don’t look away.

During my sophomore year, one of my favorite professors spoke in chapel on the book of Judges. What he said has stayed with me since that day:

“The book of Judges doesn’t want to let you look away. It wants to hold it there, and it wants to hold it up there until it gets awkward and then it gets uncomfortable and it keeps holding it there and says don’t look away. Judges wants to hold this up in your face and say we need to deal with these things. We have to look at this.” ~Allen Jones

Don’t look away.

A few weeks ago, the topic of lament was brought up in my life. I then began to pray:

Lord, daily rend my heart anew, breaking it for what breaks Yours.

I write this post not to condemn, judge, or be angry.

I write this post because my heart is breaking. Lately, my heart is especially aching for refugees. So, I write sit in this heaviness that God has brought upon my heart. This weight was His answer to my prayer. As God confronts me with this brokenness, I don’t know what to do. So I write, as an outpouring of a fire God is lighting within me.

I think about the crisis, and what the government should do.

“A God-honoring civil government defends against and punishes evil. A God-honoring civil government protects the life and property of its citizens. A God-honoring civil government bears the sword and executes wrath.” (Legal Immigrants For America) 

Really? Does our nation protect the life and property of its citizens? Honestly, America has never been a “God-honoring country,” nor is it now. And I don’t think it ever will. As Christians, we tend to judge if our nation is God-honoring our leader’s stance on homosexual marriage and pro-life issues. But perhaps pro-life shouldn’t be simply pro-unborn children. Because when it comes to refugees, well, that’s an immigration issue.

“We make the issue for the refugees immigration… because we don’t have time to think of it any other way. It’s easy to put in a box because if it’s actual people, we have to do something.” ~William Parker

I saw this picture posted on Facebook a few weeks ago. It summarizes most arguments I’ve heard that are anti-refugee – they’re not safe, they could kill us, there’d be one or two in there amidst the innocent women and children who could kill our family and friends. And those are valid and real concerns. But, dear Christians, what should our response be?

We hear cries for safety, comfort, and protection. Did Jesus proclaim these things?

Jesus says in John 16:33″I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Not “In this world you might have trouble…” or “In this world, you can protect yourself from trouble…” By no means! He tells us that we will have trouble. Jesus goes to the least of these, the outcasts, the lowest class, the broken, ill, hurting, and disregarded and He loves them.

“Which Jesus do you follow? Which Jesus do you serve? If Ephesians says to imitate Christ, why do we look so much like the world? ‘Cause my Jesus bled and died, He spent His time with thieves and the least of these He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable” – Todd Agnew

I weep to see the western church closing her doors because refugees they could be dangerous, because they could hurt us. We are afraid to love them, because they could hurt us.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” -CS Lewis

To love anyone is not safe. To recognizing that loving these people as they come in may be dangerous, may not be safe. To love these people is to open ourselves up to wounds, to open ourselves up to the wounds that are imbedded in their story, in their grief, and their pain. To love is to allow our hearts to be broken for them.

Rather than being consumed by what we want or need, we need to be consumed by Christ’s desire for oneness.

We don’t serve a God that’s neat and tidy. We don’t serve a God that is safe.

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr. Beaver, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” -CS Lewis

We serve a Savior who flipped the world upside down with a message of love and forgiveness. We serve a Savior who loved the poor and accosted the rich. We serve a Savior who welcomed all to the table, all to come partake in the living water and the bread of life. We serve a Savior who spent His time on earth not with the healthy, but the sick and the least of these.

John Green says this:

“…when discussing refugees, I often hear “Well, it’s not OUR problem”, or “We have to take care of OUR people.” But we are one species sharing one, profoundly, interconnected world, and humans, all humans, are OUR people. And when the oppressed and marginalized die because they are oppressed and marginalized, the powerful are at fault.”

As Children of God, we are called to “Love the Lord your God,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to be living together, in our mutual humanity as Children of God.

Jesus doesn’t attach any clarifying statements to this as to who are neighbor is. But over the years, people have asked Him.

My roommate wrote this, a loose translation and modification of Luke 10:25-37:

A well-studied professor of theology stood up with a question to test Jesus: “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?” He answered, “What’s written in the Bible? How do you interpret it?”

The professor said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind– and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.” “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Looking for a loophole, the prof continued, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man, simply traveling along the road. On the way, robbers attacked him. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off, leaving him half dead. Luckily, an evangelical Christian preacher took the same road. But when he saw the man struggling to even live, he cut across on the other side, head down, only saying ‘God is good; I’m alive and victorious in Jesus!’

“Then several contemporary Christian music artists showed up. They also avoided the injured man, humming to themselves and saying, ‘if we add a key change after the third verse, people will feel really good about themselves at church!’

“Soon, a family of Syrian refugees traveling this unfamiliar road came upon the suffering man. When they saw his condition, their hearts went out to him. The father rushed to his side, helping him up, while the mother tended to his wounds. They helped the man walk, nearly carrying him to a little inn, and made him comfortable. The little son and daughter held on to his arm and hand the whole way.

“In the morning, the father took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, I will pay it.’ The little daughter held up a copper coin as her offering, too.

“What do you think? Which of the three groups became neighbors to the suffering man? “The ones who treated him kindly,” the theology professor responded. Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

We serve a Savior who calls us to love our neighbor – no qualifications, no rules, just love. We serve a Savior who bids us to come and die, die to our comfort, die to our earthly security and possessions and bids us to follow, living a life surrendered to Him that we might truly live.

The road He calls us to is narrow, it is rocky; we’ll trip and fall, become bruised and broken, falling to our knees. We’ll be tempted to turn around and flee back to safety, back to the comfort it provides. But He asks us to follow Him, and we keep our eyes forward, fixed on Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, because in the end, it’s not about us, it’s not about our likes, our dislikes, what’s comfortable… it’s not about us, but the glory of God.

We dehumanize these people that we are called to love because it is not easy. We see them as objects to be pitied and feared rather than actual human beings.

Don’t look away.

A refugee from Jordan, 10 year old Aida, when asked what she would want to share with American children her age, she said “We just want to go to school. We just want to have a life.” John Green, who was interviewing her, went on to say: “They just want to have a life, but you can’t have a life when the world doesn’t accept that you’re a person as valuable as any other, when the world treats you as “other” or “less than.”

“It really shouldn’t matter what your political opinion is when we hear stories of refugees desperately trying to get out of their country for fear of their lives. We’re too busy arguing about the danger they represent to us and to our economic system to recognize that these are actual people.” – William Parker

We think we need to protect ourselves, however we define ‘ourselves,’ even if it means treating them, however we define ‘them,’ as less than fully human.

America is a country built on strength, and she recognizes and celebrates her victories; success here is glorified and the narrative of grief is shut down. Her “victorious living” leaves her no room for lament, a pattern seen throughout the history of our country.

We live in a country that sends a message to her citizens and to the world that strength is control and compassion is weakness. And we, her people, have all bought into that in some way, shape or form.

“Compassion is the ultimate manifestation of strength.” – Hank Green

These people are being destroyed – there is no easy way to say it, and it’s hard to hear, because it’s the truth. There is an injustice being done to them, injustice being an abuse of power that doesn’t take away luxuries, but takes away the things that God has given them, their body, their dignity, even their lives.

We view compassion as weak, but it is the most grueling thing we can do. In the midst of someone’s suffering, to get down to their level, to imagine their lives beyond statistics, as complex and rich as ours, and to mourn their losses with them– that’s strength.

I weep to see countries closing their doors to those who have nowhere else to go.

Don’t look away.

Jesus, what do we do with Your tears for these people? Show us how to love like You have loved us, how You love us even when we push You aside, when we curse Your name and run in the other direction, when we slap away Your hand of help, and reject Your compassion.

“Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus, Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less
Oh my soul, Oh my Savior, Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more

As the nails went in, I was standing right there, As you breathed your last, I shook my head and I cried. 

Oh my God, what have we done
We have destroyed your Son” – King’s Kaleidoscope

In the end, I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know the answer and I won’t pretend that I do. I sit in these ashes, in this pile of brokenness God has brought me to, faithful in answering my prayer, though leaving me in a wilderness of unknowns.

But in this era of uncertainty, Lord, You are still I AM.

Let our silence and tears The breaking of our hearts, the crippling uncertainty Go from our hearts to your ears.

Create beauty from these ashes we are just discovering are there. Teach us how to move forward.

Strengthen our sight to see beyond our doorstep, to open our eyes to the things we can’t or don’t want to see. Give us the strength to never look away.

Be Thou our vision.

Put our minds to the work of being open, our ears to the work of listening, our arms to the work of embracing.

Put our hands and feet to the work of justice. To the work of tearing down our kingdom and building up Yours. To the work of rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. To the work of compassion, choosing to imagine others complexly, fully, as broken children of God just as we are. To the work of loving as You love and forgiving as You forgive, unconditionally.

Because if that’s what it takes for me truly see, if that’s what it takes for me to see Your tears for this broken world, if that’s what it takes for me broken to grow Lord, I beg You, continue to rend my heart.

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Special thanks to:

-My friend and fellow student William Parker, and his dwellings and comments in chapel on lament helped shape this post. Listen to it here, you won’t regret it: https://soundcloud.com/corbanuniversity/corban-music-student-will-parker

-John and Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers, for their honest and real conversations about the hard things. View John’s videos from refugee camps here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMs_JcuNozJbjWtEDY68YiVfVTBwc420w

-C.S Lewis for being a boss.

–Allen Jones, for also being a boss. 

-My roommate for serving as reviser and editor, and for listening as I tried to make sense of these jumbled thoughts of mine and allowed me to steal her old blogpost which can be found here: http://katiekampen.blogspot.com/2017/02/defining-neighbor-2017-good-samaritan_1.html

Cause she’s awesome.