Unpoisoned Tea, Revisited
an essay
Hello all!
Before we begin with today’s post, I wanted to share something that I think you may enjoy! Last week, a wonderful online journal called Christ & Cascadia published an original poem of mine called “Manna”. I highly recommend checking out the journal in general as it is a fantastic resource for faith-based climate care, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Click here to read my poem and stick around to see what else they have on offer!
Blessings!
Today, I am reflecting on a post I wrote mere weeks after I first started Substack, nearly one year ago. At the time, Russia had just begun its war against Ukraine, and the stories emerging from that conflict were especially powerful to me.
The post was called “Tea, Without Poison”, and it was inspired by the story that had recently broken about the fearful young Russian soldier who had sought mercy from a group of Ukrainian fighters and, in response, they gave him tea and food and let him call his mother to let her know he was okay.
That simple act of looking an enemy in the face and seeing only their humanity—not their idealogical differences—really moved me. It still does.
In a few comments on our posts this week, it was brought up that one of the most difficult callings we can have is to treat someone we disagree with as our neighbor. To recognize that we can have deep ideological differences, even be on opposite sides of what we see as a moral issue, and still experience kindness from them and extend that kindness in return.
This is tough. I find this tough.
I have a bad habit of keeping myself to myself. When I encounter someone I disagree with, I simply distance myself from them. Keep them at arm’s length. Sometimes indifference is as much an answer as outright hostility.
I have written before, I think, about the unique type of nihilism that Christians can display. I see it all the time. Because we typically believe that the world will not be healed until Jesus returns and brings the Kingdom with Him, we can easily fall into the trap of assuming that nothing we do to change the world ultimately matters.
Jesus will redeem, we think, so what good can I really do?
But we know the answer. We know that what we will ultimately be asked about, someday, is not whether we were good, or whether we were “recognizably Christian”, whatever that means. We will be asked, Did you feed the hungry? Seek the lonely? Clothe the naked? Visit those in prison?
It is easy to see the hungry, the lonely, the naked, and the imprisoned as abstract concepts, here. But they are real. Flesh and blood. They have beliefs and needs and desires that you might not understand or agree with. They are people. Actual people. You probably know them already; you don’t need to look far.
You can safely rephrase the questions above this way: Did you look that person in the eye—you know the person I mean—and hand them that cup of unpoisoned tea, no matter how much you disagree with them?
Some of us may have callings that take us deep into challenging the status quo, tearing down oppressive structures in the name of grace or seeking the lost en masse and bringing them up to the light. Some of us may follow in the footsteps of the Saint and the Reverend, obeying the calling of God’s justice, even unto sorrow of various sizes and shapes.
But for many of us, the challenge will be much more subtle, yet no less profound: to recognize a neighbor in the face of someone we disagree with, and to learn how to love them, even so.
Thank you for reading!
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For me it’s easy to love the marginalized, but more difficult to love those who oppress, hate, ridicule--yet I am called to love them, too. Last night we went to a gathering that I didn’t really want to attend because there were many there who are judgmental, gossipy, and racist. But what I found was an opportunity to kindly refute malicious comments, an opportunity to engage, and an opportunity to learn more about some of these people and why they have so much negativity in their souls.
Thank you for this discussion, it’s so important. It is so convicting (but in the best way). If one claims to be part of the Kingdom of God, we are invited to bring about restoration in partnership with the Holy Spirit ... yet how often do we justify our inaction? I know I do. We say we love but hold out on that love for those different from us, with values different from us. We avoid, ignore, silently despise... even as we go about as “good” but as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:2... if I have not love, I have nothing.