Andy Shudall is the pastor at Eastgate Christian Centre, a Baptist church in Auckland.
I’m writing from Honiara.
Someone left a comment under an Easter sermon clip on YouTube.
"I object to you, an import, speaking the mumbo jumbo! Speak English!"
She meant it as an insult. I'm thinking it was an accidental gift.
Eastgate partners with World Vision in the Solomon Islands through Chosen, their child sponsorship programme. I've come for a few days to see the work, to meet the children, to pray, to be changed by what I cannot see from Aotearoa. Today I walked hand in hand with children who live beside a rubbish tip. Poverty and riches in the same afternoon, in the same small hands. My comforts seemed impoverished and insignificant in contrast to their joy, curiosity, and fun.
Standing in the Solomons, Auckland looks different. The anxieties which may feel structural from inside daily life in New Zealand look like optional additions. The things we call problems are mostly the problems of the comfortable. Poverty and discrimination are real the world over, but how to fit in both children's sports and children's tutoring is a stress we manufacture.
The Apostle Peter wrote to people who knew the disorientation of disadvantage by necessity rather than by choice. "Elect exiles" he calls them, scattered across five Roman provinces, none of them ‘at home’. He doesn't write to fix the displacement; he writes to the displaced.
"Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles."
The condition isn't a problem, it's the way we must understand ourselves.
And so, back to the YouTube commenter. She thought she was identifying a fault.
"You do not belong here. You are an import."
What she wrote is accidentally something Peter would encourage: "Yes! Precisely!" No Christian belongs in the way she meant. Our faith arrives from somewhere else. Every culture that has received the gospel received it from outside; the paramount question is whether it's true.
Imports come in two kinds: expats who manage distance with the possibility of a return to their origin; exports sent to stay. It's not just where, but how you stand where you are.
Where we stand ‘here’ in Christ, not where we were born, not the accent we carry, not the cultural instincts we're still unlearning; not the background we come from, but the foreground we're heading toward.
Christians don't belong here, not yet. Jesus displaces us, literally. We're strange strangers everywhere. That's not a problem to manage, it's the outcome of being sent.
The commentator wanted me quieter, to conform. The children of the Solomons have made me quieter, differently than the keyboard warrior desired. I'm listening harder and holding cultural certainties more loosely. I'm more convinced than ever that Christ is Lord, and less convinced than ever that I've fully understood what that means.
That, I think, is how this is supposed to work. An import, imploring you to join me, not in Honiara, nor even in Auckland, but in Christ: displaced, dismayed even, but thankful and made joyful.
Image credit: Andy Shudall
