Letter from America

It is the end of my first week of sabbatical leave in North America and already I have had much to think about, pray about and process.

Most of the week has been spent in and around the city of Selma, Alabama, a city made famous in the 1960s as a result of its prominent part in the struggle for voting rights for African Americans. The Presbyterian Church in which I am based, and of which my friend Steve Burton is the pastor, was one of the predominantly white churches in town to back the Selma-Montgomery march led by Martin Luther King in 1965. Steve's background growing up in the Mississipi delta and ministering in Nashville, Tennessee and Jackson, Mississippi has, I think, shaped him for ministry in a town like Selma. I know he believes that the possibilities for genuine racial reconciliation through gospel-based relationships are very real in Selma and, having met just a few of the people here, I tend to believe him.

That dream of gospel-based reconciliation only comes about, however, when those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ understand and apply what it means to take up your cross and follow him. Discipleship is the key theme of my sabbatical and from my reading and praying as well as through the people I have met in Selma and in Birmingham, I am more than ever convinced that it is the key to authentic Christianity in the 21st century.

Since I have been here, the news from the Orlando nightclub shooting has rocked America and the world. I, along with many others, struggle to know how to respond to an act of such appalling evil. There are some in the LGBT community who dismiss any expression of sympathy or act of compassion by parts of the Christian church as somewhat hypocritical because of our stance on issues such as gay marriage. I reject the idea that, because I disagree with you on an issue, it immediately invalidates my compassion towards you and your community when you suffer, but I understand why some in that community would see things differently.

However our compassion is received, it seems clear to me that, as a follower of Jesus, I have no alternative but to express that compassion in prayer as well as in practical ways. One example of this has been the response of the local Christian run Chick-fil-a restaurant in Orlando, which although normally closed on a Sunday, opened its doors to provide free meals to those queueing to give blood for the victims of the shooting.

Jesus calls us to love our enemies. There may be some in the LGBT community who regard elements of the Christian church as their enemies. If that is the case we are called to love them all the more. There are those in the Muslim community who regard Christians as their enemies. We know that many Christians in Muslim countries are persecuted for their faith. Should we then retaliate by persecuting Muslims? No. Jesus calls us to love them and he demonstrates what that means when he forgives those who nail him to a cross.

When I love someone I do not have to give validation to their religious beliefs or their lifestyle. Jesus didn't validate the beliefs or the lifestyle of the Samaritan woman he met in John 4. Instead he showed her a kind of compassion which she had never experienced before. All I have to do to follow him is simply recognise the other person as someone, like me, made in the image of God, broken and damaged by sin and deeply in need of God's undeserved grace. If I am the means by which something of that grace can be demonstrated then I am going some way to understanding what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.