One day, as part of the Christmas celebrations at our workplace, we hosted some street youths from Nanyuki to our office. I do not exaggerate when I say these are the poorest of the poor. We work with the poor every day in the office. But even the poor have homes, and families. These street youth were without both.They smelled terrible, to be frank. They lacked education. OK, you get the picture: they were poor. During this Christmas celebration, we gave each person a loaf of bread and some milk. Now, one of these street youths had a small little girl-- I presume her daughter-- with her. When nobody was watching, I saw a young man give his loaf of bread to the young mother. At this moment, I knew I had witnessed something beautiful. This man, with tattered shoes and dirty clothes, likely without a shilling to his name, gave the one thing he had to someone who needed it more. At that moment, I felt like Jesus was celebrating. I felt like he was saying: "See that guy? That guy gets it."
I keep hearing the word "resistance" these days among those of us who are not happy about the recently inaugurated US President. As I begin to write this, a historic march is beginning in Washington. Many people have the general idea that this man is someone who must be resisted. The more I think about this, the more I think the idea of resistance is not exactly what we as Christians ought to be doing. "Resistance" to me has a defensive connotation: you are resisting against something. In this case, people are resisting against the personality and policy of someone who is leading the most powerful nation in the world. But as Christians, I propose that rather than "resist," we "persist."
Galatians 6:9 says "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Last night, as I opened Twitter on my phone and saw a barrage of tweets about the inauguration of someone who has admitted to grabbing women's genitals, I could have felt very angry. But instead of anger I felt hope. Because, you see, I follow Jesus. I thought of the ways Jesus upset the most powerful empire of his day. I thought of how he just drove the people in power crazy. And how? He taught people to love and forgive instead of hate and fear. He sat down for dinner with the very people the powerful were excluding from society. He healed the sick. Like the mad farmer in Wendell Berry's poem, every day he did something that did not compute. When tempted with power, Jesus refused. And yet he had the authority to raise people from the dead. So as I thought of this cartoon-villain-resembling man becoming president, I thought: Jesus is still King.
And that is not to say that Jesus somehow endorses the US presidency. I just mean that Jesus is still King. His Kingdom is not confined to the United States or any geographical area in the world. His Kingdom grows in people. We pray "Your Kingdom come." His Kingdom comes when that street boy gives away his only loaf of bread. His Kingdom comes when we choose to forgive a person who has deeply wounded us. His Kingdom comes when we hold a baby or child in our arms and, as Mister Rogers would say, love them into being. His Kingdom comes when we make friends with people who are from a different race or class or gender or age or sexual orientation than us. His Kingdom comes when we create a beautiful painting or poem or song. His Kingdom comes when we bake a casserole for someone who's just lost a loved one. His Kingdom comes when we welcome refugees into our homes and our communities. His Kingdom comes when we cultivate the land to help something good grow. His Kingdom comes when we dare to speak the truth about injustice.
The true resistance is within us. It is the choice we have to make. Will I be led by the Holy Spirit, who helps us love, humbly and wisely? Or will I be led by sin, which makes me selfish, to my own destruction? Instead of resisting against something, we are persisting on behalf of something much bigger: God's Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.
This should be old hat for us followers of Jesus. We are always persisting, no matter who is in the White House. We are always living differently than the Kingdom of the world.
Perhaps the most radical thing we can do at this time is persist: persist in love and truth.
I really believe that real change comes from the individual and community level. Persisting in acts of love, Kingdom-building acts, every day, for years and years: that gives glory to the One who really has power. Because here's what I believe: Remember that boy, that young, dirty, poor man, who gave his only loaf of bread away? The Spirit in that boy is more powerful than the President of the United States will ever be.
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