Moved By Light

My friend, Steve Pattemore, who worked for years with Urak Lawoi’, shared this amazing story with us. A must read:

Stranger Blessing

Matt 5.1-11

1 When Jesusa saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falselyb on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“Stranger Blessing” Brad called this passage. Stranger than what? What do we expect of a blessing?

Probably this passage is so familiar to us as to prevent us from really hearing it. Matthew’s beatutudes are often presented as more “spiritual” and internal, as opposed to Luke’s rather radical social agenda. That is certainly the way they are most often understood in the evangelical traditions I come from. But I don’t think that is really the case, because Matthew portrays Jesus as making present the kingdom of God, and calling his followers to be a part of it. That involved a dramatic reversal of values in Jesus day just as it does in ours, in the context of the globalisation of a culture of hedonism and materialism which divides and exploits as much as did the political colonialism of the past. While all around us people are being urged to strive for wealth, happiness, self-fulfillment, pleasure, and a kind of “lowest-common-denominator” tolerance – whatever it costs and whoever you have to climb over to achieve it, it is indeed strange that Jesus pronounces these blessings on the poor, the sorrowful, the meek, those desperate to experience God’s justice, the pure, the peacemakers and the persecuted.

To be truly countercultural in this way is indeed a challenge, because we are all, to one extent or another, creatures of our culture. But it is never more of a challenge for me than when I visit my Urak Lawoi’ friends here on the idyllic tropical playground that is Phuket. I must confess I struggle to appreciate the blessings inherant in being desperately poor in a place where the rich of the world come to spend their excess wealth on their pleasures. Never was this more so than on Monday this week, when I went visiting in the village of Rawai, about 15 minutes from this hotel. I wanted to find some of the believers whom I haven’t seen in church the past two Sundays. Let me try to tell you about the situation in which I found Adang. Adang was partly paralysed by the bends. He became a Christian about 15 years ago and, as a good reader, helped considerably with translation checking. Adang now earns some money on an Urak lawoi boat although being crippled he can’t do all the heavy diving work and gets paid less. Though he can walk with difficulty, he has no control over his bodily functions, so he lives outside the village right on the beach front. The village itself is overcrowded and due to the oppressive actions of those who have by deceipt gained legal control over the land the Urak Lawoi have always occupied, suffers from terrible problems of sanitation and health, and the supply of basic services. But when I found Adang on Monday I was stunned. Imagine two rusty, torn beach umbrellas planted in the sand, standing less than a metre high, and over the top of them several pieces of plasticized tarpaulin, and bits of European camping tents are strung out to create a shelter, propped up by various lengths of driftwood at odd angles. A dirty mattress and an even dirtier mosquito net form a “room” inside this home, and Adang’s only possessions hang from nails, or knots in the wood, in cast-off plastic shopping bags. Four or five similar dwellings line the beach front at this point but behind them is a huge open space, once occupied by Urak Lawoi, but now privately owned and being developed for financial return. The landowner has (illegally) built a sea wall, blocking off the beach itself and hindering access of Urak lawoi boats to high ground. Despite the fact that they are squatters on “the king’s chain” – the publicly owned foreshore, Adang and his friends have been told that they will be thrown of soon to allow this landowner to build a road along the waterfront. Together with Pastor AhLin, I crawled under the awning and sat crouched in Adang’s “living room” to try and encourage this brother of mine. I talked of God’s concern for the poor and for justice, of the persistent widow and Jesus promise to his chosen ones who cry and day night to him for justice, on his rights and the value of resistance and the need for solidarity in the face of oppression. And we prayed together, prayed really for God’s kingdom to come. But I am left in great anguish over this situation.

This story doesn’t have a happy ending. At least not yet. I don’t have an answer to Adang’s plight. I do have evidence, from the Christian community in the village, of the power of the transforming love of Jesus to remake people, to truly bless them so that their songs of praise resound to heaven even from the midst of these circumstances. But I am distressed by their ongoing plight, furiously angry at the evil that oppresses them, and frustrated by my inability to help. And yet, stubbornly, I hang on to the hope of blessing expressed in the beatitudes. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”