Sabotage and sleeping babies

Last week was an inspiring adventure in service education at my church, Vineyard Central.

Sabotage, so named for C.S. Lewis' quote, "Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in His great campaign of sabotage," ended last week.

It was a three day service project at Vineyard, organized by Jeremiah Griswold. My part was to work with a fellow named Matt Smith, leading a group of six 15 to 17-year-olds in Cincinnati's urban sectors.

I think I'm a relatively secular kind of guy to be doing this sort of thing. Or perhaps I'm just guarded against the cults of belief. You know what I mean by that? Some folks get so enraptured and tied to their own ideas of what God is and what his story is that they become sure that all else is false. God's bigger than that, I think; bigger than the words written by men about him in the Bible (even if some or all were divinely inspired) and bigger than our imaginations. I hate orthodoxy, fundamentalism and fetishization.

Anyway, I put together a track, as I told our students on the third and last day of the trip, that tied together some key issues in service work. I am pro-people of color, pro feminist, pro queer, pro poor and pro Jesus -- and I think that all these things fit together quite nicely.

So, last week started with a trip to Caracole, which I thought (I had heard this from someone) was an AIDS hospice. In actuality it is housing, transitional and otherwise for folks living with AIDS. I, believing myself to be well informed, still thought of this as a death sentence, but the men I met who have been living, in apparent (the word, "apparent," is key) health for more than a decade with it proved me wrong. They spoke to our group about what it's like to live with it and for most of them (and me, too) it was the first meaningful contact with someone with the disease. While we were there we cleaned their blinds and windows and did yard work.

Wednesday was brunch at Our Daily Bread soup kitchen (they actually serve a lot more than soup and I really recommend you go for brunch one morning - 10am to noon, daily) followed by house cleaning at Elementz hip-hop youth center. We watched this video on police abuses of power in Cincinnati.

Thursday, the final day, was spent at the Cincinnati Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center learning about the death penalty and the Biblical justification for being against the war in Iraq and war in general. VC trustee Dave Nixon I heard, in an unrelated Sabotage exercise that week, discussed how Bush announced that he would repay 9-11 with a massive and greater response, and how this was a violation not only of Jesus' teachings, but also the Lex Talionis, which is the oft referenced and poorly understood Bible verse that goes, "an eye for an eye."

Anyway, the IJPC is run by Sister Alice Gerdeman, an amazing, vibrant example of activism in action. Sister Alice spoke with the group about the death penalty and about why she is against it as a Christian (Jesus was a victim, you'll recall) and how the drugs used in executing persons aren't even allowed to be used in euthanizing dogs because they may cause agonizing pain while paralyzing those murdered by the state.

IJPC staffer Kristin Barker spoke about Jesus' crafty opposition to the monoculture of his time. Turn the other cheek, she said, and demonstrated with Matt Smith's help, is not about being a Christian doormat. Let's say a person slaps you with an open hand on your right cheek. An open handed strike was one used against an inferior, she said. If you expose your left cheek to the person you force them to backhand you - a strike reserved for equals - or give up the fight.

She said the thing about when someone demands your tunic, give them your cloak, is about shaming them to see how ridiculous this is. At that time, she said, folks who couldn't pay a debt were literally dressed down by the creditor - the fee when you couldn't pay was your tunic. To give your cloak as well was to stand before them and everyone else stark naked. This shamed those who saw you, but not you and showed how stupid the whole penalty was, she said.

Barker also talked about the verse in which Jesus says, if a soldier tells you to carry his gear a mile, carry it two miles. At that time, soldiers' gear was extremely heavy and troops were not to go any farther than one mile at a time during a normal march. To go further was to be punished - whipped or reprimanded. Soldiers would often demand that a villager carry their gear for them - but no more than a mile, that was the rule, she said. To carry it further than this put the soldier in the position of begging the person to stop who he once ordered to go. And do the lesser becomes the greater and the servant the master.

We took the bus two out of the three days we worked and I made sure that we walked several miles through Over-the-Rhine. I think the kids learned a lot, and so did I.

My leg went to sleep while singing Queen songs and Sympathy for the Devil to Uly tonight. He's a cute little guy.

- Steve