Stones to Bread
Intercultural Fiesta Fail
No one at the fiesta that day would have mistaken me for anything but what I am. I'm relieved. Whatever borders I cross next—whether countries or church pews—I can give up the guilty fiction that I can become the other. I do know, however, that I can at least be among the other. There, among the women, I hope they marveled, as I did, that redemption is so wide it even includes a middle-aged gringa with bad Spanish and stinky feet.
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Related Elsewhere:
Other Christianity Today articles related to missions and ministry include:
Portland's Quiet Abolitionists | Leading the liberal city's efforts to halt child trafficking is a network of dedicated Christians. Just don't go advertising it. (This Is Our City, October 31, 2011)
Missionary Money: Easier to Give, Worth Less than Ever | The new challenges of missions donations. (October 25, 2011)
The Foot-Washers of Ethiopia | A mysterious disease, misdiagnosed for decades, finds healing in Christian hands. (May 31, 2011)
Previous articles and columns by Leslie Leyland Fields include:
A Wordless Presence | Where spit, blood, and sweat are to be found, so is God. (September 14, 2011)
The Power and the Glamour| Searching for Beauty amid Hollywood's beautiful people. (July 25, 2011)
People of the Nook| What Bible smartphone apps tell us about the Book. (May 16, 2011)
A Feast Fit for the King| Returning the growing fields and kitchen table to God. (November 5, 2010)
The Myth of the Perfect Parent| Why the best parenting techniques don't produce Christian children. (January 8, 2010)
Stones to Bread
Leslie Leyland Fields
Leslie Leyland Fields is a writer, speaker and professional editor who lives on Kodiak Island, Alaska in the winter and Harvester Island in the summer, where she works in commercial salmon fishing with her family. She cohosts "Off the Shelf" on KMXT Public Radio and is the author of Parenting Is Your Highest Calling, Surprise Child, and other books.
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E Harris
What this article appears to be driving towards (whether the author realizes it or not) is that our equality in Christ, and freedom in Christ, means that we don't need an external government to equalize us - or equalize our resources. We are blessed in Christ. We are saved in Christ. We voluntarily offer love and care. Jesus leads us personally, in a walk of grace, where we sometimes stumble and he picks us back up (sometimes using a mature brother to help). Bottom line is: we don't need external equalizers, in order to be saved or "be good." Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty! - not ingratitude, selfishness, myopicness, panic, or coveting other's possessions (in the guise of "social justice"). I realize that the author is more gracious in his presentation of these truths than I am. But I am tired of "social justice" being a guise for practically every sin out there...to the point where Muslim Brotherhood is now throwing up the peace sign and crying "social justice."
E Harris
Hallelujah! "...The basis for loving our neighbors, and for unity in Christ, is not proximity, understanding, or commonality. We are one in Christ not because we are one and the same, but because Christ is the same. It is an impoverished theology that mistakes unity in Christ for sameness in Christ. The perfection toward which we are heading, the extinction of our sin nature, will not blur us all into homogeneity. At Pentecost, a foretaste of heaven, the Holy Spirit did not repair the splintering of language begun at Babel, the miracle we would expect. Christ unified the multi-tongued hearers not through the same language, but through the hearing of the same gospel." We have the unity that the world seeks. Invisible, intangible, and spiritual. We express it when we freely gather, and wherever we go. We don't have to be the same, or have all the same stuff, or be externally equalized. We have JESUS as our unity, and doorway to love! He saves! Anything less leads to marxism.
Brenda
I just returned from over two weeks spent with Christians in India. I fully agree with the statement, "We are one in Christ, not because we are one and the same, but because Christ is the same." How blessed we are that Christ embraces all in his expression of radical hospitality, and we can follow that example by freely caring about, interacting with, and enjoying our international neighbors.