"Perhaps for Christians there is no more dangerous place to be than safety and comfort detached from the suffering and pain of our world.” The words of Paul from I Corinthians 12 paint a different picture, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it;”
I’ll never forget the moment. Adrienne and I were sitting in the church service in a renovated mall in Grand Rapids, MI listening to Pastor Marvin Williams. Pastor Marvin, who’s African-American spoke to our all white mega-church about Isaiah 58 and God’s words to Israel saying, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the change of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” He shared during that sermon of an experience he had when he was sitting in a diner eating breakfast and an older white man walked by him and said, “What are you doing here boy?” Boy is a racial slur dating back to Jim Crow. He shared about race in America in a way I’d never heard before. My heart broke at the sin of racism and the complicity of the church.
A few years later I was sitting at a coffee shop with a fellow brother in the Lord, Pastor Matt Mcgue, who’s also of European descent, talking about our heart for racial reconciliation. A woman who was sitting next to us who was African American kindly asked us as we were wrapping up our time, “Why are you two white men so open to this conversation about race?” We both shared our different reasons.
That question, “Why are you so open?” has resonated with me for years. Why am I so open to the conversation about race?
I think I can answer that question better now. It’s because God has led me down a path of emotional health to face the oppression of my own soul over the last fifteen years. I’ve come face to face with the darkness and ugliness of my false self in all of its destructive tendencies. Simply put, I’ve been broken by my sin and Christ has healed me and it’s made my heart fertile to look at the ugliness and pain of the sin of racism in our country and church.
When we enter into our suffering and oppression, it allows us to enter into the suffering and oppression of others.
I believe this kind of heart is what Jesus is getting to in Mark 4 when he talks about receiving the kingdom of God. He compares people’s hearts to four kinds of soil; on the path, among rocky places, among thorns, and on fertile ground. When your heart has been broken by your own struggles and healed by the Father, you embrace your own humanity, and it opens you up much more to the pain and suffering of others.
When the spa shootings occurred here in Atlanta in March 2021, specifically targeting Asian-American women, some close friends in the Asian-American community invited me into their pain. The days after I sat with our Asian American brothers and sisters through the power of the Spirit.
This latest round of racialized violence is another opportunity for the church to suffer together. To ignore the racial elements surrounding the events in Atlanta is to ignore history and reality. The Gospel Coalition wrote a great article about this event.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know Pastor Andrew Eun at Daniel’s Prayer Garden in Alpharetta. After last week’s tragic event, I sat with him in the pain and suffering of his lived reality of being an Asian-American man in this country. He’s shared story after story of what it means to be a part of the 6% Asian American population and that the FBI has recorded over 3,500 Asian-American hate crimes since the Corona Virus has been in our country. The pain in the Asian American community is real.
This is the invitation for the church at this time, to enter into the pain and suffering of their brothers and sisters in Christ of color. Christ has taken on human flesh and entered into our pain, so we can now enter into the pain and suffering of others, particularly those in the family of God. When you really enter into cross-cultural, racial, and class relationships with an open mind and heart, the oppression of others opens your eyes to a whole new world. As Atticus Finch says in, To Kill A Mockingbird; "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
Paul ends his letter to the Galatians with the challenge to, “Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law.”
Come, let us suffer together because Christ has entered into our suffering.
For more information on a Christ-centered resource on Pastors in the Asian American Church, check with the Asian American Christian Collaborative.