a certain Sunday
We were in church singing our worship songs for the morning. “Holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain . . .”
And all I could see while we were standing there in our fashionable, updated, incredibly convenient church was a child soldier, crawling on his belly through the jungle, an AK-47 strapped to his back.
Maybe I should stop reading so many real-life stories from Africa, eh?
Our churches so often talk about the joy, the glory, the majestic beauty we’ve been invited to share in - how awesome it all is. And it’s very true. It is awe-inspiring. But does no one see the awfulness? The weight, the terror, the great and dreadful responsibility. They are literally starving to death while we redecorate our sanctuaries. Their children are being kidnaped while we decide what color of paint to use on our Sunday school walls. They are getting raped, robbed, burned, and hacked to pieces with machetes. What are we doing? Watching a movie, going out to eat, taking a nap, and playing cards.
I look at our shiny cars, our big churches, our overflowing closets, and I see their bare feet, their scorched villages, their empty stomachs. I look at the comfort we’ve build for ourselves, and I see the blood that’s been spilled in another community while we built it. While we didn’t know. While we didn’t look. While we didn’t care.
I look at our carefree, bored, self-centered teen culture. I look at our church members who would rather hear entertainment than the truth. I look at our gorgeous, crammed houses that sit empty while we work overtime. What do I see?
I see another child being forced at gunpoint to kill his own family members in Uganda. I see a teenage girl in Columbia getting raped in the jungle where no one can hear if she screams. I see a 6-year old restavek carrying buckets of water up a hill in Haiti while all her friends attend school. I see a 10-year old Congolese boy pulling the trigger and killing his first human being. I see an 8-year old getting blown apart by a hand grenade in the middle of his first battle.
This is what I see when I walk through the mall. This is what I see when I drive past our houses. This is what I see when I go to church.
We have blood on our hands.
And for the most part, we’re too busy, too satisfied, too comfortable to do anything about it.
Why?
Because it’s too painful. Because we’ve gone too long ignoring the problem. Because it’s too far away. Because it’s habit.
Because it costs too much.
It’s much easier to pretend it doesn’t exist. We can do that after all. We can stop reading the paper. We don’t have to listen to the stories. We can skip over the pictures of the starving children. We can close our ears to the weeping and the screams. Their blood doesn’t turn our rivers red.
Sure, it does over there.
But we’re not over there, are we? We’re here. In our comfort. Spending what we have on ourselves. Largely ignorant that there’s a problem at all.
It’s definitely easier this way.
