My reading list this week has included Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block
and Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just
which have taught me a few things:1. You think you aren't racist? You are racist when you think "Oh that's just their culture, but we do it this way" particularly if you are implying that your way is the right way and their way is "just" their culture.
2. You think you aren't racist? You are racist when you teach your children to ignore color. That which you keep a mystery or forbidden subject becomes something to fear, and thus breeds racism.
3. You think some people shouldn't be helped because they caused their own trouble? Then you don't understand the doctrine of grace or the gospel.
4. You think you are special and can move into the city and be somebody's hero? What you really need to do is just touch the people around you whereever you are, just because you have a gospel heart towards them that absolutely compels you to just love them. Who they are. Where they are.
Various people and things do need to be fixed, sure. That's true everywhere- urban, suburban, exurban, or rural. People are hurting, people are causing hurt, people are tripped up, man. There but for the grace of God go I- I mean, for real. I struggle every day with just wanting my cushy comfortable life. But that's not what Jesus was about, and I want to be a Jesus follower. So I have to get down with the kind of people that Jesus was concerned with.
Who is your neighbor?
1 comments:
Hmmm. Very thoughtful. I love to get on a middle class hate train, seething at the white bourgeois entitlement mentality, but I think some of your insights apply wonderfully, regardless of who I am judging. People everywhere are messed up, including me. Thanks for the reminder.
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