Faithfulness

"Faithfulness is the gift of the spirit most foreign to our generation."

I'll never forget hearing that statement. Aaron Baart was towards the end of a series of chapel's on the Galatians text and dropped this seemingly uninformed line. Surely peace or patience is scarce these days. Self-control and even joy are ill-practiced manifestations of God's movement among us. The only place I had previously heard about faithfulness was as a sterile, moral counter to adultery. Baart explained how the days of our grandparents are gone - working for companies for their entire vocational life and companies trying to keep them employed at great expense. He then went on to talk about the modern narrative - companies being unfaithful to their employees in trade for profit and employees returning the favor for personal gain and professional advancement. Friendships are sacrificed for power and grace is withheld to enforce superiority. Our obsession with being right depletes the strong and humble nature of pursuing a right relationship with another.

My main inspiration lately has been the concept of being a peace maker.  My earliest attempts at peace making centered around can I respond to each individual in a way that shows I support the truth of their opinion while trying to lessen the distance between the "opposition?" This sort of conflict resolution centers around all sides being heard and affirmed, being cautious to dance around high tension with carefully manicured language.

The national discourse this week has been too much for me. Pressure to have a comprehensive, eloquent and prophetic answer to every question has stolen the majority of joy or health from my soul and many of my relationships. I strive to stand for justice, become exhaustively informed, focus on empathy, and call others to action while trying to stand up myself for the just cause. I am determined to please all sides, trying to make the hands of every side of a polarizing culture meet.

My conversations around recent international events have led to a realization - I have consumed many lies intended to profit a distant messenger a small amount at a great cost to my life. I am guilty of spreading hysteria and fear when it was socially profitable to me. I have been trying to bring a visionary kingdom by the means and broken rules of the world. In order to be faithful to my neighbor, to pursue God by tangible peace making, and to be faithful to myself I must first recognize the complexity of being human. We must be suspicious when we can be split into two ideological camps. We must pause when our conversations become binary. Our views are not as divided as our quick-to-respond group identities would have us believe. Our differences are sure, but not at the cost of another's worth.

The fruit of peace is not an avoidance of conflict but the diligent work of reconciliation and inspiring justice to affirm what God affirms and dethrone what he denounces. When we don't take time to look past the loud rhetoric and sort through the muddy tension we miss our opportunity to be faithful. We must sacrifice our pride and calm our amygdala to listen to the oppressed and call back the humanity of the oppressor. We must defend life and the struggle of humanity as we find it. In pursuing justice, we want to dream bigger than a transfer of who's in power and proclaim there are enough rooms in the house and an abundance of food at the table for all.

I am quick to further polarize and divide. I am slow to truly hear the cries of my neighbors and respond in faithfulness. Wherever we find oppression we must overthrow it; wherever we find light, may we enhance it. Let us establish pillars of faithfulness to create space for reconciliation.