Jesus reminds me there is a cost.
In October, I traveled with 30 companions on a Sankofa journey. My denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, offers this enlightening and transforming opportunity to journey toward racial righteousness. “Sankofa” comes from the Twi language in Gana which means to go back and fetch. Together, our racially diverse group engaged in hard conversations regarding historical civil rights events in Southern locations. How does our past impact the present and the future? What is necessary for restoration of a people and a country to take place?
My senses absorbed the sounds, sights, and smells of these prominent places where evil was confronted and liberation from earthly kingdoms sought. The faces of those who crossed bridges, boycotted buses, arranged sit-ins, carved out escape tunnels and gave up their lives remain etched in my mind. They remind me of the cost.
I ponder: what would I have done? What am I doing? To love neighbors as ourselves, demands movement into places of discomfort, vulnerability, and risk. Because that is what we long for from others. What am I willing to sacrifice?
“Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.” Luke 14:33.
Being a kingdom builder involves sacrifice but the result is abundance: for all.
I embrace Martin Luther King’s words, “I admire the good Samaritan, but I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed. I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health.”
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Perhaps there is a golden road
whose paving stones are always dry,
whose travellers are never bowed
by a weight that makes them die.
Perhaps there are clean lovely places
where folks can stop and gently rest,
take part in cultured social graces
and in each other, see the best.
Perhaps someday there’ll be a time
when avarice and greed depart
and the slow cruel Darwin-climb
will never break another heart.
It would be nice, this promised land,
but meanwhile I fix what I can.
Just gorgeous.
Sounds like a great trip!