This is the third in a series of four reflections on my time in Africa:

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

“Joe, can you do some of the laundry, I really need to lie down for a while?”

“Sure. Are you feeling okay?”

“No, I’ve got a migraine coming on.”

“No problem.”

Anita’s request struck me as very reasonable, and the idea of me doing laundry isn’t anything new, after all, when I used to come home from college with bags full of dirty clothes, my mom was always quick to say, “Great, I’ll make sure I get all our laundry downstairs so you can do ours while doing yours.” So, at Anita’s request I went outside and began pulling out the laundry buckets and filling each with water, just as I’d observed my friend Kwaku’s domestic help do when she did laundry a few days earlier. In a way I was looking forward to the new experience of doing laundry by hand, if nothing else, for the novelty of it. But everything changed when Consua appeared in the backyard.

Consua is a twenty-something girl from a local village that Kwaku had hired to manage the house. I’m not sure what prompted her to see what I was up to, but the site of me preparing to do laundry prompted a flurry of words in her native Ewe combined with series of hand gesture that I couldn’t misinterpret. While she’d regularly laughed at me when I stepped into the kitchen to see how they were preparing dinner, the thought of me, a man, actually doing laundry was completely unacceptable. She was chasing me away. While I felt bad that she was taking over and doing the work Anita asked me to complete, I felt even worse when she drug Anita out of bed to help her with the task.

As I look back on it, both of us experienced a bit of culture shock in those moments, her at the idea of me doing laundry, and me at the concept of a man doing laundry as unacceptable. This is just one of many instances where cultures collided while we were in Africa. Be it eating fish bones in Togo, walking a goat home and slaughtering it on the back porch in Nairobi, or having Ethiopian adults seeing nothing wrong with grabbing Robbie as we walked by (I’m thinking a small white person was a new experience for some of them). Over and over again during our five month adventure we discovered, delighted in, and found ourselves puzzled by new cultural experiences.

All of these events came to mind one day as I read a bit of David Bosch’s, Transforming Mission. In it, while discussing the Early Church, he quoted a bit from an apologetic work from around 200:

Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life … While they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians … and follow the native custom in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners … Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign … They find themselves in the flesh and yet they live not after the flesh. Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and they surpass the laws in their own lives … War is waged against them as aliens by the Jews, and persecution is carried on against them by the Greeks, yet those who hate them cannot tell the reason for their hostility. In a word, what the soul is in a body, this the Christians are in the world … (they) are kept in the world as in a prison-house, and yet they themselves hold the world together. – Letter to Diognetus (emphasis mine)

Now, without a doubt, there’s a certain level of romanticism to this, but what it describes isn’t all that different than the life that Peter calls congregations in Asia Minor to live out:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

As Peter goes on, he describes how the gospel reorients our everyday vocations, addressing topics like how we live in relationship to our spouse, our employer or employees, and the government. Then, as chapter 3 comes to a close, he declares that the people of God will be challenged by the world around them because the world around them won’t be able to comprehend why they live the way they do. In other words, the world isn’t annoyed by the blowing of vuvuzelas, rather, the world finds itself experiencing culture shock, and sometimes, the only way to deal with the confusion is to lash out in hate.

In the end, I’m convinced that our Christian faith should prompt the world to look at us with the same curiosity as these Ethiopian children who gathered around Robbie trying to figure out this strangely colored child:

This is the second in a series of four reflections on my time in Africa:

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

I have to admit it, I was somewhat surprised to see how much attention the World Cup was getting when I made it back to the States. While it wasn’t quite at the same levels as what I witnessed in South Africa, and really, how could it be, the amount of merchandising and media coverage surrounding the event surprised me. But what takes the cake, at least in my mind, is the amount of television coverage the games have been getting, something I never thought I’d see because soccer does the most unAmerican of things … it doesn’t allow for frequent commercial timeouts.

However given all the coverage, one thing that doesn’t surprise me is the general response to the vuvuzelas, also known as the freakishly annoying horns that buzz incessantly during every match. You see, for most of the last month that we were in Pretoria, the vuvuzelas were just as much a part of the World Cup build up as they are the event itself. For the first few nights, I felt like I needed to hide as I slept to avoid being stung to death by impending attack from the killer bees, but as the month wore on, and now for the games themselves, it’s become more of a background annoyance, sort of like a dull headache that just won’t go away.

Now, matter how you view the constant buzzing, it’s interesting to note how the lips behind the horns view themselves. For those armed with vuvuzelas and blowing as if their life depended on it, the horn isn’t an annoyance, rather, it’s their way of participating in the game … it’s part of what it means to be a fan. This strikes me as interesting, because the exact same action is perceived two entirely different ways, depending on who you are, and in one case, it’s an important part of your identity as a fan, while on the other side, it’s foundation to people’s rejection of you.

As I see it, this parallels an incident that happened about a year ago on the streets of downtown Denver. A fully legal Christian unity even called the Marcha de Gloria took place in a section of downtown where parades, fairs, and other such events typically happen. While I learned the details of what happened at the event the next day on denverpost.com, I’d gone looking to find out what was happening because of the posts that showed up in my Twitter stream during the event itself, posts that complained about Christians shutting down the streets and creating traffic problems. So, while the Christians marched, sang, and other otherwise celebrated their faith (you know, blew their vuvuzelas), what the world around them heard was a long, annoying, buzzing drone that said, “We don’t respect your time.”

In some of the discussions that followed, my family and friends had reactions that fell into one of two basic camps. One one side you had those who defended the Christian’s constitutional right to gather, march, and do all of the things they did. It’s their right, as Americans, to blow their vuvuzelas, after all, just a few weeks earlier, one of the largest gay Pridefest gatherings in the nation took place on the same grounds, blocked off the same streets, and blew their vuvuzelas just as loud (actually, during the four years I lived five blocks from where these events happen, I can say that Pridefest tends to be the event where they’re blown the loudest), so it’s only fair that a Christian gathering receive the same time and consideration.

Then there was the other side, which also happens to be were I reside. Now, I don’t disagree that in the United States, Christians have just as much of a constitutional right to gather, march, sing or blow their vuvuzelas, however, I don’t see that as being the main issue at hand, because I don’t believe Christians should ever base on argument for their actions, be it the Marcha de Gloria or anything else, on their constitutional rights. I hold this position for two reasons, one theological and the second contextual.

First, my theological argument. The simple point is that, for Christians, our lives are no longer about our rights, rather, the Apostle Paul describes us as slaves to Christ, or, as Luther said in the second half of his summary of the Christian life, “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all” (On the Freedom of a Christian). So, rather than asking if it’s our right to do something, Christians should be asking, “Does this love and serve my neighbor, or will I just be annoying people with the buzz of my vuvuzela?”

Second, at least in the United States, Christians are not historically some fringe group that’s been marginalized, rather, Christianity has always held a significant role in American public life, a role that’s even greater if you argue America to be a Christian nation (read my thoughts on this here). Certainly Christianity is loosing the foothold that it once held, but this is a largely conscious decision by the broader culture. In other words, people are saying, “Christianity had it’s time, we don’t like what we’re seeing, so let’s try something else.” As a result, when Christians press for their rights, they come across like the once popular girl in high school who took her social status for granted, lost her popularity, and is now begging for attention and insisting that she be made Prom Queen … to jump analogies, what’s heard is the annoying sound of never-ending vuvuzelas.

Now, some might read this and hear me saying, “We should just conform to the culture around us not allow our beliefs to cause offense.” But that isn’t my argument at all, but I’ll expand upon that next week when reflecting on laundry.

This is the first in a series of four reflections on my time in Africa:

• Pineapples
• Vuvuzelas
• Laundry
• Trash Cans

As I sit here this morning writing, my mind is drawn back five months. I was sitting at the dining table in my friend Kwaku’s home in Lome, Togo. Earlier in the day Anita and I had told him all the wonderful things we’d heard about fruit in Africa, and how we were anxious to taste some of the local treats, so he’d gone out and purchased a pineapple, an acquisition he was now showing us.

Quite honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed. The fruit was sort of a short scraggly tube with a few browning leaves poking out of one end, and, for a moment, I wondered if this was one of the farmer’s rejects, the runt of the pineapple litter. After all, in my experience, pineapple were supposed to be much larger at the base and narrow slightly towards the top before a beautiful array of leaves crowned the fruit. However, not wanting to be rude to my host, I tried to show great joy on the surface, perhaps overly so, because I was trying to disguise the disappointment underneath.

When it came time for the meal itself, the pineapple was the final item placed on the table. Once again, I found myself less than impressed. Rather than having that beautiful yellow color that I was accustom to, this pineapple was white. If I wasn’t so curious, my disappointment might have prevented me from trying any, but the wonder lingered as, earlier in the day, Kwaku had talked about this being pineapple that was grown in the wild … no hybrid seeds, no carefully managed farms, no chemicals, just pineapple as God intended it.

So what does “pineapple as God intended it” taste like? It’s magnificent. It’s the most amazing pineapple I’ve ever tasted. The pineapple taste is more pure and the fruit is so incredibly sweet. Even the core of the pineapple, the piece that Dole cuts out when they sell it to you in cans, is edible. No, it’s not just edible, it’s the best part of the pineapple, and when you bite into it, your mouth is filled with the most incredible sweetness, unlike anything I’ve experienced in the States.

While other pineapples win a beauty contest, all-natural African pineapples reign supreme where it matters most … taste.

This pineapple reality parallels something I’ve notice in Christianity, a religion with a plethora of denominations that have some broad similarities, typically that they use the Bible and talk about Jesus, but also with a wide range of differences, including how they use and interpret the Bible and how they understand the person and work of Jesus.

Some of these variants of Christianity, like the pineapple I’d find in the grocery store down the street, is rather appealing to the eye. Be it Jesus as a sure route to health, wealth, and happiness; the Bible as the world’s largest depository of self-help tips; Jesus as the champion of whatever cause I’m associated with; or just an affirmation that I’m better than (insert one or more of the following: the gays, the pro-choicers, the Democrats, etc. … or if you’re part of the liberal or emerging factions: James Dobson, Pat Robertson, the Republicans, the environmentally unconscious, etc.). I mean, in the end, no matter who I am, there’s a brand of Christianity out there that’s attractive to you.

Then there’s this other story, the all-natural African pineapple version of Christianity, the one that doesn’t look good to anybody. It’s ugly because it starts with humanity being fallen, not in the sense that we’re incapable of civility, compassion, and concern directed towards our neighbors, but in the sense that we have no ability to reach a God who is the very essence of good on our own, and therefore an inability to grasp what is truly good … a reality that chides our independent, self-sufficient nature. It’s a Christianity that would call us to say, “I’m a sinner.” as we speak our core-being, a statement that’s far more offensive than saying, “I’ve committed sins.” when talking about our individual actions.

But the ugly doesn’t stop there, rather, it only increases. This faith doesn’t promise us riches or comfort, rather it tells us that life will be about death to self and sacrifice for others. To make it uglier still, there’s no room for self-help in this faith, because it boldly declares that we can’t help ourselves, rather, we’re dependent upon Christ coming to us and save us from ourselves. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s even uglier to our eyes because it’s a Christianity that gives us no reason to be proud or to disparage others, because even our faith that clings to Christ’s promises is a gift from God … we’ve done nothing, so we have no room to boast.

Oddly enough, it’s for the same reasons that it’s ugly, that I find this version of Christianity to be so very sweet. Because it’s all about Jesus, his faithfulness to me, and the trustworthy nature of his promises, there’s never any doubt. There’s no question on my part about being good enough. There’s no wondering when life gets difficult if God has somehow abandoned me. I never have to wonder why we can’t seem to get it right. Moreover, there’s an incredible freedom that comes with it, freedom to live and act and serve and love knowing even when I fail, Christ is there.

That’s the Christianity I cling to, and it’s the Christianity I teach … it certainly looks ugly on the outside, but once you bite into it, there’s nothing sweeter.