living the story: culmination

This is the final of a four-part series in which I narrate how I have sensed recent events in my life reenacting the story of the Bible, particularly around the relationship between the primary commitments of God, family, and ministry.

If I have been recently tested as to whether my commitment to family is indeed before ministry, I had not yet undergone the trial of God before family. Many people, I suppose, confuse the commitment to God with that to ministry; so what might a distinction between the two actually look like?

It looks like Genesis 22, the story of Abraham's "sacrifice" of Isaac, "his beloved son."

I also have a beloved son named Isaac.

Throughout our time in Africa, I have been particularly worried about how Isaac--not his two younger brothers--is doing in relation to our ministry. My worries about how he might react to some of our more intense efforts to engage with the local population have prevented me from pursuing some of those "ministry" relationships as much as I might otherwise. Still we often wondered whether God did not want us to do something more radical in reaching out to the people with whom we work: move to a rural area, for example, where we would have no choice but to use more of the Xhosa language, thereby deepening relationships. We had no clear word regarding this matter; we resolved to stay put until we had an unmistakable revelation.

That revelation came in the form of an eviction from our home of three years. Yet it did not result in the scenario I have outlined above.

When our landlord informed us last December that she would not be renewing our lease, we thought that maybe this was the door we needed to move out of town. We pursued the decision with our church in Mandela Park, a former informal settlement outside Mthatha--just the kind of place to which we had an itch to move.

We told them our sad story. The pastor said, "Must we find a place for you?"

"Please," I replied, "even in Mandela Park."

That was a big moment for me. I had never been able to express to that point my willingness to move to such a place. I still had too many fears--founded or not--related to my children.

The morning after, we went to the beach with the children of the church. The pastor said that one of the members had already found us a place. It was in Southridge Park--decidedly not a place like Mandela Park.

We checked the place out. I was convinced that it was the place God had prepared for us. Anna had doubts.

On Sunday I told the people that we "were serious when we said we could live in Mandela Park."

"We can do it," I pleaded, giving them another chance to find us a place among them. "Do you believe we can?"

Heads shook around the room.

"I have a response to that," said the pastor. "Because we also love you, we will not let you live here. The crime of this place is too bad, and it is a burden that only we of this place must bear."

After a week of intense anxiety, forced to make a decision about living arrangements in a city with few options, I was relieved simply to have clarity. We would take the place God--and indeed the local church--had given us. Yet we did not take it before God had tested me.

Like Abraham, I had to decide whether God was more faithful than my fears, wiser than my wisdom. Did God love the beloved son more than I did? God was waiting for me to say so.

In that moment, when "even Mandela Park" rolled off my tongue, I laid Isaac bound upon the altar.

And God gave Isaac back. With more blessings to follow.

-Joe

living the story, part three

Speaking of the threefold hierarchy: God first, family second, ministry third, my conviction about its importance coincides with that of the pastor with whom I am currently working.

He recently made the following confession before his little congregation.

Many years ago, as a very young evangelist, he and his wife conceived and she bore their first child. As he kept up a heavy slate of revivals under the authority of another minister, his young child became quite ill. His wife needed him at home. His overseeing minister told him that the child would be fine; God would heal him because his father was doing the work of the Lord.

The child died.

Following this, the union was blessed with three healthy sons.

Years later, the pastor was working again under the authority of another traveling preacher. This overseer actively encouraged his protege to take other women, even as the overseer himself attempted to woo his protege's wife. A period of separation resulted between the pastor and his wife. Various friends intervened to help the couple clarify the confusion, untangle motives, and eventually, to reunite.

Then a confession, first to his wife more than a year ago, then to his congregation just two weeks ago: during the period of their separation, the pastor had conceived a child with another woman.

He feared the worst. His wife forgave him. Now he was asking the church to do the same.

It was a powerful story, followed by powerful exegesis.

"When it says in Genesis that the man and his wife were naked together, it does not mean simply that they were not wearing clothes," the pastor explained. "It means that there was nothing between them. They were completely naked to each other."

He went on. "We Mpondos [one of the large clans in this area of South Africa] are under a curse we inherited from our forefathers: our fathers did not go along with our mamas. Even in the church, we pastors have not had our wives by our side."

Two weeks before this was revealed, I had a dream.

Anna and I approached a house. Alone inside, eating supper at a dining room table, was the pastor's wife. She was distraught. We asked her what was wrong. Through tears she said, "Tata has not come home from work. It has been two days now."

I awoke troubled.

The next day was a Sunday. The pastor was at church, but he was ill. I did not want to tell him the dream so as to trouble him further in his tired state. A week or so later, I was prompted to share the dream in the presence of both pastor and wife.

"Enkosi, Tata," "Thank you, father," he said, taking my hand and giving me a knowing glance.

After the confession on a subsequent Sunday, the dream suddenly became clear to me. Mama Mfundisi (the pastor's wife) had been through far more than we had imagined: the death of a child early on in their marriage, the confusion related to her husband's overseer, her husband's indiscretion, the revelation of a half-sibling to her own sons. She was still harboring fears about their relationship, doubts as to whether he would remain faithful, doubts perhaps as to whether he would leave her behind for the sake of his work--his ever-growing call to ministry.

"Tata has not come home. It has been two days . . . "

"It is like that," the pastor confided in me within the following week. "Mama has said recently that it feels like I was running from her."

"But I know now that if I have to stay late at work, loading that truck," he says, pointing to the vehicle he drives for his day-job, "that I must call my wife and tell her exactly where I am. And I practice that."

"When Jesus comes back," he told his congregation, "he will not ask me 'Where is the church.' He will say to me, 'Where is your family.' The wife of Jesus is the church. I must first care for my wife.

living the story, part two

I associate a second "attack" with the first for, in the absence of any other uniting evidence, its coming upon the heels of a sermon I preached on the same theme of servant-leadership.

On the Monday after this sermon, our family left for a two-day vacation to celebrate Anna's birthday on our favorite spot on the Wild Coast. We had a great time. Then we packed up to return to Mthatha.

On the way home, as we pulled back into the city limits, we stopped at Steers to pick up lunch. I left the family in the car as I went inside. While I was waiting at the counter having placed my order, I removed my ball cap, rubbed my disheveled hair and eyes tired from the drive, and probably let out a deep sigh or two. From the left I heard a voice say once, and then a second time to get my attention, "you need to relax, man."

"Where are you from?" the man behind the voice continued.

I knew what he was looking for. Having been identified as a foreigner, I chose to cut to the chase and just say "America". "But I live in Mthatha now," I added.

He proceeded to educate me on a number of subjects: "We don't cut people's hearts out and eat them like they do in Rwanda. This is South Africa. You've got to draw the line somewhere."

He proceeded to berate the young woman working behind the counter.

"Where's my friend's order? If you want to get anything here, you have to ask for it," he said, coming back at me. He badgered the woman still more.

He raises his eyebrows at me. He throws some glances at the woman, who, thankfully, at this point is paying him no attention. "The dark meat, that's where it's at. Every one who smiles at you, take her."

"I don't operate that way," I insisted. "I'm married."

"So am I," he said incredulously. "It doesn't matter. Can't you give this man some ice cream," he returned to the young woman, "for his wife."

I could not wait to get out of there. Now my order really was taking its precious time.

I had not been in the mood from the start, when this drunk had approached me with what felt very much like an accusation: "You need to relax, man."

I pride myself on being relaxed. And I take other people's criticisms seriously. But I was not going to take too seriously this particular guy's "counsel". I finally got our food. I wished him well, we shook hands. I was relieved to leave. I was also disturbed by the encounter.

As I relayed it to Anna, it dawned on me that this was another attack: a demon of sorts who had met me upon my return from the wilderness in order to gain some kind of upper hand over me.

"You need to relax, man."

"I know who you are."

I would never pretend to be in the place of Jesus; yet I had been perceiving, as I preached his words from the gospels, that his Spirit was leading me. Whatever possessing spirit--not the man himself--recognized that.

I do need to relax: this I know. It is in fact why I have been preaching about leadership in the first place; pastors must not feel that they have to do everything, that they bear the burden of saving the world. A prior responsibility to ministry is to relax with one's wife and children, to delight in one's primary relationships. As a result, "you need to relax" on the lips of this man was not a word of prophecy for me; it was a (vain) attempt to derail me in the priorities I had set for myself: God first, family second, ministry third. These are not commitments to relax.

living the story, part one

My time in Africa is teaching me that, in terms of work, I am as much preacher as anything else. And as I ply that trade, I find myself increasingly accountable to the words I utter in the midst of the congregation; I sense increasingly that God wants to re-enact the story of scripture in my own life. I experience this as a privilege and yet a fearful thing.

I have observed that, just after I am close to a breakthrough in communication, I receive an inexplicable "attack." The first one came last May.

I had just delivered a passionate teaching about servant-leadership in the Bible school. Specifically, I had called for pastors to share the load of ministry, not to hoard responsibility for the sake of glory. The model, of course, is Jesus, whose ministry lasted but three years in order that we might take it up through the power of his Holy Spirit.

The next day, resting in the confidence of a successful teaching even as the level of my having been drained tempered my joy, I heard a knock on our door. There stood one of our neighbors. His face was grim.

"I'm going to be straight with you, Joe. Did I see you teasing my dogs."

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. But the depth of his consternation induced a deep guilt nonetheless.

As it turns out, my shock and earnest confusion quickly convinced him that he had not seen what he thought he had. The heaviness in his face gave way to the lightness of a smile. We exchanged polite conversation for the next two or three minutes even as my head continued to spin in the confusion of the original accusation.

After he left I came to a realization of what he might have seen. A few boys from the neighborhood had earlier asked to borrow our pump for their soccer ball. I walked up the lane by the neighbor's house, past the ever incessantly barking dogs, pump in hand to where some other boys were waiting with the ball. They pumped up their ball. I returned the same way pump in hand past the dogs. What the neighbor thought he saw was me teasing his dogs with a "stick" of sorts.

I decided to go to our neighbor and clarify that he had indeed probably seen me, that the stick was the ball pump, but that there was no intention of teasing the dogs; indeed I did not even know that it could have appeared that I may have been swinging the pump as I wandered down the lane. His heaviness returned. Yet he "assured" me that "I'll do what Jesus would do and forgive you." My clarification was now apology; I was guilty. But I would have to be content with the guilt/absolution equation worked out for me.

One line from the original encounter kept haunting me. "Teasing the dogs," was unacceptable because "I believe that we need to be the leaders of the country."

What in common had I with this man? Who together were "we"? And as opposed to whom were "we"?

I was being tested to confront in myself what I had just proclaimed to others. Was I to seize the mantle of leadership, perpetuating in the sphere of my own relationships, the status quo of privilege along lines of ethnicity, age, or gender? The words spoken by my neighbor held out this option.

Or was I to persist in the laborious task of convincing an historically disempowered people that it was they--and not simply those whom they had always viewed as masters (literally "boss")--whom God, in love, had entrusted the responsibility of leadership. The words of the One whom I call "Lord" hold out this.

Beneath the glare of the gospel, there are deficiences in the leadership models operative in the various divisions of South African society. As God holds my life accountable to the words I preach, may others be drawn to give their lives so that all may truly live.

-Joe