When culture and love collide…love wins!

 

 

We live in a world of culture, many cultures. We are taught to be culturally sensitive, respect culture and sadly many times we begin to bow to culture in idolatry. There continues to be a great shift in communities as we get farther and farther away from life in community as we see in the Book of Acts. Don’t get me wrong, I will be the first to tell you understanding one’s culture is very important, vital to establishing and living out life together; however, what I see more as years go by is culture becoming identity, culture causing isolation and culture becoming tradition. We live a certain way because that is what has always been done, we believe a certain theology because that is what our families have always believed and we eat/drink/dress certain ways because that is what is honoring…well I mean that is what I have been told. 

BUT! What I have witnessed in many years living amongst my Hispanic friends, the homeless and the least of these and now in Mozambique, Africa is this…when culture and love collide…love wins! I cannot tell you how many times I have sat on a thatch mat incorrectly, asked the direct question about someone’s sexual relations with their two husbands, explained how condoms do not cause HIV, asked a father to take his adult daughter and her three children in after he had sold her off to her abusive husband as it was after all his actions in the first place that brought her to this moment of pain and suffering, forgot to clap twice or three times when food was offered before taking the lid off, asked the witch doctor why she would actually think her chant would heal, wore the wrong dress, wore pants when I should be wearing a wrap like a dress, forgot to offer a basin and pitcher of water to wash my company’s hands before we ate, held a dying man’s hand as he was shamed by his community, sat at the feet of the drunken grieved widow, stopped to talk to the town drunk, gave money to the city beggar, asked to pray over a government official in the middle of the community, taught that when you commit suicide and you believe in Jesus of course you do not go to hell and especially to purgatory, forgot to say Mano before greeting one of our guards Alberto, watched a Madea movie with my Mozambican friend, payed way too much for the pig I ran over and did not even take the pig home to eat…Day after day I look physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally broken Mozambican men, women, and children directly in the eyes as I hold their hands and tell them that they are loved, cherished, valuable, and loved. I live my life out of love while making what some would call huge cultural mistakes some purposely and some by accident. I choose to be vulnerable, I choose to be intimate, I choose to be rejected, I choose to be uncomfortable, I choose to make them uncomfortable knowing that the Comforter is present…the atmosphere and environment is His and He is our audience, our advocate and He will be our culture, He is our new identity…and amazingly each time there is no offense, no rejection, no broken relationships. There is grace, tears, relief to be acknowledged, understanding without speaking the same language, laughter, joy, friendship and most of all love wins!

The Lord brought me back to an amazing testimony in His Word this week as I was meditating on my life, how He has always given me the grace to enter in and alongside people’s lives no matter what their belief or culture. He took me back to the story of Jesus being anointed by the sinful woman as told in Luke 7:36-50.

This woman lived a sinful life…some assume prostitution but as we learn from culture it could be many things from a child out of wedlock, multiple affairs or she was a victim of sexual abuse as a child.

Jesus enters a Pharisee’s house as he accepted an invite to dine there. In those days he should have had his feet washed upon arrival from his travels on a dirt road, his head/hair would have been anointed with olive oil and he would have been greeted with a kiss on the face. His host did not seem to have followed these customs, but Jesus still graciously lies back to dine with him. As he is reclining at the table, the sinful lady enters, approaches him…she carries with her an alabaster jar of perfume that is worth more than she may make in a lifetime and tears fall from her cheeks as she weeps. She weeps…she approaches as a rejected, shamed woman…she approaches knowing she may be rejected and shamed again. She begins to wet his feet with her tears…then she does something that in her culture is only done when you live out a life of prostitution…she lets her hair down…hair that is meant to be kept up, clean, a sign of self-worth in her day and never to be let down in public. She begins to wipe his feet with her hair as the dirt of His journey mixes with her tears…mixes with her rejection, her shame. Then she kisses them and pours the perfume over them. The journey of a broken, sinful woman collides with the journey of a healed, sinless man. What a risk!

The audience around her is horrified but her Audience of One is seeing her as His Father sees her…He reminds them of how they did not follow culture by providing water for His feet, kissing Him, anointing Him. Then He speaks these words…”Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown”…Jesus also then says…”Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” No offense, no rejection, no shame! In fact, rejection and shame is gone and He is her defense! Culture collides and LOVE WINS! Why you ask? Risk…she risked it all for healing, to be whole, to be seen as she really is.

This same Jesus resides in me, in us if we choose…I choose to take risk in Love. I believe when He asks me to step out and forward to do something or speak something or to kneel and weep at someone’s feet that in that obedience the result is not offense, rejection, shame but the result is Love…Love is our identity and our culture. His tears become our tears, His perspective becomes our perspective, His life becomes our life, and His heart becomes our heart…Risk in exchange for healing, for life. LOVE WINS!