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Jer Swigart

Entering the Voids. Waging Peace.

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Archives for 2014

An Unfinished Cookie and A Broken Heart: On Raising Leaders

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I had just gotten off a call with the White House and several Universities in which they briefed us on the failure of the most recent peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.  The conversation quickly evolved to the violent outcomes that occur when leaders wield power for personal gain rather than steward it for the flourishing of others.  Finally, the call found its primary objective: forming Millennial (ages 18-30) leaders.

To begin, the White House Corespondent offered this: “If we’re going to see peace realized, we need leaders who are willing to take political risks for the sake of peace….We need to bring the next generation of risk-taking leaders to the table.”

The conversation that unfolded produced a list of desired traits, characteristics, and competencies of Millennial leaders.  We imagined the kinds of risks that would need to be taken and decisions that would need to be made by next generation leaders that would usher in a mutually beneficial tomorrow.  As the call came to a close, we found ourselves on the front end of a riveting conversation focused on the question: “How can we best accompany Millennials as they seek to become leaders who steward power well and who take great risks for the flourishing of others?”

With this conversation fresh on my mind, I found myself on an in-home dinner date with my vivacious and compassionate six-year-old daughter.  I had prepared one of our favorite meals: Chicken Tikka Masala with basmati rice and garlic naan.  As we enjoyed our food, Ava got curious: “Daddy. Did Indians make this food?”

Ava.Jer

Wanting her to understand the difference, I asked, “Now, do you mean Indians from India or do you mean Native Americans?”

“What’s the difference?” she inquired, ever ready to learn something new.

I got the iPad and we did a Google image search.  First we looked at images of Native American children and then of Indian children.  We discussed the similarities between them as well as the differences.  Next we listened to Native American music followed by Indian music and had a similar conversation.  Finally, we found both India and North America on Google Earth and had a conversation about home.

Our chat seemed to be coming to a close with a shared conclusion that Indians (not Native Americans) had helped us make our dinner, so I got her a cookie and small cup of milk and began to wash the dishes.

Suddenly, I heard Ava whisper, “Daddy!  What’s this?!”

I walked back to the table to find that she had continued to look at images of Indian children and had stopped on a picture of a starving Indian baby.  As I began to explain hunger to her, I realized that, while she had encountered hunger and poverty in her short life, this was the moment she was being undone by it.  I shared with her that one of the reasons hunger happens is because people who have enough aren’t very good at sharing it with people who don’t have enough. I shared with her that the world needs more people who are courageous enough to give away things like food and money and power so that babies don’t go hungry anymore.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks and, for the first time in her life, Ava put her cookie down, leaving it unfinished in her cup of milk.

Quietly, she got up from the table and got ready for bed.  I tucked her in, prayed with her as she cried out a prayer for the hungry kids in our world, and prayed over her, that God would use this moment of healthy heartbreak to form her into a leader who courageously walks in the Way of Jesus for the flourishing of others.

And then, as I watched her fall asleep, I recalled my conversation with the White House earlier that day and was both inspired and convicted.  It is true that we need to imagine compelling strategies to develop leaders.  But the best strategy for forming the next generation into the types of people who take courageous risks for the sake of others’ flourishing involves meaningful conversation with our kids around our dinner tables.

Of the two conversations had that day, the latter overwhelmingly trumped the former.

Advent: What Are We Waiting For?

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Advent is a season of anticipation…of waiting.  But, as people living on this side of the arrival of God in the person of Jesus, are we in waiting or is Advent simply an experiential simulation of a past waiting?

To get to the answer, let’s consider the waiting of the ancient people of Israel.  The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that they lived with a desperate longing for God (1) to obliterate all the oppressive messiness in the world that was hurting people; and (2) to create a new heaven & new earth where all things were as they were intended to be.

So how did they wait?

On the scene during Israel’s peak in military strength, wealth, and expanse, the prophet Isaiah critiqued the people of God for their misdirected worship of their treasure and weapons rather than of God (Isaiah 2:7).  Their waiting took the form of a national idolatry that resulted in a polluted culture where exploitation trumped human flourishing.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, their waiting ended when God inserted Himself into the world, taking the embryonic form within the womb of a teenage virgin. In the person of Jesus, God immersed into our neighborhood for 30 years where He lived and taught a new way of being human. So unconventional was His way that they killed Him for it, but the Story didn’t end there.  After He wore a cross and was buried in a rock, He rose again, defeating the powers that oppress and inaugurating a new world that He would usher in through a Jesus-looking people.

He promised his community that He would both send His Spirit to empower them and that He would come back.  Then, as suddenly as He arrived, He left. One wait was over…but a new one had begun.

It is here that we find ourselves. We are a people living in a beautifully bizarre in-between.  We live in-between the moment when God came and waged a decisive peace between us AND the moment when God will return and restore all things to the way they were supposed to be.  The in-between matters, so as a waiting people, how ought we wait?

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In 2 Peter 3:8-15, the author encourages a community who finds itself between the already of Christ having come and the not yet of His return to wait with diligence and at peace.  Rather than an encouragement to simply remain calm until God makes good on His promise, this is an exhortation to live a life of peace with urgency.

What does this kind of life look like?

  1. It begins with believing that the work of God in the person of Jesus happened and that it worked.
  2. It continues as we, daily, embrace our identity as God’s beloved by dropping our buckets into the deep well that is Jesus Christ.
  3. It involves pointing, with our words and our lives, to the freedom, forgiveness, and fullness that Jesus made possible.
  4. It includes  joining God in ushering in a world where reconciliation and human flourishing trump power-hoarding and exploitation.

This Advent, as in last, we find ourselves as a waiting people within a beautifully bizarre in-between. Rather than these next five weeks being little more than an experiential simulation of a past waiting, let’s embrace the wait as a people who, with our words and lives, point to Jesus and to the hope, peace, joy, deliverance, justice, freedom, and healing that He’s made possible.  With urgency, let’s join Him in ushering in the new world He’s making.

Who knows? Perhaps this is our last Advent…

Dangerous Dreams: 3 Lessons Learned from Within an Armed Street Fight

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What would you do if you suddenly found yourself  in the middle of an armed street fight?

My colleague Jon and I just spent the past five days training peacemakers throughout the country to humbly enter into conflict equipped with compassion and curiosity rather than with weapons to destroy.  We teach that the work of peacemaking is a really difficult, often dangerous, always costly, and ever rewarding way of life.  We remind those we’re training that God set the practical peacemaking template in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the way that He saw us, immersed into our broken story, contended for our flourishing, and decisively restored the severed relationships between us at the cost of His blood.  Peacemakers are men and women who, daily, spend their lives joining God in is His work of restoration.

On Monday, we found ourselves in Dallas, Texas working with Free City International, an incredible organization strategically placed within the refugee community.  Currently, the neighborhood that FCI is embedded within is home to 10,000 refugees from fifteen countries who speak 140 different languages.

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After six hours of training in the practical reality of peacemaking, training shifted to practice.  It had to.

As we drove from the training, the neighborhood high school was letting out and the streets were filling with young people from all over the world.  We pulled up to a stop light and found ourselves immersed in the middle of a street fight between young Burmese and West African refugees who wielded nun-chucks, tasers, and aluminum baseball bats.

Without hesitation, our friend Jason (Executive Director of FCI) threw his car into park…in the middle of the road…and ran into the center of the fray armed not with weapons to destroy but with the tools to transform.  In a matter of minutes, a fight that could have sealed the fate of many de-escalated and the warring parties went their separate ways.

Let me draw out three lessons learned about everyday peacemaking from Jason’s practice that day:

  1. Peacemaking is not something that we do.  Peacemaking is a way of life.  When we found ourselves within the street fight, Jason didn’t pause to consider the potential for personal harm nor how stepping off the road of comfort into reality would interrupt the rest of our afternoon.  He didn’t even seem to see the fight itself.  Instead, because he had been immersed in that neighborhood for so long, he saw the fates and futures of struggling kids teetering precariously on the edge of disaster.  What he saw stirred an already existing hurt within that catalyzed him into merciful action.  Jason wasn’t doing something…he was being someone.
  2. Many notice…few see.  As the fight de-escalated, I looked around to find lines of cars backed up as far as I could see filled with gawking adults who ignored the red-green-yellow revolution of the traffic lights.  I watched as two police cars edged by, the policemen within casting seemingly indifferent glances in our direction.  I watched hundreds of kids paralyzed and prepared to watch one more blood bath in the refugee-impacted streets of Dallas.  And then I looked at Jason who was in the middle of the fight, arms outstretched, looking into the eyes of hurting kids, and pleading with them to put their weapons away.  While many had noticed…only one had chosen to see.
  3. Everyday peacemakers dream dangerous dreams.  As we drove away, Jason said, “The conflicts that these refugees are running from reemerge in these streets everyday.  This is why we need an army of everyday peacemakers trained and embedded here.”  While peacemaking brought Jason into a place of danger, what most inspired Jon and I was the dangerous dream that he has.  You see, when Jason speaks of the everyday peacemakers who will one day be trained and embedded, he’s not talking about volunteers from outside the neighborhood.  Instead, the everyday peacemakers that he longs to train and to wage peace with are the ones who were wielding the weapons in the fight he had just broken up.  Jason’s dream is a dangerous, beautiful, necessary, God-sized dream.

Reflection Questions:

  1. Where do you find yourself in this story?  Distanced-gawker? Paralyzed observer? Indifferent passerby? Immersed peacemaker?
  2. Are you and I close enough to the hurt in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, nation, and world that we can see both the fights and the plights that fuel them? Are we close enough to see and understand our contributions to the plights that inform the fights? Do we hurt in ways that catalyze merciful action?
  3. What is the dangerous dream that you dream about the flourishing of others?  How are you joining God in seeing that dream come true?

The Parable of the Good SaMexican

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A young aspiring US American peacemaker asked a Mexican who has followed the peacemaking Way of Jesus into the Immigrant’s Journey for decades, “What doOscar I have to do to be with God forever?”

“What do you read in the Scriptures?” asked Oscar.

“Love God and love your neighbor.” replied the student.

“You got it!” said Oscar. “Do this and both you and others will flourish.”

Standing in Friendship Park in Tijuana and looking through the Border Wall to the skyline of San Diego, the aspiring peacemaker asked, “But who is my neighbor?”

In reply, Oscar told this story.

Because life in Central America had become dangerous, impoverished, and hopeless, a young boy named Martin began a perilous journey north to what he thought would be a more beautiful future. For untold days and nights, he rode the tops of freight trains through the heart of Mexico. He watched gangs burglarize, beat, rape, and throw the most vulnerable from the trains. He dodged thugs and Mexican migration officials at some check points and was assaulted and apprehended at others. After six deportations and harrowing attempts at the life-threatening journey, Martin finally arrived in Tijuana.

Once there, the smuggling network recruited him to act as a “rabbit.” His job was to jump the fence and to run as fast as he could to capture the pursuit of the Border Patrol. The smugglers knew that once Border Patrol’s attention was averted, they could send a larger, slower group of migrants over the wall in a different location. Martin was the best rabbit in the network, consistently collecting $50 payments.

One day, as Martin was preparing to make another run, an FBI agent zeroed in his sniper rifle and lay patiently in wait.

Martin got the green light and jumped the fence. The race was on! As he sprinted in his signature zig-zag pattern, he was surprised at the silence. He didn’t hear the familiar roar of the SUV’s and the ATV’s. Instead, he heard a “CRACK” and what felt like fire pierced his back and came through his belly button. He crashed to the ground writhing in pain and willing his non-responsive legs to move.

A Mexican Border Patrol agent drove up and when he saw the now unconscious Martin, he figured the rabbit was dead so he veered around him and kept on driving. A US American FBI agent, when he came to the place, wanted nothing to do with a dead, much less injured, rabbit. He, too, walked away.

Martin was eventually discovered to be alive and was flown to a nearby US American hospital for treatment. He had finally made it to the US but not in the way he had imagined so many months before. He would survive the sniper’s spine-severing bullet, but young Martin would never walk again.

After physical therapy and training for life in a wheelchair, Martin was deported to the streets of Tijuana where, in order to survive, he sold whatever his hands could make. When he realized that no one wanted what he could make he sold off components from his wheelchair. When there were no parts left to sell, he sold his crippled body for sex to any customer who was willing to pay.

Just then, a Mexican came by, and, when he saw Martin, he saw his humanity and dignity. He saw the image of God in him as well as his plight. Rather than walking away, the Mexican sat down next to Martin.

“What do you want?” asked Martin. “I’ll do whatever you want for a price.”

“I want one thing,” said the Mexican, “but I’m not going to pay you.”

“No payment, no service.” said Martin, dragging his bloodied feet on the rocks as he wheeled away.

“Let me bandage your feet.” the Mexican said as we walked alongside Martin. “Come over to my home for dinner tonight, take a shower, and rest in one of our beds.”

“What do you want from me?! Get away!” screamed Martin.

“Nothing.” said the Mexican. “I want nothing from you…only the best for you.”

With that, Martin allowed the Mexican to load him into his vehicle and take him to his home. While there, the Mexican and his wife helped him bathe, discovered and cleaned his colostomy bag, disinfected and bandaged his feet, shared a hot meal with him, and offered him one of the few private bedrooms in the house.

The next day, they listened to Martin share his horror story of migration, of the shooting, of his time in the US, and of selling his body in the streets of Tijuana. So moved were they that they contacted and acquired legal representation to contend for Martin in the US court system. For two years, Martin lived with the Mexicans as the legal battle ensued. In the end, the battle was ultimately lost, but Martin, rather than understanding himself as “Martin-making-it-on-his-own,” knew himself as “Martin-beloved-member-of-a-family.”

Ending the story here, Oscar asked, “Which of these, the Border Patrol agent, the FBI agent, or the Mexican, was a neighbor to Martin?

The aspiring peacemaker replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Oscar smiled and nodded his head. “Go and do likewise.”

Unanimous: What Senate Can Agree on and What it Tells Us About Us

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In the midst of longstanding partisan stonewalling and insolent disagreement regarding most domestic and foreign affairs, Senate suddenly spoke as one unified voice on Friday.  In a landslide, 100-0 vote, our representatives declared their unequivocal support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.

Because this article is going to reflect on Israel, Palestine, and American theology and policy, let me offer three disclaimers before I suggest three observations that our Senate’s vote exposes about us:

  1. I affirm the right of Israel and Palestine to follow in the footsteps of my country in declaring independence as a nation.
  2. I critique Hamas’s leadership as heinous, dysfunctional, and adding to the suffering of its people. I offer the same critique of Israel’s leadership as well as the leadership of my own country.
  3. I affirm that any country has the right to defend themselves against the attacks of another, but, as a follower of Jesus, I believe that a way other than revenge is possible and the only way forward for a just and lasting peace.

Now, for my three observations:

Observation #1.  We, the American people, live with our heads buried in finely manicured sand traps. The vote indicates that our Senators imagine that Hamas is representative of all Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza and, thus, see this as a fair fight between equals.  As Holocaust survivor, Gabor Mate suggests, it is a tragic misconception to perceive the Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza, much less Hamas, as, in any way, on an equal playing field with Israel. 

Surrounded by cement walls on three sides and hemmed in by heavily patrolled waters on the fourth, some call Gaza the largest refugee camp in the world. Some call it an open-air prison. Some call it a contemporary concentration camp. Regardless of what you call it, people’s lives within are completely controlled every day (food, water, electricity, and medical care) by Israel.

Rather than a vote affirming a just military campaign between two equal peoples, our Senate just unanimously affirmed its support of the slaughtering of countless civilians (mostly women, children, and elderly as of today) by one of the most advanced, American resourced militaries in the world.  We just sent a clear message to the rest of the world that we, a “Christian nation,” unanimously support a war that looks like shooting fish in an overcrowded barrel.

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But this is not the first time we’ve sent this very message.

Observation # 2.  Revenge is our national response & international reputation. In the aftermath of 9/11 when bombs crashed into our infrastructure, rather than our response to that tragedy being informed by the humble life and teachings of Jesus, we cried out for revenge and stood applauding as Senate unanimously agreed.  While some would call our response to 9/11 “just,” the rest of the world called it “revenge”…that cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi & Afghani lives, over 6000 more American lives, and billions of dollars.

The result? Justice has not been served, more people hate America than before, our deficit is exponentially larger, and we don’t have the bandwidth to manage much less heal what’s broken on the domestic front.

I call upon US American followers of Jesus to reject revenge as a viable solution and both vote to elect representatives who prioritize human flourishing over political and economic power and participate in the formation of those who do. Further, I call upon us to leverage the influence we have in our own neighborhoods, cities, nation & world to participate in the holistic healing of broken relationships that have led to broken systems that are causing broken lives.

Observation # 3.  Our national theology, as it pertains to God, Israel, and the Nations, needs radical reformation!  While there was no overt religious language included in Senate’s vote, their unanimous decision, representative of the American population, has a resounding Zionist undercurrent that equates the current nation-state of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants with the Promised Land and the Israelites of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Further, Senate’s vote indicates that most American Christians navigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a limited understanding of God, Israel, and the Promised Land that completely ignores the reconciling work of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  This faulty theological framework is resourcing unfettered injustice and is killing the souls of three peoples: Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans.

Let me offer a reformation to our theology: It was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that created a new, radically inclusive family.  It was the reconciling work of God in Christ that shifted humanity’s identity from tribal (national) to beloved.  It was Christ’s work on the cross and through the empty grave that expanded the Promised Land from a tiny piece of real estate in the Middle East to all of creation.  It was the comprehensive work of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that reveals our God whose favoritism extends not to one bloodline, but to all.

I argue, along with my Palestinian Christian and Messianic Jewish friends, that this theological reformation could have immediate and significant impact toward a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  As the work of Jesus did, this shift would save lives.

I encourage you to initiate a dialogue by sharing this article with your Pastor and your Senator.

PC(USA) INvestment in Peace

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~This post originally appeared on www.globalimmerse.org on 06/24/14~

PCUSA-Divests

The Presbyterian community known as the PC(USA) representing 1.8 million American Christians in over 10,000 churches has voted to approve the divestment of funds from three American companies that are resourcing Israel’s continued military presence within the Palestinian territories: Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard.  Simultaneously, the PC(USA) has increased its commitment to resourcing a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Their decision for divestment is a non-violent direct action intended to starve the economic engine behind the occupation.

Their commitment to just peace is a clear message that the PC(USA) is moving toward a pro-people, pro-peace posture and practice.

In this moment of dissonance for the PC(USA) family, hopeful for some and discouraging for others, we humbly offer three thoughts for encouragement and to resource the road forward.

1.  A Pro-People Decision :: Your decision for divestment is a decision to divest from three American companies NOT a decision to divest from the people of Israel.  This historic decision that you made is a decision FOR both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and it’s also a decision FOR you.  When we contend for the flourishing of others through courageous non-violent action, everyone benefits and God’s fame increases in the world.

2.  Invest in Israeli/Palestinian Peacemaking Initiatives :: Your commitment to just peacemaking could look like investing the funds that have been divested in initiatives that are actively seeking to heal the severed relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.  Imagine the message it would send and what could happen if the PC(USA) got behind Israeli and Palestinian peacemaking initiatives like:

3.  Invest in local Jewish/Muslim Relationships :: If ever there was a time to invest in local Jewish and Palestinian Muslim relationships, it’s now.  In the wake of this decisions, rather than avoiding your Jewish friends and colleagues, invite them to help you understand how they are processing it and find practical ways to join them and our Muslim brothers & sisters in walking our common ground of love of neighbor.  Imagine the message it would send if PC(USA) churches all over the country humbly turned toward their Jewish and Muslim neighbors.  Our friends Jamie and Michelle Wilson of Coast Vineyard in San Diego, CA are doing an incredible job and could serve as guides for this journey.

4.  Invest in Understanding :: We encourage the PC(USA) family to leverage this decision as a culture shaping, theology reforming, disciple-making moment for your churches.  Humbly and intelligently immersing your communities into the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to learn from the peacemakers embedded within will deepen their understanding of this conflict, grow their compassion for  Israelis and Palestinians as well as local Jews and Muslims, and form them into everyday peacemakers.  In addition to our Learning Labs which offer this exact training, we endorse our friends at The Telos Group as a world-class resource for your journey.

  • Enter our Women’s-only Learning Lab immersing into Israel/Palestine in October, 2014.
  • Enter our Israeli/Palestinian Learning Lab in January, 2015.
  • Enter our Israel/Palestine Influencers/Leaders Lab in February 2015, designed for leaders of faith communities and organizations.
  • Contact us about designing an Israel/Palestine Learning Lab for your community.

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