Two Sides of the Same Journey (Part Two)

Last week I sat in a 9’ x 9’ home (think sheet metal fastened to scrap wood – more like a shack) in Mathare. Mathare is a slum in Nairobi. I was there with Dave, Kara, and Moses. Moses works in Mathare caring for the children there who otherwise would have no one to care for them. Shortly before being in the home, the four of us were on a riverbank watching more than thirty men brew Chang’aa.

Chang’aa is what we would call “moonshine.” It is a brew that can cause blindness and in some cases it causes death. It’s literal translation is, “Kill me quick.” In our context we might compare chang’aa and its addictive qualities to meth.

After our spectating was done, we walked into this home where three people were seated. All of them live in Mathare. They poured a glass of chang’aa for us. If the brewers of the chang’aa were the ones making the meth - then these people were the ones dealing it. Nearly 10,000 miles away from home and there I was - in the home of a drug dealer.

Immediately we could begin parsing out the right and wrong of this story.

We could speak about the illegal trade of brewing chang’aa. How those who brew it are responsible for the death and blindness of many. We could observe that those who sell it (like the women who poured us a glass) and say they are lawbreakers, and are guilty of supporting a dark addiction. Some, no doubt, would even pride themselves on how quickly they could break it all down into categories of right and wrong or good and evil.

But there in that home with a glass of chang’aa on the table in from of me, it was not that easy. I realized that often we are seduced into thinking that we can make statements about one thing or another that are true for all times, all places, and all people. But it is not always that simple.

Often our rules, regulations, norms, behaviors, political viewpoints, and social constructs limit the vast expanse of the Kingdom of Heaven – and often God himself. Even our theology can do this. Many make sweeping statements laced with a lethal amount of dogma, and compound the problem by tacking a bible verse or two on it to support what they are saying.

Over time these constructs become accepted, collective thinking. Through this certain behaviors and rules become normative and (worse yet) authoritative for us in the way we live. We do this all the time in our world, especially, it seems, in religious circles.

The problem with this is that many of our norms, behaviors, and even our theology is not rooted in the Text but in our culture. Our cultural norms and expectations often become more foundational to us than Scripture. We ignore context and assume that our statements can exist outside of it. But this is never the case.

Every assertion, statement, and belief comes from the mind and heart of a person who is situated in a particular context. Like it or not, our zip code often influences much of the way we see the world. There is nothing wrong with this - as humans we always speak from a point of reference. The danger however is when we live as though we are beyond context.

There are few things that are abundantly clear in the Bible. Those things can serve as pillars for us; they are foundational. There are many more things however, that are hard to understand. While we tend to feel more comfortable living in black and white; the Bible invites us to live in a world of vibrant color.

Which brings us back to the house in Mathare, where a glass of chang’aa was in front of us. Moses asked us, “How do you preach the gospel to these people? Do you start by telling them selling chang’aa is wrong? If they stop selling it they will starve and not be able to pay rent. If I start by telling them they are wrong, then they will stop listening to me. So what do I say? How do I preach Jesus?”

Dave, Kara, and I had no response. I mean, what do you say? I thought of my wife and my three children. If I was desperate what would I do to feed them? Is it right to break some rules to save their life? How far would I go? Sitting on a couch next to this woman I realized these are the questions she is forced to ask everyday.

After a moment of silence and contemplation, Moses said, “I’ll tell you how you preach the gospel … incarnation. Simply being the hands and feet of Jesus in this place.” With that he stood up and paid them for the glass of chang’aa and we walked out.

I had this sense that I was in the midst of scandal, which is right where Jesus was much of the time. With Jesus, it was not so much that he was breaking God given rules, but more that he was breaking the permissible guidelines that many had created - boundaries that were a construct of humans. In the event that God showed up outside their box, then they presumed that it could not be the work of God. This is why they accused Jesus of being a part of the kingdom of darkness.

I am learning that we tell our story trying to place God in it. But we are called to tell God’s story, to discover where God is working, and find ourselves in God’s story.

I am learning that we live in a creation of our own making and invite the Creator to live within it. But we are called to live fully in God’s creation and discover the Creator in the most unlikely of places.

Places, like a shack in Mathare where chang’aa is poured out. The kind of places Jesus sat when he was on this earth. The places he still sits, present in people like Moses, embroiled in the scandal of grace.