Dream Awakener

Painting by Asian artist He Qi

A guest post by Geoff Maddock

So how can we imagine what “going far enough” looks like?  I want to offer a companion text to the good Samaritan story.  If we imagine what kind of person this Samaritan is and what kind of life he is living we are challenged to fill out the picture.  What happens when this good Samaritan goes home?  What is his home like?  Does he shop at Wal-Mart?  Does he have energy-saver light bulbs?  Is he known at work as “that do-gooder Samaritan”? Does he obsess about attending every church meeting and run out of time to get to know his neighbors?  Does he take an interest in local and global political conversations?  Can he afford to eat organic?…and if so, does he?  Does he have dear, old friends with whom he disagrees about religion, politics, and economics?

So we roll the story back to Jeremiah and get some advice from non other than “The Lord.”  When the people are completely confused about where to go next and how to live in this foreign land, God tells Jeremiah to make themselves at home.

Jer. 29:7  “Seek the welfare (peace, shalom, wholeness, righteousness) of the city.

Read verses 4-7 and you will discover some very enduring and time consuming disciplines – tree planting, home building, marrying your children off.  Another way of framing this is to seek “the common good” of the place in which you live.  Apparently this is how the realpolitik of the Kingdom is revealed.  The challenge for us is to slow down, shun self-interest and to soften our eyes to the world around us.  It is indeed time for a Holy optimism through good works, a Peaceful indignation through solidarity with the poor and with those who are working to undermine poverty.  It is also time for us to think about growing old together in the bond of grounded community, not just enjoying the adventure of limited, voluntary association with the place and people around us.  The full acceptance of this advice to the exiles will require a commitment to continuity over many years in the same place.

I am coming to believe that we will need to pursue long range commitments if we are to be fully caught up (raptured) by the present-tense apocalypse.  This is what it means to be swept up in God’s mission of love and justice, reconciliation and shalom.  This is what it means to follow the radical rabbi from Nazareth.  Aren’t we just as likely to see Jesus meandering down the backstreet of some neighborhood pressed down by urban decay?  As you read the gospels can’t you imagine Jesus walking alongside activists in a Mountain Top Removal protest or squatting an abandoned house in an abandoned part of your city?  Can’t you hear the confusion caused by this virtuous man partying with the unlovely people in the wrong bars.  It is important to note that the proper knowledge of these things – the meaning behind certain streets in a neighborhood, the particular details about local and regional issues, where people live and how they make sense of their lives – is only possible through years and years of really being present to the particular place of our dwelling.

This all sounds a bit hard… stay tuned for the final installment of this series.

Geoff makes his home in Lexington, KY, with his wife Sherry and their son Isaac. They work together to serve as missionaries, share in the life of their intentional community (communality), get jobs to pay the bills, and conspire with anyone longing for the love and justice Jesus embodies. Geoff and Sherry also share and learn with Forge America to help others develop the awareness and grace needed for mission in the Western context.