And they passed by on the other side...

The three of us walked along the street on a hot afternoon.  We were avoiding the 70 rupees it would cost us to take two bicycle rickshaws over that stretch.  Temperatures were over 100 degrees with high humidity, but it wasn't all that far to walk and we were traveling between two well-fanned homes.  Still, a couple in a car pulled over next to us.  "Where are you going?  Would you like a lift?"  We considered it, but declined.

As the couple pulled away, I looked at the other two people who had been walking right next to us.  A man and woman approximately the same age as us, but clearly poorer by their clothes.  Each held a baby in their arms.  They were trying to use small pieces of cloth to shelter the babies from the sun.  They were not offered a lift.

I know that this is not the only place in the world where wealthy-looking people are offered favors at the same time that more needy but poor-looking people are ignored.  Who do we offer rides to when we are driving down the street?  Who do we not even notice is there?

Transportation in the City: Photo edition

About a month ago I did a post on the different types of transportation we see here. I decided to collect a little photo evidence, so here goes. Nearly all of these photos were taken on the same short stretch of the same road, during a low-traffic time. If you read the last post, you know I could have included even more.



Horse-drawn cart

Motorcycle

Tricycle Cart

Bicycle

Auto-rickshaw

Personal SUV

Gigantic three-wheeler

Mini-bus

Bicycle Rickshaw

Bus

Garmin Sewa (the type we fit 20 people in)

Pedestrian

Pony

Water-buffalo drawn cart

Push-cart

A nice picture with a little variety

Ox-drawn carts and SUVs get stuck in traffic just the same

Sabbath day

Once a week we are required to take a day off.  It is a good idea.  How we spend the day is up to us.  This was my latest Sabbath day:

8:30am: We sleep in and have a late breakfast.  My plan is to spend the day doing online Bible studies, emailing friends, and checking sports scores.  Before I start, wet laundry is hung over the computer, disabling it for the day.  Time for a new plan.

10:30am: I take off on a walk.  Several miles away is a park that I’m told is quiet.  On the way I see guys lying on the sidewalk, some of whom are not in a good state.  The thought comes to mind that these are the kind of guys the Missionaries of Charity look to care for.  They stay on my mind and I feel for them.  But I walk past and head towards the park.

I realize I have taken the wrong bridge across the river, and end up in a trashed area where a few Indians are bathing.  I make friends with a water buffalo and watch birds.

Noon: I decide that the park is to the south.  On the way I enter a concrete structure and notice middle-class Indians on a bench.  I almost walk past them before they call me over and point out that I am walking through a ghat (Hindu crematorium).  In front of us are bodies in various stages of burning, and I had walked past three who had been burned earlier in the day.  I am embarrassed, but they don’t seem to mind.  The men ask me to sit down with them.  First they ask me questions, then share about themselves and about the work colleague who had died.  O.P. gives me a reference to a friend of his who teaches Hindi to foreigners, and we exchange numbers.  I say goodbye and turn back the way I came.

12:30pm: As I walk back, I pass an older man picking through trash.  He pleads for me to give him something.  I tell him that I can’t and walk by.  Thoughts race through my mind, trying to figure out why I just did that.  I can’t come up with a justifiable reason, so I turn and walk back, handing him 50 rupees.  That’s not enough for an American or wealthy Indian to even buy a coffee – this guy will stretch it over 4-6 meals if he’s careful.  Internally, I pray for him.

I make my way around the ghat, but first must pass through an open area where guys are hanging out in the afternoon shade.   A monkey walks along the wall.  Several men on a mat call me over, and I sit down.  One speaks English.  They ask me about my time in Delhi.  They tell me that this is a government homeless camp.  Dhinender shows me their home – a temporary tin building.  Inside is a television, water, and sleeping mats for 40-50 guys.  The paid employee manning the door looks at me oddly, but doesn’t say anything.  Dhinender was eager to show me the setup, but finds little to say about it and we go back.  There are several of these temporary buildings in a row.

Back with the guys, they offer me water and cigarettes.  They tell me that they start playing games around 4pm – cricket, volleyball, chess.  I say I’ll play some other day, but today my wife expects me home.  They try to convince me, and then to schedule an exact day when I’ll come back.  My schedule is packed, and I can’t give them a time.  I say my goodbyes and continue wandering.

1:30pm: After a long walk past the ghat, a historical site, a small bustee, and a stretch of scrub, I reach the park.  It is almost empty on this hot day – perhaps 50 Indians spread over its narrow mile, and no farengii besides myself.  Some men and women are laboring in a canal.  A group of boys and young men are playing in the lake.  The park is quiet compared to my bustee, but so was the riverside, the ghat, the homeless camp, and the scrub.  Halfway down, a man on the other side of the lake calls out to me and insists that I come over.  I try to mime that the lake is in the way, but he insists and shows me across.  We sit down and talk about our lives in Hindi.  He delivers clothing with his small vehicle.  He does not have positive things to say about the bustee where I live.  We talk about planes and fishing.  After a time together sitting in the shade, I bid my farewell.

2:30pm: On the way back I take the correct bridge.  Unfortunately, large sections of the footpath lie on the bottom of the river.  It feels like a very long crossing as I pick my way past the bad parts and wonder whether I’m the largest guy who has ever walked on the “good” parts.  I snap a few photos.  

Late afternoon: I arrive home earlier than I expected, having experienced more than I expected.  I spend the next few hours taking a bucket bath, washing clothes, tending to the drying computer, tidying up, studying Hindi.  The day’s encounters play through my mind.  What have I learned today?  Why did I meet the guys that I did?  With all the pain that I saw, why did a day like today give me so much energy to keep on striving here?

I am weak

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When I first visited India in 2004, I got sick three times in 2.5 weeks.  Everywhere we went I made a mental note of every toilet I saw, knowing I might soon have to use it.  During one bad episode I wasn't able to lock the door in time and was walked in on in a humiliating moment.  Late in the trip I just stopped eating for over two days, feeling that it was easier to cope that way.

And through all that, there was a distinct point two weeks in when I realized, "Even if it was like this all the time, it'd still be worth it to be here."

In six weeks in India last year I didn't get sick once, and in an entire year in Thailand I only had one short illness.  Fool's gold.

One week into life here in the slum, I started getting sick.  It lasted a week, followed by a week of semi-recovery, and then I was blasted again last night by another malady.  I am weak.

That's not the only way I feel my weakness here.  We are babies in the language, and I am significantly worse at it than the rest of my team.  We make cultural errors.  We don't know how to get around.  We clean wrong, bathe wrong, dress wrong.  We have to rely on others to teach us everything.  We have to learn to be okay with being humble, often.

And in our weakness, we are strong.

We didn't come as teachers, as leaders, as judges.  We come to learn and to serve, and to share a story.  Those of roles of humility.  The weaker I realize I am, the better I will fit into them.

The best seat at the feast

They gave us uncertain looks, but when I said we were Coptic Orthodox we received a warm welcome.  In fact, I was asked to come up to the front of church and give a short word to the congregation about our purposes in the country, along with a hymn from the Coptic Church.   The congregation was then told that we would be the guests of honor at the Feast of St. John that was held after church, and we were urged to sit down in two chairs while most of the congregation stood and ate and made due with the surfaces available.

During that feast, a small band of dark-skinned Indians in threadbare clothes approached the church.  Most were kids.  They got as far as the gate and looked like they really thought they might get food, but then they were shooed away empty-handed.  I watched this from my seat of honor, with more food than I could even get down.  I didn’t do anything.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and becomes judges with evil thoughts?  Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.  Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor.  Is it not the rich who oppress you?  Is it not they who drag you into court?  Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?  You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love you neighbor as yourself.”  But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friend or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Before we get too judgmental, self-apply.  Is our church even located in a place where there are poor people across the street to invite inside?  Out of sight does not equal out of mind.

Transportation in the City

We categorize the visitors according to their noise…”quiet trains”, “helicopter trains”, “spaceship trains”.  They are felt as much as heard, shaking the walls, blasting on their horns at all hours day and night.  Strangely, they no longer disturb our sleep.  You can get used to almost anything.  Right at this moment, there is a “quiet train” going by.  Even the quiet ones shake the house a little, but they’re smooth, and this one isn’t even using its horn on this pass.  Five minutes later, here comes another train, blaring its horn twice.  And it’s a bloody spaceship train.  A long one.  Rosey is rustling a little bit, but I don’t think she’s woken up.  And right away here’s another one.  We need a name for this type…it’s not as loud as a spaceship train, and lacks the rhythmic pounding of the helicopter train.  It probably should be a “jet train” because of the way the sound changes as it flies past us.  She didn’t even stir at that one.

The 6 of us traveling to meet the in-laws made up less than a third of the people in the ACE Magic.  The most impressive part wasn’t that 20 people were traveling in a car smaller than most American SUVs, but that two of those twenty were sitting on the window of the open car door as it hung out into traffic.  Now that’s how you get a long ride down to 10 rupees a head.   Of course, that’s also how you get passed by a horse when traveling uphill….

Speaking of horses, this city may have more forms of transport than any other on Earth.  Just within the few hundred feet outside my window, I’m aware of:

Old fossil fuel-burning trains, electric trains on the same rails, and modern light-rail on their own tracks.

Buses of all types, small semi-buses called “Maxi-cabs”, and those Magics I mentioned above.

More unique varieties of cargo trucks than I’ve seen anywhere.

All types of passenger SUVs, vans, trucks, cars, etc.

Three-wheeled vehicles the size of passenger cars.

All types of motorcycles, tons of bicycles, and even a few hand-pedal powered carts.

Bicycle rickshaws and “auto-rickshaws” that are gas-powered.

Tractor-pulled carts, every kind of bicycle-pulled cart you can imagine, and even human-pulled carts.

Horse-pulled carts, ox-pulled carts (usually big Brahmans), and water buffalo-pulled carts.

Riders on horseback, and tiny ponies carrying loads (and even people!) on their backs.

Pedestrians.

There are probably more things that I forgot.  The best part is that all of these (other than the trains) are sharing the same road at the same time.  Today we watched in awe as a horse charged down the street at full speed while pulling a cart.  The man with the reigns stood upright in the cart, urging it to go faster, like an extra from “Ben Hur” escaped into the 21^st century.  Bicycles, pedestrians, motorcycles, autorickshaws, and passengers cars did their best to keep from being trampled.  

Camels and Needles

Two months ago, a good friend sent the following question over email:

I've been mulling something over lately, and wanted to hear your take on the subject.  In particular, I've been thinking on the passage from Matthew: "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  I've heard plenty of people trying to interpret this verse in such a way as to weaken it, but I personally feel that it should be taken literally.   While I certainly am not wealthy by American standards, according to the Global Rich List I am one of the richest men on earth, and this worries me.  My question for you is: If the people of the United States are so fantastically rich, is America a nation of the damned?

I spent five days thinking about his question before I replied.  It's a significant question.  I disagreed with a few things about how the question was posed, but there was something incredibly important at its core.

When I did reply, I tried to detail out not just my own "answer" to his question (though I didn't feel it should be answered directly), but also why I thought things were this way.  Why does Christ tell this parable, and other things like it?  Why does a similar theme appear at several points in the Bible?  Why is the world the way it is, why is America the way it is, how would the Kingdom of God look different, and what should we be doing about it?  I put a lot of myself into that reply.

My friend had a positive reaction to what I had to say.  I asked him if I could reproduce his question on my blog, and he said he'd be flattered.  But....I couldn't do it for a long time.  I couldn't figure out the right time to post it.  And so I procrastinated.  Now I'm running out of time to procrastinate, so here it is.

I'm not going to post my reply.  If you're interested, I want to send it to you.  My reply isn't the most important thing anyway, unless you really trust my "wisdom" on such a subject.  I think the most important thing is the passage and the questions it leads to for you.  We can't get around the fact that this is something Jesus meant us to take seriously.

Gandhi on How to Effectively Spread Christianity

We read this passage in the car today, and I wanted to just reproduce the whole quote verbatim:

In conversation with him one day I said, "Mahatma Gandhi, I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalized in India, so that it shall be no longer a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India's uplift and redemption.  What would you suggest that we do to make that possible?"

He very gravely and thoughtfully replied: "I would suggest, first, that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ."

He needn't have said anything more--that was quite enough.  I knew that looking through his eyes were the three hundred millions of India, and speaking through his voice were the silent millions of the East saying to me, a representative of the West, and through me to the very West itself, "If you will come to us in the spirit of your Master, we cannot resist you." Never was there a greater challenge to the West than that, and never was it more sincerely given.

"Second," he said, "I would suggest that you must practice your religion without adulterating or toning it down."

This is just as remarkable as the first.  The greatest living non-Christian asks us not to adulterate it or tone it down, not to meet them with a emasculated gospel, but to take it in its rugged simplicity and high demand.  But what are we doing?  As someone has suggested, we are inoculating the world with a mild form of Christianity, so that it is now practically immune against the real thing.  Vast areas of the Christian world are inoculated with a mild form of Christianity, and the real thing seems strange and impossible.  As one puts it, "Our churches are made up of people who would be equally shocked to see Christianity doubted or put into practice."  I am not anxious to see India take a mild form--I want her to take the real thing.

"Third, I would suggest that you must put your emphasis upon love, for love is the center and soul of Christianity."

He did not mean love as a sentiment, but love as a working force, the one real power in a moral universe, and he wanted it applied between individuals and groups and races and nations, the one cement and salvation of the world.  With a soul so sensitive to the meaning of love no wonder there were tears in his eyes when I read him at that point the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians.

"Fourth, I would suggest that you study the non-Christian religions and culture more sympathetically in order to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people."

Quite right.  We should be grateful for any truth found anywhere, knowing that it is a finger post that points to Jesus, who is the Truth.

When I mentioned these four things to the Chief Justice of the High Court in North India, the noble, sympathetic, Christian Britisher exclaimed: "He could not have put his finger on four more important things.  It took spiritual genius and insight to do that."

- E. Stanley Jones, missionary in India and friend and biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, in Christ of the Indian Road, 1925.

Basil the Great

Today the Coptic Church celebrates Basil of Caesarea, also known as St. Basil the Great, a bishop of the fourth century. Basil holds a prominent place in Orthodox history. He was the brother of Gregory of Nyssa and close friend of Gregory the Theologian, and together the three had a profound impact on the theology and direction of the church. To the average Copt, Basil is best known as the compiler of the liturgy that is prayed every Sunday in Coptic churches. To historians, Basil is also known as one of the first founders of hospitals and centralized social services to the poor, which he began in response to famine. He was a constant advocate for the poor, and spoke out against the practices of the wealthy in a manner that few preachers are willing to do today. In honor of Basil the Great, I wanted to share one extended quote from a sermon of his that I read recently, Homily 6, entitled “I Shall Tear Down My Barns” (in reference to Luke 12).  I will warn you - this sermon will sound very blunt to modern American ears, which are not used to such direct confrontation on economic issues.

“But whom do I treat unjustly,” you say, “by keeping what is my own?” Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common—this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.

Did you not come forth naked from the womb, and will you not return naked to the earth? Where then did you obtain your belongings? If you say that you acquired them by chance, then you deny God, since you neither recognize your Creator, nor are you grateful to the One who gave these things to you. But if you acknowledge that they were given to you by God, then tell me, for what purpose did you receive them? Is God unjust, when He distributes to us unequally the things that are necessary for life? Why then are you wealthy while another is poor? Why else, but so that you might receive the reward of benevolence and faithful stewardship, while the poor are honored for patient endurance in their struggles? But you, stuffing everything into the bottomless pockets for your greed, assume that you wrong no one; yet how many do you in fact dispossess?

Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those who take for themselves what rightfully belongs to everyone. And you, are you not greedy? Are you not a robber? The things you received in trust as a stewardship, have you not appropriated them for yourself? Is not the person who strips another of clothing called a thief? And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same? The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.

I read this in a collection of sermons by Basil on the topics of wealth and poverty, entitled On Social Justice. Besides two sermons generally addressed to the wealthy, the book also includes sermons on the proper response to natural disaster, advice to those who loan or wish to procure loans with interest, and the twin precepts of mercy and justice.

The dangers of inappropriate section breaks

Modern Bibles often break up books in ways that were not intended by the authors. For example, here is a short story in the NIV, set off all by itself and titled "The Widow's Offering":

Luke 21

The Widow’s Offering

1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

A simple lesson about how giving sacrificially is more meaningful than giving out of a surplus, right? Well, that's how it was taught to me every time I heard it, and that is what I had thought it was about. But let's break up those sections and put the same passage in its actual context. Here is Luke 20:45 through 21:6.  I'll cheat and highlight two lines.

  While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
  Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

Do you see what I see?

That short passage is usually broken up into three separate sections. If that were correct, then the placement of the middle section between the other two makes no sense at all. But in reality, it shouldn't be broken up.  The theme of judgement flows right through.  The theme of the gifts of the people being used for a corrupt temple flows right through.   "Beware of the teachers of the law" leads to "they devour widows' houses" leads to the example of "a poor widow" who "out of her poverty put in all she had to live on" leads to the judgement of God against the temple in direct response to remarks at how it is adorned from such gifts.