I had a very gratifying dinner with a World
Vision supporter last week. Ed and his wife had spent a day at a World Vision
project in Ethiopia recently and was telling me about the experience.
He said that one of their most meaningful encounters was meeting a group
of clergy, consisting of both Christian and Muslim faith leaders. These
pastors and imams admitted that they used to distrust and even hate each other
and would cross the road to avoid encountering each other. Yet today they
are collaborators and co-laborers for the good of their community. Ed and
his wife visited a community-wide childcare program operating in a church, and
a program for widows and orphans run by an imam. And today, these faith
leaders, former enemies, now smile and touch, a friendly arm on each other's
shoulder.
This change is stunning, worthy of Isaiah's
vision of dangerous animals lying down together.
(Parenthetically, this report was also very
gratifying for me personally, because World Vision's Innovation Fund underwrote
the pilot of this “Faith-Based Forum” project. FBF had recently been created in
the tinder box of mixed-religion refugee settings. Great distrust turned to
enmity and was erupting in violence. Creating clergy dialog and joint programs
for the benefit of children was beginning to bear fruit in that setting, and
now our grant attempted to apply this same promising idea in well-established
mixed-faith communities, where tensions could also simmer and were at times
erupting. World Vision itself has experienced some violence against our
offices in the past.* FBF is designed to engage the disparate faith communities
in their shared commitment to their children, and in the process to build
understanding, trust and peaceful relations between the faiths. Three
years ago I was in a different region of Ethiopia where we met two nascent FBF
groups. They were collegial though still somewhat formal, and they were making
early plans to create programs, and were also honoring and even attending each
other's religious holy day events. So Ed's report was the next gratifying
chapter, both in the progress of interpersonal relations and their solid and
active programming. These were no longer simply plans, but now established efforts
caring for the most vulnerable. And FBF is spreading all over Africa, which is
exactly the goal of the Innovation Fund!)
Ed said that the imam who ran the outreach for
widows and orphans was quite intimidating at first encounter... tall, dark,
formal. But immediately as this Muslim cleric began talking about the outreach
program to orphans and widows, and the collaboration between the faith
communities for the sake of the most vulnerable, his passion shined through and
warmed the room.
To Ed, the whole idea of Faith-Based Forums was
a great encouragement. "I grew up in a church that talked a lot
about grace. But this always seemed to me to be a conditional grace, dependent
on a person doing certain things or believing certain things. But here World Vision
is extending grace and help to everyone in the community without reservation.
There was no withholding of assistance or relationship or engagement as a way
to pressure or coerce anyone."
As I listened to Ed, I thought it interesting
that World Vision puts this program under its "Christian Witness"
umbrella. We both wondered if some might disagree about this being a
"witness", and yet it struck me as being perfectly so. It
mirrors exactly Jesus' approach to people, and as such, WV’s actions here are a
living, active witness to Jesus himself… not to mention a reflection of God,
who provides the sun and rain to everyone without condition. (Matt 5:45)
"Conditional grace." It doesn't even make sense. Yet how often is this exactly the kind of grace I extend, which isn't grace at all.
Really, is "conditional grace" any
kind of witness to the real Jesus? It's certainly an adulteration of how we
claim God treats us. Yet we are so very adept at bending our interpretations to
accomplish our agenda or to get others to do our bidding, even to the point of
withholding the very love we've been shown. Where's the good news in that?
Lord, have mercy on us. Show us Your grace.
And as a result may we extend the same authentic love and grace we have been
shown. May we truly be your children, as it is written: "But I
say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that
you may be children of your Father in heaven." (Matt 5:44)
Cory
October 2014
* Inter-religious distrust has impacted WV
offices including in Afar, Ethiopia, where the office was attacked by an angry
mob of youth and the ADP manager was nearly killed. My granddaughter Emmy and I
had a powerful experience of being with this man on the day he first
encountered some of his former attackers... at their high school! You can read
about it here: http://corytrenda.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-new-hero.html or catch up on other past meditations.
