These past two weeks in Romania have certainly bit a bit of a blur. I have been swept away by our ministry Hope Church, there hasn’t been a second that I haven’t loved what I’m doing with them. My ministry with them started by doing photography for them at a baptismal event (these apparently trump birthday parties here). Since then, I have had the opportunity to photograph several events for them, I have been able to get to know some of the Ukrainian refugees they’re assisting, and I’ve been able to dive into tough theological conversations with members of the church as we strive together to brush away the tradition of man (Mark 7:6-8) and instead instill kingdom culture.
With everything that ‘living life in the ‘fast lane’ is, I wanted to take a moment to stop and process what the Lord has impressed upon me. In photographing the events for our ministry, I’m reminded of culture’s potent effect upon man. If culture is the source of our morality and values, why are we not instituting kingdom culture and elevating it above American culture or Romanian culture. Many, especially with the States, are happy to chase after God until it comes to our choices of literature or music or virtual media consumption, &c. We often make the excuse that our selection of kingdom culture pales in comparison. We say that worship is nice and all, but it doesn’t scratch that itch that everything else does. If our hearts want what we feed them (Jonathan Pokluda), why have we bloated our hearts on the gluttonous and temporal desires of the world. I want to be a part of the kingdom that institutes culture that points to Him in everything, something that, while it perchance does not explicitly say His name, honors Him and drives people towards Him.
In spending time with some of the Ukrainian refugees, my heart has been continually broken by how much war is a violent and destructive erasure of the home. One of them, a Kyivan art student, painted several scenes of the former nature surrounding her former home in southern Ukraine. Another refugee from the same town wistfully reminisced about the lush landscape before lamenting about how it now stands as a blackened plane, bereft of live. Everyone, when asked as to why the Russian government would shell their home, a relatively unassuming town, responded with equal, if not more, incredulity at the nonsensical and cruel abuse inflicted upon them and their families. I had forgotten the sense of removal that living in America inculcates. So often, everything is miles and miles away from us both in distance and in thought. War is real, but never for me, others are hurt but their struggles are as a misfortune in a narrative, and oh so far away. Hearing their stories, the bombardment is made real, the cries of those whom life has been stolen from become palpable, and the tears of those who have lost are felt welling up in my own eyes. If a father weeps as their newborn face hurt and pain, I can only imagine the pain of the true Father as He witnesses both the tear-wrenching loss inflicted upon His beloved children and casual cruelty with which His other children inflict it. How this wretched duality must grieve Him.
The third realization impressed upon myself, while it occurred here, I saw that it had far reaching roots into American culture as well. I saw how tradition has so burdened down people that they are unable to lift their heads from their yokes to see Christ, instead they happily say that which they carry and holds them down is their freedom and salvation. In our weekly ‘Hard Topics’ discussions we meet with mostly older folks to try and press through difficult-to-stomach theological truths to try and find out what stands in our lives as a barrier to Christ. In the most recent one I attended, a woman said that she didn’t want to confess her sins to Christ but rather a priest for only with the penance that they would give her, could she truly be and feel forgiven. She went on to state that Christ wasn’t a priest so why would she confess her sins to Him. After sharing Hebrews 4:14-16 and 7:26-8:2, she responded curtly by inviting us to confess to Him ourselves and to leave her be to confess to priests as she wills. Immediately, Mark 7:6-8 sprang to mind, how we worship Him in vain, adhering to our own law instead of His, covering it in vain platitudes as we try to attribute it to Him. It breaks my heart because I see the same thing at home as so many lock themselves in a denomination and command that all ought to believe as they do, and any aberration is sin that will surely lead to eternal condemnation. The American church has become so locked in the pursuit of righteousness as well, that is has become full of ungrace and often condemns whatever lies outside its borders as being less when they forget that they themselves are in need in need of the same grace and have just as much condemned Christ to the cross as those they belittle in the name of religion. So many have become Pharisees and the woes of Matthew 23 apply to them just as much as it does to the pharisees of old.
Christ has freed us. There is so much of course that we don’t understand, but the heart of the heart of the gospel is well understood. We have been saved by grace, and by His love, we are now enabled and commanded to share this same grace. The law has been abolished, and the curtain torn, so that it need only be that simple. We are told that:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” 1 Corinthians 13:7-8
So too shall we then love all, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, and never flag in doing so. We shall do so in pursuit of the Father, and in pursuit of one another because, once we remove all the man made red-tape that has obscured the heart of God, we shall see that it is truly that simple (Romans 13:8-10). Of course, it isn’t easy, but as it has been done for us and we have the blessing to do the exact same for others, so let us do so with eager and full hearts.
