SheLoves Magazine

ShePonders: Ruth the Moabite

Who are the Moabites in our community? Do we exhibit the hospitality of Naomi or the courage of Boaz toward them?

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

I’ve always found Ruth to be a lovely person–kind, gentle and good to her mother-in-law.  I just never found her to be very compelling. From time to time I have read commentaries on the Book of Ruth in an attempt to connect with her–after all, we are part of the sisterhood. But still, this story failed to captivate me even a little bit.  Until I came across a new lens which reframed the narrative for me.[i]

What if Ruth is not just a beautiful story, but a parable meant to challenge the way we think?

Rebuilding

When the story of Ruth was first told, Israel was just hobbling back from the destruction of the temple and exile in Babylon. The Persians, after conquering Babylon, decided to send the Israelites back to their homeland in the hope that they would stimulate that local economy and increase the tax base for the Persian Empire. So, under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, the restoration began–rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and redefining what it meant to be a good Jew. What the Jewish community craved in the aftermath of national tragedy was certainty about their geography and clarity about their identity.

Now returning to the pages of Ruth, we notice something quite curious. There is a steady drumbeat; a word repeated so often that no self-respecting Jew could miss it: Moab/Moabite. The writer of this story does not let us ever forget that the story began in Moab; it crossed the Jordan into Israel with a Moabite in tow. As a matter of fact, the writer refers to Ruth the Moabite in each of the four chapters of the book. Again, we are not allowed to forget that the protagonist of the story is a Moabite woman. If you were Jewish at the time of the temple rebuilding, this would leave a rather bitter taste in your mouth. It is a lovely story, but why all the mentions of Moabites?

In their hunger for defining their new place in the world, the Jewish thought leaders of the day made one thing very clear: No Moabites allowed. 

According to Deuteronomy Moabites were not allowed in the assembly of the Lord, not allowed to ever convert to Judaism. According to both Ezra and Nehemiah, no Israelite was allowed to marry a Moabite.  There was to be no hint of Moabite blood in the new Israelite lineage and no trace of them in the temple. Moabites were the clear enemy during this time of history, and Israelites were making a clear line of demarcation that they were not allowed in.

So, you can see why Ruth the Moabite created a bit of awkwardness as they read this lovely story. But the real sting came at the end of the story, saying  “They named him (Ruth’s son) Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.” And again (for emphasis) the closing line is a mention of Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse and Jesse the father of David. Period. What a Jewish reader would have immediately heard, loud as a fire alarm, is that King David–the ultimate Israelite and most revered king–had Ruth the Moabite as his great grandmother. The primer Jew has Moabite blood running through his veins.

What does a good Jew during the Persian Restoration do with this story?

- Moabites were persona non grata in Israel–and yet: Moabites are part of the bloodline of King David.

- Moabites represent all the hostility to our ancestors–and yet: Moabites gave us the genes of a King.

- Moabites are bad, impure, pagan–and yet: this Moabite woman is loyal, hard-working and humble.

Amid the angry rhetoric about the unclean, never-to-be-converted-or-forgiven Moabites, comes this story that raises soul-searching questions. If there was no Ruth the Moabite, then there would be no King David. So, is intermarriage to a Moabite really the zenith sin? If King David, so passionate in his worship of God, has Moabite blood then can other Moabites worship with such abandon too? If Ruth the Moabite was such a good woman, then might there be others like her in Moab?  The story of Ruth becomes a challenging parable within the biblical story itself about how we encounter “the other” or “the enemy” as we seek to worship God with greater purity. It forced the Jews then (and us now) to ask hard questions about radical inclusivity of every “other” in our world.

Closer

Sometimes we cross paths with Ruth the Moabite in our community.  It happens when we listen to a story that upends our personal, inherited or cultural prejudices. When you think all the people on welfare are lazy–and then you meet a woman who gets food stamps, but works 12 hours a day cleaning homes to provide for her family and make her mortgage payment. When you think any woman wearing a hijab supports violent jihad–and then you befriend a Middle Eastern woman who shares about her hunger for peace in Jerusalem and desire to see her sons contribute something beautiful to the world.  Or you think all homosexuals are hedonistic and bent–until you have conversations late into the night about theology, the wild ways of Jesus and the joy of fidelity with a woman married (to another woman).

Meeting Ruth the Moabite and listening to her can redefine how we think of “the other” and compel us to ask good soul-shaping questions.

As we read the Book of Ruth we would do well to heed the story’s challenge and consider the Moabites in our community. Who are they? How do we treat them? Do we exhibit the hospitality of Naomi or the courage of Boaz toward them?

And one last challenge Ruth the Moabite has left with me: Can I envelop those radically different from myself into my very story?  King David had a bit of Israel and a bit of Moab in him, embracing enemies in his very flesh. Can I let “the other” that close–that deep? Can I recognize “the other” that is present in me? Richard Rohr wrote a book entitled “Everything Belongs.” The title really says it all. But I have been wondering today–can everything, and everyone truly belong?  Can I embrace opposites and others, seeing that they are within me and make me who I am meant to be in this world?

Now I find Ruth the Moabite to be a stunning story that compels me to think in new directions.

So, my SheLoves friends:

• What has the story of Ruth meant to you?
• Who are the Moabites in your neighborhood?
• Any other thoughts or comments?

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AUDIO:<<< ShePonders: Ruth the Moabite>>>

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

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[i] ‘The Power of Parable:  How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus“ by John Dominic Crossan

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

Finding Our Place in the Easter Story Today

On “bodied faith” + the meaning of the cross + participating in the story of Easter.

By Idelette McVicker @idelette | Twitter: @idelette
And Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

I was in my pyjammies when Kelley’s HeyTell message came through this morning, wishing me a Good Friday. She mentioned how it’s ironic for her that we call it “Good” Friday when it involves the suffering, mockery and death of a revolutionary.

I had had a similar conversation with my kidlets in the car last night. It went something like this in the back of the car:

Tomorrow is Good Friday–yayyy!
But it really is a bad Friday, because Jesus died.
But it’s also good because He died for us, right?

As Kelley and my HeyTell conversation progressed and we each shared our interaction with the cross–thoughts on justice and freedom–I wondered: Perhaps we need to take this conversation to our SheLoves friends and invite others into the conversation.

While Kelley put another load in the dryer and finished boiling eggs, I put on some clothes and lipgloss and made a tray of food and drinks for my kids, asking them very kindly to please give Mommy a quiet moment to do a Skype video call.

Then we recorded our conversation. These 17 minutes are as real as real can get.

We’d love to invite you into this conversation between friends on Good Friday. Please join us in thinking about this day, what it means to all of us and where we find ourselves in this story.

Here are a few of the thoughts we touch on (and get pretty vulnerable) on:
- The cross–not accepting this reference in our faith language blindly, but wanting to have a revelation of its meaning.
- Jesus as a freedom-fighter–how He carried His pursuit of justice all the way to the cross.
- Jesus as non-violent revolutionary, yet crucified as terrorist.
- Remembering the woman who broke open her alabaster jar–her most precious–and anointed the feet of Jesus.
- Asking ourselves: Am I in the crowd, watching, or do I participate in the suffering of Jesus?

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Our dear SheLoves friends, we’d love to hear where YOU find yourself in the story of Easter today.

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

About Idelette:
I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.

I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.

My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.

I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.

I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.

ShePonders: Covenant

” (T)he text is quite clear that we are to be covenant to those who are on the edges of society.”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

Clustered around the front of the building were a myriad of mothers. Some stood together, chatting. One fussed with her child’s wayward cowlick and others were preoccupied with their phones. But one stood out: the mother wearing the black hijab in the Arizona sun, standing all alone as if others had created a force field around her. I stood next to her and was instantly greeted with a smile. It was the first day of school for her son and she was a bit nervous, as well as curious about all the details of drop-off, pick-up, etc. Our first conversation was about school protocol, laced with assurances that her son would make friends and have a good time in class.

I clearly saw that others did not want anything to do with her. She was so foreign, so different, so other. She was clearly from the Middle East somewhere and maybe even Muslim. In my state, not known for tolerance to immigrants, she literally stood on the margins. And I was drawn to her.

This friendship was underway when I encountered Isaiah 49:8 where God says to His servant, “I have kept you and I have given you as a covenant to the people.”

Covenant

Covenant is such a heavy word in the Old Testament, yet to our modern ears it’s a bit cumbersome and cryptic.  Covenant is, basically, a solemn agreement. It is more than a mere contract. Some describe it as a blood oath, since cutting a covenant often involved the spilling of blood (be it bulls split in half or circumcision). Over the years, God has cut many covenants with His people, like Moses, Jacob and David. One covenant resulted in a rainbow!  Then there was the Abrahamic covenant where God promised Abraham a son (even in his old age) and a prolific progeny that would be blessed in order to be a blessing to all the nations.

God makes covenants. He makes promises.  And the essence of the covenant is His very word. “My word is my bond” comes to mind. Covenant is about deep bonding, fidelity and unending commitment.

But what is striking in Isaiah is not that God says we ought to make covenant with others, but that we are to be covenant to them. We are given as covenant … What could that possibly mean?

We can find a bit more context when we realize this phrase is mentioned earlier in Isaiah 42.  And there is a pattern we can see in both passages. God says His people have been kept, that God has taken care of us.  Then there is the declaration that we are given as covenant–to prisoners.  In ancient Palestine it was clear who the prisoners were – they were the outcasts, the poor, those on the margins.  I hear echoes of “blessed to be a blessing to the nations” in those words: “kept to be a covenant to prisoners.”

God is saying something very similar, right?  But what I hear in the move from Genesis to Isaiah is some fine-tuning. He brings it closer. God makes this more intimate by saying that we are the covenant. We embody covenant!

We are cared for by God, so that we can in turn care for others. But the others are not only friends who move in our own social circles; actually the text is quite clear that we are to be covenant to those who are on the edges of society. We are to be the physical manifestation (dare I say “incarnation”) of covenant to those who are most vulnerable, misunderstood and imprisoned.

Walter Brueggemann frames it this way:  “The text does not say, I have given you to make covenant, but to be a covenant, to be the kind of presence in the world that lets folks bond and trust and commit.”  (italics are mine)  This took my breath away!  I am to be a covenantal presence in this world, embodying fidelity and trustworthiness.

“I am called to be the safe place for those who feel at risk in society.”

This school year a lovely friendship has blossomed between Tahany and me. When she is sick, I pick up her son from school. When there are too many grape leaves to roll alone, she teaches me how and we work together for hours, all the while sipping on sage tea from Palestine. My son calls Jamal and Abraham his little brothers and my daughter knows Tahany and the boys to be her family (her own word). We have sat in doctor’s offices together, waited for the kids to be released from school and shared long park days together.  I am leaning into being covenant to her–to be a place where she can feel less marginalized and more embraced, not alone but one who belongs. I believe that God has kept me and given me as covenant to her and her boys.

One Word

“Covenant” is my “one word” for 2012.  God is taking this weighty word from ancient Palestine and making it fresh, real and active today in my modern setting. I want to be that kind of presence in the world–where scared people feel safe, where misunderstood folks get a shot at understanding, where those I usually would walk around become those I stand next to and begin a conversation.

I want to be a safe place–I have been kept by God for such a purpose.  I have been kept–not for my own interests, but for the good of the neighborhood. I have been given as covenant to my community. I embody God’s fidelity, His goodness and tenderness … especially to those who stand at risk.

This word has already changed who I see … as I am now aware of who is at the edge and in need of some covenant goodness.

You are given as a covenant in your community as well, to embody God’s faithful and loving presence in the neighborhood. Who is at risk? Who is standing alone?  Who needs a safe place? Let’s go to them.

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Image credit: Palestinian girl, by Ekaterina Boym-Medler

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Dear SheLovers, I’d love to hear:

• What has been your understanding of covenant?
• Who is a safe place for you?
• Who do you see on the edges of the society you live in?

About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

ShePonders: Restitution

“… I want to see this kind of salvation come to my house.”
By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha

Audio: ShePonders: Restitution

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

My beloved South African friend, René, traveled in, bringing gifts of rooibos tea and Merlot from a local wine farm. She shared in our holiday tradition of turkey roasting, potato mashing and thanks giving, not that many months ago. She regaled us with tales from her homeland that left us all thoughtful and thankful, for post-Apartheid South Africa is a complex context. We spent the next morning cloistered in conversation while clutching coffee. We spoke of the theological voice of women, restitution, mutual friends, favorite spices and she offered her wickedly good impression of Desmond Tutu.

Yes, we spoke of “restitution.” (Doesn’t everybody?) She is part of The Restitution Foundation, a group of South Africans devoted to thinking and enacting restitution in their country. They offer this scenario as an example:

“Imagine a man’s bicycle is stolen. This now means he has no transport, and cannot get to work; thus he loses his job. Without a job, he cannot educate his children or support his family. Perhaps he used that bicycle to run errands for the homebound elderly woman next door; now she is affected by the loss as well. Jobless and frustrated, he becomes a drain on his community rather than a resource. What would restitution look like in this situation? Certainly it is not just returning the bicycle. He is not the only person who has been affected by the crime; his family, his neighbors and his community have also suffered.”

“Compensation” would dictate that the bike be replaced. “Charity” would suggest offering some food to his family or maybe school supplies for his children. Restitution demands more, but can also deliver something much more lasting and transformative.

As we sipped the dregs of our morning coffee, she shared about her baggage boondoggle. Our domestic carrier charged her twice as much as expected for her two checked bags. This really put a crimp in her already tight budget. So from then on, each time I picked up the check for lunch or paid for her sundries along with mine at the grocery store, I’d wave it off as making restitution to her on behalf of my country’s airline policy. We’d laugh and carry on. It was a joke–because I’d planned on spoiling her every chance I got whilst she was in town! But the joke had legs– ones that began pushing on me in terms of what restitution means in my own context.

Satisfied

After the final meal we shared, she handed me the receipt for her baggage fees and declared that restitution had been satisfied; rather tongue-in-cheek! All laughing aside, I knew a new word had entered my discipleship vocabulary.

Zaccheus

Walking through Jericho one day, Jesus looked beyond and above the crowds and saw a small man perched in a tree. All the locals knew it was Zacchaeus, a rich man due to his work as the chief tax collector.

Jesus called out, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” The little man moved down the tree and into the street quickly, eyes shining with excitement at the unexpected opportunity to host the Rabbi.

“Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” It was then, after this astonishing statement of restitution, that Jesus declared, “Today salvation has come to this house … ”

Giving half of his possessions to the poor was an extravagant act of charity–a great start. But the most revolutionary action was the decision to offer restitution to those he defrauded. He knew his riches were gained by exploiting the poor and his actions had impoverished an entire community. His offer of restitution demonstrated his awareness that they deserved more than “charity” (discretionary giving from his abundance) and more than “compensation” (dollar for dollar repayment). His offering made it clear that he was moving away from unjust gains and toward the costly practice of justice. I think this is why Jesus declared that salvation, or transformation, had come to his house.

Think about those who he would repay over the next set of days–what must that exchange have been like? They would come face to face with the chief tax collector but this time they would walk away with a heavier purse–radical! They would look him in the eye and he would do the same and maybe for the first time ever they saw each other as “neighbor.” Amazing! This would mark the beginning of a new relationship between them and a new way of engaging in community life together. I imagine Zacchaeus’ road of restitution was hard and had its share of pitfalls as he learned this new practice, but I am convinced it was a worthwhile journey toward the good that blessed the entire neighborhood.

So, here is the lingering question: How do we incorporate the practice of restitution into our daily discipleship? My Palestinian friend makes me laugh. Our kids play together in the park most days. I think of the policies of my country toward her people, her homeland and wonder how I can enact restitution in the context of our friendship. My state is infamous for poor attitudes and treatment of the immigrant community–is this yet another opportunity for me to find some way of living out justice by practicing restitution?

The Restitution Foundation in South Africa helps whites think about their status as beneficiaries of power and privilege, as well as creating opportunities for them to participate in restitution in townships and other communities affected by the injustice of Apartheid. Maybe we be could reflect on how we might be beneficiaries of our own systems and consider the power and privilege we possess. Then, let’s get creative and imagine how we could practice acts of restitution for individuals of these communities.

It will be costly, radical and deeply transformative. But I want to see this kind of salvation come to my house!

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My dear friends, I would love to hear your thoughts on this:

For example:

• Where have you been the beneficiary of power and/or privilege?
• How can you imagine incorporating the practice of Restitution into your daily discipleship?
• Any other thoughts?

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

ShePonders: Fasting

On Lent, fasting and what God requires of us.

“We are not able to substitute a forty-day fast for daily habits of justice.”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @keljnik

On the eve of Ash Wednesday, many of the faithful turn their thoughts to fasting. “What should I fast for the forty days of Lent?”  However, I imagine other questions circulating like: “What is the purpose of fasting? Does fasting even work?”

God seems to speak right into this very line of questioning in Isaiah 58. I’d like to imagine that He said these words right before a holy day or amid the preparations for a religious festival on the Jewish calendar. Right in the thick of the ritual fast, right as the people were questioning the efficacy of fasting … He spoke.

The people ask God why He does not give them His divine attention as they are fasting and sacrificing so much. And the response: “You call this a fast?  You might be denying yourself some little things but you continue to indulge in injustice by paying low wages, exploiting your workers, quarreling and getting into fist fights.”

God then outlined the kind of fast that would get His attention:

“ … to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.” (The Message)

He continued saying that when we share our food, our home, our clothes and our time with our neighbors, then we will have His attention.

When we participate in the work of justice–it is a holy and God-ordained enterprise. When we are advocating for land rights, refusing to purchase goods made with slave labor, securing identity cards for women at the margins and demanding better education in the ghetto, we work in tandem with God. When we engage in such work, we already have His proximity, His presence and His undivided attention. When we pay fair wages to our employees, create safe work environments, help a single mother with childcare or invite a famished friend to our table–we already have God’s attention.

God does not require a ritual fast, He asks for us to be good neighbors. We are not able to substitute a forty-day fast for daily habits of justice. So fasting does not work as a gimmick to garner God’s attention. We know that He is near to the broken-hearted and so when we draw near to them as well, we are all closer to Him as we move toward justice, abundance and goodness in the neighborhood.

But God is not done with His admonition. He tells the dissatisfied fasters that if they begin to feed the hungry and tend to the afflicted, amazing things will begin to happen around them! God promises to guide them, nourish and strengthen them. And then there is this:

“You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundation from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild, renovate, make the community livable again.” (The Message)

The image here is of a rundown neighborhood– a ghetto or slum. This broken-down place has been abandoned over the years, all those who could moved out to the suburbs where there were better schools and safer streets. Nothing works right in the ‘hood, just a tangle of people trying to get by on the crumbs of society. Sometimes they resort to violence and other vices–it is a hard place and nowhere you want to live. We drive a few extra miles in our air-conditioned cars to avoid this very place.

But when we care about neighbors and neighborhoods, we are drawn to these trouble spots.  We sit on the stoop and listen to the elderly speak, we watch the kids cut across the dilapidated playground and we see the women at the bus stop returning from the day shift.  And then we start to imagine something better for these neighbors.

We become known as “the fixers” who can come in and set things right and get things done!  We know how to take the old and repurpose it, to refurbish the run-down homes and renovate (dare we say innovate) schools.  We become those who carry God’s potential for newness into the neighborhood, transforming it into a livable community. Lives and landscapes transformed by neighborliness … this is what God had in mind all along.

And as neighborhoods are turned around, we are given new names:

“You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

God beckons us to be good neighbors, the kind of neighbors who little by little, one kindness at a time, reimagine and renovate entire neighborhoods. 

“Good neighbors, not good fasters.  This is what gets God’s attention.”

One thing that is clear in God’s comment on fasting is that He does not desire religious rituals in place of justice. He does not want fasting on holy days– but rather justice every day.  He does not want us to bring our offering to the temple if we have some unresolved matter with a friend. God wants us to be good neighbors–so justice and reconciliation always come before rituals, even before the spiritual practices of fasting and almsgiving.

I embrace the practice of fasting as a valuable spiritual discipline. I will be fasting for Lent. But I believe that fasting is about soul-shaping, not a means to get God’s attention and never a substitute for daily rhythms of neighborliness.

I want to have a new name – something along the lines of “the restorer of streets to live in.” In order to be that woman, the practice of fasting just might help me shave off some rough edges and reorient my heart. Fasting is a tool in my hand, not a gimmick or magic trick. For me, the practice of fasting will help shape me into a woman worthy of a name change!

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My dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear:

• What has been your experience with fasting?
• Are you planning on a fast for Lent?
• Any other thoughts or comments?

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AUDIO DOWNLOAD

Audio: ShePonders: Fasting

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

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For further reading:

• For a good introduction to the idea and practice of fasting during Lent, check out this article by my friend and former instructor, Mark Roberts: Do you have to give up something for Lent?
• Also, here’s my post from Ash Wednesday last year: I am Pleased: Thoughts on Lent, Fasting and Eschewing Religion.

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

ShePonders: Abundant Life

“When we have enough human dignity, enough freedom, enough food we actually come to see that we already live a life of abundance.”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha | Twitter: @kelljnik

So often I hear people speaking of  ”abundant life”–wanting it, claiming it as the right of every Christian. In a world that seems to exist in a straightjacket of scarcity, the notion of abundance sounds like a longed for oasis. The potential problem is that if we do not achieve the ideal of abundance, is the promise of Jesus a mere mirage in sands of our desert wandering?

What is Abundant Life–and can we have it?

We hear about the abundant life from the lips of John, the beloved disciple of Jesus. In John 10:10 we learn: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” There it is–Jesus came so that we can have abundant life. Boom!

A bit of context is in order here, so let’s widen our lens a bit. Okay, let’s widen the lens a lot, back to chapter nine and the story of the man born blind. The long and the short of it is that Jesus mixed mud and spit, smeared it on his eyes, and when the blind man washed his eyes, he could see. All this happened on Sabbath, which further raised the ire of the already hostile Pharisees. The next 29 verses relay the story of their investigation into the healing. John goes to great length to make clear that the Pharisees can’t believe, are unable to imagine or refuse to accept the reports that Jesus healed a blind man. By the end of the chapter, Jesus basically had turned the tables so the blind can see and the sighted can’t.

I am the Gate.

It is to these sighted-yet-blinded Pharisees that Jesus tells a parable. He talks of sheep, bandits and shepherds. He says the sheep know the voice of their shepherd. But the Pharisees still didn’t get the gist of the story. So Jesus says “I am the gate for the sheep … I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”  And in his further explanation of the parable we come to John 10:10 … “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” The thieves in the parable come to harm the sheep. But Jesus comes to give the sheep abundant life.

Now we can tighten our lens to this set of verses and get a closer look.

First, notice the way abundant life functions in this parable: It is the sheep that are the recipients of abundant life. Interesting.

In the parable the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. He wants to take the sheep away from the shepherd, kill the woolen animals and destroy the entire sheepfold.

Access

The gate, however, allows access. Those sheep that come through the gate will be saved. How are sheep saved? They are saved from peril like wild animals and, to the point of this parable, they are saved from thieves who mean them harm. Also we are told that the sheep are able to come and go through this gate. They are free to find pasture. So the gate allows the sheep to be saved from physical danger, to have freedom of movement and ample food.

This sounds like a good life for a sheep! You might even say that from the vantage point of the sheep this is abundant life. The gatekeeper, the gate, the shepherd ensures they have all they need. The fold is safe, free and fed.

[Abundance = Access to enough.]

Let’s not forget that Jesus was telling this story before a crowd of Palestinian Jews in the first century. As he explained the parable to them, it became evident he was talking about more than just sheep.  They were the sheep. He was the gate. The religious elites (among others) were the thieves. He was talking about them!

And if you were a peasant living under the occupation of the Roman Empire, if you were a good Jew trying to keep up with mounting temple taxes-–how would you hear this parable? You might think Jesus is saying there is salvation from the current oppressive regimes. You might hear that you can come and go freely without fear of colliding with a tax collector or a soldier who might enlist you to go a mile carrying his luggage. You might hear there will be ample food for you and your family. That would be a good gate … an entrance into abundant living.

First mention

Before we leave the text, there is one more question I want to ask: Where have we seen abundance in the Bible before? I go back to the beginning–to the garden. The creation story bursts at the seems: “plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth … swarms of living creatures … sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind … cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind …”  I am out of breath with the sheer abundance from just a few days of created goodness.  Wow!

Garden

According to the story, God created a lush garden as our point of origin. He intended us to live in a place of safety, a place where we could come and go, a place with ample food and so much more! Eden is our first glimpse at what abundance looks like. And as we recall, due to our over-reach, we were banned from the garden. That gate was closed to us … until Jesus comes and says that he is the gate, implying that he is the new gate back to creation goodness, perhaps?  I think there is a hint of that in John’s gospel. Jesus is the gate back to garden goodness; back to the abundant life we were designed to live with God and all of creation.

Maybe the story nudges us to see that the abundant life is not so much about getting everything we want, but about accessing everything God intended for us from the beginning. Simply put–we, like sheep, need freedom and food for abundant life.

Viable + vibrant

When sheep live under threat from thieves–safety, freedom and food look like abundant living by comparison. When Palestinian peasants eek out a living on the underside of the economy and brutal regime–freedom and food look like abundant life by comparison. Abundance equals access to enough. When we have enough human dignity, enough freedom, enough food we actually come to see that we already live a life of abundance.

Abundance is not having more wealth and more belongings; it is having enough to live a viable and vibrant life. We can come very close to the plight of the sighted yet blind Pharisees when we look for the abundant life without realizing that we are already living it!

There are, however, many around the globe that do live under constant threat, those who lack freedom and food. Jesus came that they, too, might have abundant life. When our blindness is cured, we can see our own abundance and see those who need us to be like Jesus, a gate to the abundant life.

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Audio: Abundant Life

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

SheLoves Bubanza Project: Can Love Move this Mountain in Burundi?

This Valentine’s Day, we showed what true Love can do. 

LATEST UPDATE: Dear friends, this month we raised $7,212 for our sisters and brothers in Bubanza, Burundi. We are so grateful that together we can help bring visibility to this community and over 600 people can now have their own ID cards. A mountain has been moved, indeed.

UPDATE:  WE DID IT!!! 425 women in Bubanza will now get their ID documents. If you still want to donate, any overflow will go to fund the ID cards for the men of Bubanza. #Together certainly moves mountains of injustice. Thank you so much!

-idelette xoxo

Last week we launched the SheLove Bubanza Valentine’s Day project. We are gathering our strength to give 425 women in Bubanza, Burundi, the dignity of an Identity Card. Until now, these women have been invisible. Even though they have their government didn’t count them as citizens. We have raised $4,190 already–only 76 more ID cards to go! We want to give every woman in this community this basic human right. Please join us!

Want to give an ID card as a Valentine’s Day gift? Download your own card (as pdf) here and print it at home. (It looks great on cardstock!)

WANT TO KNOW HOW THIS ALL BEGAN?

Here’s the original story:

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Doing our part for our sisters in Burundi on the journey from Invisible to Belonging.

By Idelette McVicker | Twitter: @idelette

I remember the moment well: Driving up Granville Street, three kids in the back of the minivan and Scott at the wheel. I read my friend Kelley Johnson Nikondeha’s latest blogpost about her and hubby Claude’s work in Burundi on my phone:

“Another beginning.“

They were starting another brandnew, God-sized (read: faith required) project in Bubanza, Burundi. A community with over a thousand adults.

I read in the hurried pace of the car, speeding forward through Vancouver traffic to catch a ferry on that Friday afternoon. Inwardly, I was willing a quiet moment … dodging as best I could the crescendo of kidlet voices in the car and steeling myself against the atmosphere of Rush.

I willed myself to be present to the words … to catch my Kelley’s heart. I wanted to be open my own heart to the big work she and Claude devote their lives to.

She drew me in with this picture of a little Burundian girl:

And then these words:

“This week, life for this little girl is going to start changing.”

Kelley and Claude (a native Burundian) have faithfully visited Bubanza since 2008. They started with a small community project with the Batwa people and saw it flourishing through hard work, heart work, commitment and tenacity.

“But Bubanza,” she wrote ”is big and the terrain is tough. Hundreds of families, poor land, no water and no hope. Some have tried to help over the years–helping with some houses, but not enough. Offering occasional food, but only for a few days. No one stayed long. So the situation on the ground in Bubanza really did not change.”

“Hardship was the steady diet of these friends.”

Over the years, over dusty visits, telling stories and much dancing, the people of Bubanza have become Claude and Kelley’s friends. Each a person with a name and a story.

By this time in the story, we were at the corner close to an old favourite Starbucks. For some reason, I was aware of my own place on the earth and it seemed significant as I read her next sentence:

“We will start by advocating for human rights – identity cards, birth certificates and marriage licenses for hundreds of families.”

What? These people–these friends of my friends–don’t have identity cards? No birth certificates?

I’ll be honest: The tears welled up in me right then, just as they are now, in writing these words.

I sat there in the car with my robust family and my own story and these words stopped me in my tracks:

No. Identity. Cards.

Kelley explained: “As far as the world was concerned, they did not exist. With no official record of their existence they could claim no rights, no representation, no residence or real home. For all intents and purposes they were invisible … exiles in their own land living in the shadows of Burundian society.”

I understood a little of what this meant. I remembered the ache of not truly belonging.

While my place of nothing could never ever compare to theirs, that season of my life gave me a glimpse into the cold walls of powerlessness. I remembered how dependency keeps you small and how vulnerably naked it is without a piece of paper to mark your own spot on the earth.

I understood the world of difference between having the dignity of an identity card and not having that seemingly simple, yet profoundly important piece of paper.

The tears were streaming down my face and I had to catch gulps of air through the sobs. [This doesn't happen that often, so when it did, I paid attention.]

Lord, what can I do? I asked.

Lord, what do you need me to do?

Lord, what do you want us to do?

I emailed Kelley and started a conversation … a thread of a hope. What if one day we, the SheLoves Sisterhood, could come alongside these sisters in Bubanza?

It seemed distant and foggy.

But I set up camp by this thought and lifted my heart in prayer.

Then, over the next two months, life started to change for the people of Bubanza.

First, the arrival of trees.

Then, desks.

And, in early January, I read another one of Kelley’s blogposts:

“Come forward and be seen!”

The first 120 women in Bubanza were holding their identity cards in their hands. I could hardly believe it!

The team had decided to make the women’s identity cards a priority. These women were now–for the first time–recognized as residents of Bubanza and citizens of Burundi.

As I read that last post, it struck me how just fast the Spirit of God was moving to bring hope, dignity and strength to the people of Bubanza.

It swept through me too and I wanted to be a part of this God story.

I emailed Kelley that night, late into the night. I fought against the voice that said I was being impulsive, but I remembered the tears on that first day, so I hit “send” and enquired anyway:

- How many more women need identity cards? I asked.

- How much does it cost to get one identity card?

Maybe this would be too big for us, I doubted. I had no idea.

I asked anyway.

The next morning her response laid in the palm of my hands:

“There are 425 women in Bubanza awaiting identity cards at the cost of $12 each.”

Twelve dollars sounded so … doable. I quickly did the math on my phone:

1 x identity card @$12

x

425 women

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= $5,100

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Our SheLoves/LifeWomen Mama Helen Burns also caught the wind of the Spirit and said, Yes! Let’s do it!

So, this my dear SheLoves sisters, is our Valentine’s Day project for 2012–a way to show deep, meaningful and real Love to our sisters in Burundi.

- Not the hearts and chocolate kind, but the kind of Love that changes a woman’s life for good. The kind of Love that can’t help but change us as we give to others.

So, my dear friend, would you please help us in getting the word out and raise the funds to get identity cards for each and every woman in Bubanza? We’d love to do this by Valentine’s Day.

Would you join us, please, in giving towards an identity card for one woman? Five women? Ten women? A hundred women? All the women? The whole community?

As I sit with our project–and this basic human need of our friends in Bubanza–I can’t help but be reminded of this: He knows my name. He knows our names. And He knows every one of their names. And together we have an opportunity to participate in this beautiful story of Dignity and Justice.

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About Idelette:
I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.

I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.

My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.

I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.

I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.

ShePonders: Prophets

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha

“Prophet” is such a strong, heavy and unequivocal word in my vocabulary. But it did not begin that way.

My initial encounter with the word “prophet” was in my post-college days when I attended a Vineyard Church. People spoke of prophets as easily as they mentioned the pastor or the greeters or the janitor. Prophets were often contrasted with those gifted in mercy, implying and sometimes even saying outright that while mercy people were gentle, sensitive and touchy-feely, prophets were none of these things. A prophet saw things–about you and sometimes your future. They spoke words of personal comfort (at least the New Testament instructed them to do so); they spoke of predictions regarding the church, community and even country. They had a reputation for being brash and having sharp edges. More than once I heard it said that prophets saw in black and white.

During years steeped in this culture, I had my own personal encounters with prophets. I received many words of knowledge. These prophets claimed to know things about me or offered a God-given directive for me to follow and even spoke of grand future exploits. Some words were formative, others fell flat. Such was the way with modern prophets I surmised–even they were practicing their gift imperfectly, learning as they went.

When I entered seminary I had to engage prophets once again … but this time the robust personalities of the Old Testament. These crazed men (mostly) spoke in poetic cadence and dreamed dreams, saw visions, often acting in strange ways. They were of a different breed entirely from the prophets I knew. At first glance I wrote them off as being archaic, as outdated as the Old Testament itself. But they stayed with me and began to burrow into my psyche, those poetic verses and haunting metaphors provoking me to come closer and listen. (I must pay tribute to Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann for offering me a proper introduction to these wild and wonderful prophets.)

And here is what I have learned about prophets–they don’t see in black and white, they see in technicolor.  Now I find it interesting that the “tech” in Technicolor was inspired by the founder’s technical training at MIT. The name of his revolutionary color process and company are an homage to inspired instruction and his own innovation in color saturation. The prophets of old are similar in this respect; they honor their inspired instruction (which comes from the Torah) and marry that with their unique innovative vision. The prophets understood deeply the words of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers–and that shaped what they saw and what they spoke.

Allow me to share some simple observations from years of studying these great prophets:

A prophet sees.

- A prophet can see Torah. She sees the words of God and has studied the ways of Jesus. Because these words and ways are written on her heart, she sees through them into her world.

- A prophet can see the world around her truly. She sees with clarity the good, the bad and the ugly. She sees that the dominant story of the world misleads people into elitism, racism, poverty, violence and consumerism.

- A prophet can see the margins. She sees who is there, how they got there and what keeps them on the sidelines of society.  She notices the human rights denied. She sees the invisible–who is missing from the classrooms, the hospital rooms, the voter rolls and the pews.

- A prophet can see injustice. She sees the injust structures that keep people out; the policies meant to exclude. She sees unfair trade agreements, environmental exploitation and corrupted banking systems. She sees crooked leaders and crooked laws.

- A prophet sees an alternative.  She sees another way to be in this world – a way rooted in Torah, love and justice.  She sees God’s abundance, not scarcity.  She sees humanity in her enemy and knows that forgiveness must be on offer.  She sees conflict and dreams of reconciliation, swords into plows (or tanks into tractors).

- A prophet sees newness. She sees that God is doing a new thing. God is on the move with fresh ideas and a fount of creative energy. She knows the world may be in a rut of poor choices–but God is not stuck! He is free and leading us into new freedom all the time, she has seen it!

- A prophet sees potential. She understands that the way the world is now is not set in stone. She sees potential for age-old wrongs to be set right in our day, for the brutally broken to know gentle mending, for systems of oppression to give way to unprecedented liberation, for truth to trump the lies we believe about ourselves and others.

- A prophet sees the connections. She sees the connection between her personal issues, the ones that hit closest to home, and the public practices. So her difficult pregnancy allows her to see the infant and maternal mortality rates in other countries. Her white skin and accompanying privilege help her see those in townships without access to something as simple as books. Losing her home makes her see the underside of the economic system that benefits some and exploits others. She sees the connections beyond herself, out into the larger world that God has called her to address.

- A prophet sees the colors. She sees the dark and dim for what it is. She also sees the bright and bursting hues–and all the shades in between. Seeing color means seeing life in its full spectrum.

A prophet speaks.

A prophet speaks the truth about the world as she finds it, looking through Torah-colored glasses. She speaks truth not just to power; she speaks truth to the status quo. She says that this is not the only way life can be! This is not the only way to manage your family! This is not the only way to run the world! Children don’t have to die of malaria–girls don’t have to miss out on education. Ecosystems don’t have to be trashed!

She looks at the world as it is and says it can be otherwise.

A prophet speaks about an alternative way. She tells us that there is another kingdom where justice reigns.  She says there is a better option than Caesar. She dares to say that violence is not the only way to bring peace. She tells another story and narrates a new world of possibility into existence guided by the Spirit.

A prophet speaks … wherever God leads her. She offers her voice to tell His story, she offers her voice to advocate for others (because she sees them) and proclaim good news. She speaks and allows her voice to become His–and that is what the prophets of old did when they spoke to their community. The prophets had eyes that saw, ears that heard and voices that spoke His truth into their world.

May it be so for us … women who can see, hear and speak into His world in full color and full voice!

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My dear SheLoves sisters,

• What has been your experience with the word “prophet?”
• What stirs in you and speaks to you now?
• Any other comments or thoughts? I’d love to hear.

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Audio:  ShePonders: Prophets

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

_________________________________

About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

ShePonders: Christmas

“He, and not the Caesars of this age, is the Light of the World, the Messiah, the Savior.”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha
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Audio: ShePonders: Christmas

Click on the link above for an audio experience of Kelley’s post.

“Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Growing up in the church and a series of other concentric Christian circles over the years, this is an oft-quoted truism during this season. Jesus is the reason for Christmas; the reason we celebrate. He is the reason we carve out this holy time on our annual calendar. Christmas is about Jesus, not about lavish consumption and consumerism.

Absolutely true.

And yet … it rings incomplete for me. Jesus is the reason for what? Is He the reason for gift-giving, cookie-baking, stocking-hanging, tree-lighting and hall-decking? Is He the reason for family gatherings; the reason we give to the poor at home and abroad? While the commemoration of His advent provokes celebration and charity, I still feel the message of Christmas is a bit muddled.

What is the Christmas story really about? What did Matthew and Luke intend as they wrote down their distinctive birth narratives we now blend together seamlessly into Christmas pageants? Why did the wise men bring gifts?  Why did the angels fill the celestial amphitheatre with song? Why did the shepherds run to see the baby?  What did the words of Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna mean to the first hearers in the ancient world? What is the rhyme and reason behind these cherished stories we read our children during the 12 days of Christmas?

Poetic Genealogies

Matthew begins with a long genealogy that travels from Abraham through David and Solomon, arriving at Jesus. The lineage demonstrates that Jesus is the new Messiah, arriving on the scene at the appropriate time. Luke’s genealogy begins with Jesus tracing His line back through Nathan, David, Boaz and finally to Adam in the garden. We learn from Luke that Jesus is the new Adam. In the poetry of genealogy we learn that Jesus is Messiah, that He is our new beginning. But we discover something else as well. In the ancient world, genealogies were spun to showcase the lineage of Caesar, to make manifest that he is the Son of God descended from Heaven. Both Matthew and Luke use the rhetoric of the day to say something different–there is a new ruler and here are His credentials. These were both counter-genealogies announcing the bone fides of Jesus. He is the true Messiah, He is the true beginning of a new era … not Caesar.

Divine Conception

Next, both Matthew and Luke tell the story of the divine conception of Jesus. The Angel Gabriel had several conversations with Joseph, according to Matthew, about the nature of his wife’s pregnancy.  As Luke tells it, Gabriel spoke to Mary directly about the goodness she was gestating within.  We are told that she received these words with an open heart and, I imagine, an awareness that her life had just been set on an irreversible trajectory.

While these stories of God-breathed conception sound novel to our ears, we must re-frame our understanding. Such tales were commonplace in the days of the ancient Mediterranean. You would hear stories like this all the time–about the birth of Caesar. Everyone knew He descended from the gods and was genetically inclined to rule the empire. Now we are told there is Another on the scene … another divine Son with the capacity and mandate to reign. We learn that the birth stories have less to do with the biology of the mother and more to do with the destiny of the child–destined to rule.  Matthew and Luke tell us that Caesar has a challenger for the throne.  Jesus, the true child of God, is destined to rule the Kingdom.

Heavy Titles

Scattered within these birth narratives are many heavy titles. ”King of the Jews” was a title ascribed to Herod the Great, but applied to Jesus. ”Son of God,” “Lord,” “Savior of the world”–all used to speak exclusively of Caesar, the one who descends from the gods and saves the world. He brings the Pax Romana through victory, employing violence to suppress rivals. Included in his peace is an economic policy that rewards the elites and exploits the poor, but keeps the roads open and commerce flowing. When Matthew and Luke call Jesus the Son of God, Messiah, Savior, Lord … they are dancing on the edge of treason. But they are naming a new reality–the light of the world has come, and it is not the emperor seated in Rome, but the babe in the stable. The gospel writers are, in effect, advertizing a better Son of God. Jesus will bring peace through justice and His peace will come through non-violent means. His Kingdom will bring about prosperity for all–even those at the margins and on the underbelly of the economy–and it will have no end.

Once we read these poetic genealogies, divine conception stories loaded with heavy titles we should all be chanting:

Jesus, not Caesar! Jesus, not Caesar! Jesus, not Caesar!

What the stories of Christmas say, then and now, is that peace cannot come through Caesar. The gospel writers wanted us all to see that there is another way to govern the world–peace through justice, not violence. There is another way to administer the Kingdom–through justice, love and goodness. We have been entrusted with very subversive stories that invite us to see differently, believe differently and act differently. The way the world operates now is not the only way it can ever be. Jesus comes as a new kind of President, a different kind of Prime Minister, a better General Secretary of the United Nations and more skilled Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund … with another Way to bring about a lasting peace and an equitable economy for all.

Jesus is the reason for the season … a reason that upends the status quo of the world as we know it. He is the beginning of deep transformation the world over and the savior for all who suffer under current empires and economies. He offers another way forward, a rationale that confronts all we have come to know and believe about the way the world works.

- Jesus is the reason to rethink the status quo of our empires and economies.

- Jesus is the reason to imagine peace and prosperity without war.

- Jesus is the reason to live differently in this season and every other season–

Because He, and not the Caesars of this age, is the Light of the World, the Messiah, the Savior. This is why we sing: Glory to God in the Highest!

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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.

Image credit: Merry Christmas, by The Meadowbrook blog

ShePonders: Another Anointing

“Can we messiah one another–propelling each other into the larger salvation story of which we all have a part to play?”

By Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha

“You have to quit your job.” All the others around the room that morning nodded their heads in agreement. A sober-minded brunette reached for pen and paper: “We can help you write the resignation letter now.” Among this group of trusted friends gathered to help me discern my current situation, it was all but settled–it was time to embrace Africa and let go of lesser things.

“I will cover the cost of your first year,” one said. Such a bold investment brought immediate gravity to the sunlit room that morning … and then I felt another take my hand and whisper, “I am coming with you.”  Within moments there were hands laid on us and prayers ascending; the room awash with tears and blessing. This was a holy moment that pushed me forward into my deeper purpose–and I needed my sisters more than I realized.

The weekend I was messiahed.

* * *

For many months she had been following the Rabbi. She had heard him tell many of his parables–some more than once. She had listened to his teachings on hillsides in Galilee and in homes like Martha’s. She had witnessed healings and walked so close behind him that dust would sometimes cover her garments. She had eyes that saw and ears that heard … and she knew where he was headed because he said so on more than one occasion and in more than one way.

So she saved coins here and there. She even found one in a corner–she had thought it long since lost! But not too long ago she took her small purse and purchased some ointment of nard. It was a small alabaster jar–all she could afford–but it was of the best quality. She had it by her bed where she could smell the fragrance like night-blooming jasmine.

There was a dinner party at Simon’s house in Bethany, a familiar occasion for the Rabbi and his disciples. But that night, as she left her house, she reached for the alabaster jar and carried it with her down the street to her neighbor’s home.

By the time she arrived, the Rabbi was already there. He was sitting at the table and laughing with Simon (once a leper) and some other friends. Other disciples were mingling about the room in spirited conversation while the house staff brought platters of food and began pouring the wine.

Now. Now was the time. She took a deep breath and felt the weight of the jar in her tiny hand. She walked toward him. She broke open the top of the jar and began to pour the ointment over his coarse hair … dark hair that reminded her of her own brother. But, unlike her brother, the Rabbi was destined for Jerusalem–for death and yet for victory, too. In her bones she knew him to be Messiah, though she hardly could conceive of what that really meant. She poured slowly … pondering these many things.

She was thinking of this when jolted by Peter’s sharp elbow and the angry words of Judas. The room was filled with noise. With shouting. With accusation. She felt confused … didn’t they all know what she was doing? Like Samuel and Elijah she was merely recognizing the Rabbi’s true calling.  She was affirming his destiny.

But they did not have eyes to see or ears to hear.

But the Rabbi knew. He felt the cool ointment dripping down his scalp and down his neck–and knew the fragrance immediately. She was preparing him. She was empowering him for what lay ahead. She was making visible his salvific purpose: a martyred messiah.

He pushed back Peter and the others pressing toward her; he chided Judas with one sharp look. Then he spoke: “She has anointed me.”

The woman sighed in deep relief as she realized the Rabbi had received her gift.

Like the prophets of old, the woman anointed Jesus and proclaimed his true identity. It was the woman who stood in the long prophetic tradition–not John the Baptist, who baptized with water; not Peter who attempted to announce Messiah but then misunderstood his agenda entirely. It was this woman who was the perceptive prophet. She messiahed Jesus.

She possessed the insight cultivated over months of patient watching, listening and pondering. She invested in the ointment of nard and made an intentional decision to take it with her on that cool night. She was inspired by the Spirit to anoint and therefore participate in the work of Jesus, giving momentum to his salvation agenda. One scholar notes that she empowered him, the disciple empowering the Rabbi. How stunning a reversal!

* * *

I have grown up with another concept of anointing, one that is more spontaneous and charismatic.  For many years I carried a green glass bottle of scented oil in my purse in case a moment arose where anointing was called for. Not too long ago I anointed the feet of some African leaders on Ugandan soil with olive oil.

It is good to bless one another with rich symbols. I recommend it.

But this is a story of another anointing. This woman, most likely a disciple of Jesus, observed him and was attentive to the meaning of his life. She knew there was a deeper purpose afoot. And she prepared for a prophetic moment when she would affirm and announce it. She would, unbeknownst to her, push him into passion week with her anointing. She pushed him in much the same ways my friends propelled me that sun-drenched morning. They messiahed me into my part in God’s salvation story of transformation in Africa.

This anointing involves more than scented oil in shapely vessels.

This anointing involves:

attentive observation,

intentional action and

bold participation

in the divine purpose of another.

This anointing pushes others toward their true call. We are invited to anoint each other toward the things that matter–for our sake, for their sake and for the sake of the world in need of transformation.

Can we messiah one another–propelling each other into the larger salvation story of which we all have a part to play?

__________________________________

My dear SheLoves sisters and friends, I would love to hear your thoughts and comments:

• Have you ever been messiahed?
• Who has seen you in and participated in the divine purpose of your life?
• Other thoughts?

___________________________________

<<<Another Anointing>>>

Click on the link above for an audio version of Kelley’s ShePonders: Another Anointing
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About Kelley:

Kelley Johnson Nikondeha is co-director of Amahoro Africa and international staff member of Community of Faith with her husband Claude. She’s a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader and mother of two beautiful children. Kelley lives between Arizona and Burundi. She loves handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann.