank finally unfroze our accounts for a week so we could pay our staff and pay for food for our students . . . Still struggling to fit into the Ugandan ever-evolving administrative complexity, with integrity. A hard road to walk. Pray that we sort out a longer term solution this week.
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Thanks…
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