Excuse Me, PLEASE!

I recently read, Mirror To The Church by Emmanuel Katongole. It was a page turner for me. I finished it in one week. It is the story of the genocide
that took place in Rwanda in 1994, when the Hutus were told to kill their Tustsi neighbors. The slaughter that lasted for 100 days began on April 7th, the Thursday of Easter week. In that timeframe, some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed throughout Rwanda.

In 1994 I was 37 years old. How could I forget about almost one million people being slaughtered? Do you recall this tragic event?

The author recommends that the reader watch the movie Hotel Rwanda to get the visual impact of what happened, which I did check out from the local library.

The movie sickened my stomach and saddened my heart. We should keep in mind that in the midst of the genocide, an international hotel (Hotel des Mille Collines, the Hotel Rwanda) offered more good news than the nearest church. The author's hope, is that Rwanda can be a mirror to the church in the west. As we (the church) look in a mirror to see what we look like, Rwanda can help us see ourselves more clearly.

Emmanuel introduces the reader to three different types of postures that do not work in Christianity. The “Pious Posture,” The “Political Posture,” and The “Pastoral Posture.” He alludes to the fact that the “Prophetic Posture” is the only one that can save our world.

Mary is an example of this posture in Matthew 26:6-7. Mary dares to bring into question the social, economic, and political assumptions of her day in a single act. She is crazy enough to interrupt. Are we? Mary represents the “rebel consciousness” that is essential to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wherever the gospel is preached, it must cause its hearers to be insane! It has to force us to question the social norms.
Jesus’ teaching puts us at odds with the economic and political systems of our day. The good news will force us to act, interrupting the world that makes pious people indignant. Emmanuel states, “The rebel consciousness of a prophetic posture teaches us to rethink not only our mind-set and our approach, but also our timing.”

The Rwandan genocide exposes for the global church, that "Christian expression throughout the world has too easily allowed the blood of tribalism to flow deeper than the waters of baptism.” You may be thinking, "What do you mean? We are not into tribalism in the United States. Don’t accuse us of that. We are a sophisticated and sufficient country." I won’t define the word tribe for you, but you may look it up and see if we, (white Anglo-Americans, or for that matter any people group in the United States) fit into that category.

How do we overcome acedia so this type of tragedy never happens again? The church is called to be a hopeful interruption to the death-bound reality of a broken world. We are the church. We are the people. So let’s make it a brighter day and just start being JESUS! And what about the timing of this? The prophetic posture always trusts that the time to worship Jesus and acknowledge him as our King is now. As George Allen (the long ago head coach of the Washington Redskins) used to say, “The Future Is Now.”