STAYING SANE IN THE CITY
The thing that can be hard about working for justice in the inner city is that you wonder sometimes if all of your efforts are making any sort of difference. Injustice and evil can seem so entrenched that it can be hard to see and celebrate progress. Political corruption in Philadelphia has chewed up and spit out people far nobler than me for the past fifty years. Brown vs. Board of Education was fifty years ago, and yet our schools are going backwards in being integrated or equal. Poor kids on the margins of a booming economy grow up and become poor adults, just as marginalized, just as unfairly as fifty years ago. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, waking up each morning in the city and tackling these injustices can make a person go mad.
What keeps me sane (not to say I succeed every day in doing so) is to remember that my job description as an urban Christian is not to effect these necessary changes. It is on God to be God: to rule in our hearts, our relationships, and our systems; to redeem, to punish, and to forgive; and to show us facets of His Kingdom here on earth while He prepares us for His Kingdom in heaven.
It is not my job to be God. It is my job to be faithful to God. What keeps me sane in the city is to realize that while I might wake up, work for justice, and go to bed and not see any measurable progress that day in the things that matter to me -- while I might work for an entire lifetime and see things get worse -- I can say that I served the purposes of God in my generation.
It is a subtle idol, but an idol nonetheless, to kneel at the feet of ministry success; to measure the worth of one's life and the utility of one's work by the tangible, measurable progress it helps create. To need to be successful, even and especially in the noblest of causes, is still a false god, inferior to worshipping the true God and doing His will without needing the validation of success to keep you going.
What will be most pleasing to my God is not that my work is met with smashing success. Nor that I slowly go insane if my work produces dulling stalemate. What will be most pleasing to my God is that -- whether the fruit of my labors is smashing success or dulling stalemate -- I have been obedient to do and be as He has willed for my life. That's what keeps me sane in the city.
"And let's not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we don't grow weary." -- Galatians 6:9
The thing that can be hard about working for justice in the inner city is that you wonder sometimes if all of your efforts are making any sort of difference. Injustice and evil can seem so entrenched that it can be hard to see and celebrate progress. Political corruption in Philadelphia has chewed up and spit out people far nobler than me for the past fifty years. Brown vs. Board of Education was fifty years ago, and yet our schools are going backwards in being integrated or equal. Poor kids on the margins of a booming economy grow up and become poor adults, just as marginalized, just as unfairly as fifty years ago. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, waking up each morning in the city and tackling these injustices can make a person go mad.
What keeps me sane (not to say I succeed every day in doing so) is to remember that my job description as an urban Christian is not to effect these necessary changes. It is on God to be God: to rule in our hearts, our relationships, and our systems; to redeem, to punish, and to forgive; and to show us facets of His Kingdom here on earth while He prepares us for His Kingdom in heaven.
It is not my job to be God. It is my job to be faithful to God. What keeps me sane in the city is to realize that while I might wake up, work for justice, and go to bed and not see any measurable progress that day in the things that matter to me -- while I might work for an entire lifetime and see things get worse -- I can say that I served the purposes of God in my generation.
It is a subtle idol, but an idol nonetheless, to kneel at the feet of ministry success; to measure the worth of one's life and the utility of one's work by the tangible, measurable progress it helps create. To need to be successful, even and especially in the noblest of causes, is still a false god, inferior to worshipping the true God and doing His will without needing the validation of success to keep you going.
What will be most pleasing to my God is not that my work is met with smashing success. Nor that I slowly go insane if my work produces dulling stalemate. What will be most pleasing to my God is that -- whether the fruit of my labors is smashing success or dulling stalemate -- I have been obedient to do and be as He has willed for my life. That's what keeps me sane in the city.
"And let's not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we don't grow weary." -- Galatians 6:9
Comments