Jesus Was There

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

— The Gospel of Luke

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Dear Kate,

Pentecost Sunday it was, this past Sunday, a good time to kill some attackers reckoned, and achieved their goal 50 times over with presumably the press of a button, in Nigeria, where families and children gathered to celebrate truly living, living truly, no Zoom church it was, the descent of the Holy Spirit not for our convenience, never quite safe.  The massacre made headline for no longer than a commercial break, breaking no commerce in our convenient, safe life, this side of holiness.

I asked many questions in these letters, and you might have grown to expect them rhetorical.  I hope you don't.  I do expect answers.  I don't come here to compete for your attention.  I would sooner attend my own funeral than online church, if this claim says anything about why I am writing now.  The word "devotion," what does it mean to you?

The question today is: What am I to do if someone is to point a gun at me and say, "I am going to fuck your face up now because of the way it looks to me, which looks Asian, looks disagreeable, looks like the very thing that gives me all my life's troubles"?

Hardly rhetorical.  Somewhat practical.  I had the statement spoken to my face in various ways, more than occasionally, mostly when at work, while trying to help the very terrorizer I was facing.  I am not going to speak any details because the devil is not in them, not who I was facing.  I am only asking you to imagine and trust that you would.  (What would it take for you to imagine, truly? this might be your first question.)

You might imagine when I hear someone fighting for me, on my behalf, advancing a progressive, anti-hate agenda, especially in particular to the benefit of my ethnic group, my home team, I must be more than delighted.  Even if the justice warrior is really a self-promoting demagogue, if nothing else his swagger is swaggering for my interests.  I've been treated unfairly: I need more than a fair mind to deal evil less than a fair hand.

You imagined right...if.

If I see the public square as an arena of competing narratives, that the advancement of mine must necessarily cancel out those of the others.  If I see those deserving cancelation relegated to a moral category conveniently lowered than and neatly divided from mine.  If I am so confused to have confused the meanings of progress, regress, and digress, and ask not fundamental, perennial human questions.

If what I want is not what Jesus wants, what he asked for, yearned for, died for, on the cross.

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," is this what I prayed when facing my terrorizers?  I am happy to tell you, yes, sometimes these very words, sometimes less than as generously.  I am happier to tell you it is about the easiest prayer.  It unburdens me of what only Jesus can carry.  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

How do you stop a bullet?  How do we stop hate?  Some people claim we can "eradicate" racism and "conquer" hatred, confident in the triumph of their own goodness and sober in condemning the ills in others.  To trust these dreamers you will need to suspend many disbeliefs, not least about the face you see in the mirror.

One time the one who came to terrorize said, facing somewhere else than me, "I can tell you care."  That was at the end, after I spent a good deal of time and effort dignifying him, caring about his affairs as if they were mine.  It was a triumph, not mine: Jesus's, on the cross, my contempt nailed there, the gift of joy I passed on.  I performed no anti-hate maneuver on him, because I knew in my heart of hearts that he did not come to hate, especially not specifically to hate me.  He did not come to terrorize.  He came for something good, and somehow found it in himself.  And for that, we both saw each other a bit more clearly.

I am too seasoned in my role to speak naively about human evil, offering you here no chicken soup for your soul.  But you can say, yes, bullet can be stopped, one at a time, in our every human interaction.  Reconciled to God and Man, one finds no need to go down the fated trajectory of a bullet.  The big warriors' sloganeering to go against hate, ironically, often distorts the face we see in each other - and make my job harder by rendering me a piece of mere statistic in their often political calculations.

Nigeria, this past Sunday, Jesus was there.  And He will continue to manifest Himself in the joy and sorrow of those grieving, those who choose to unburden themselves of what only He could carry, those who choose forgiveness, choose love, choose life.

Yours, Alex