Failure, meet Grace.

I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and there was a story about an African-American man who was imprisoned when he was a sophomore in college for raping another (Caucasian) college sophomore. The woman who was raped told the police that the man who raped her was smoking the entire time. The man who the police arrested not only had an alibi (a whole group of them), but he also had asthma and therefore had never touched a cigarette in his life. During court the prosecuting attorney convinced the all-Caucasian jury that his friends were liars who would say anything to keep this man out of jail--therefore debunking the young man's alibis (all of them, in one, fell swoop). The man was imprisoned, and spent several nights sobbing because he was innocent. Ironically enough his cell mate, who was charged with two rapes and who was a chain smoker, heard his cries and the whole story and realized that he, not the young man, was the rapist. After the statute of limitations had run out he confessed to the crime. No one listened. He wrote the court system, the judge and the DA--no response. Once he was released from prison he tried to contact the young man. The man was dead. He died of an asthma attack while he was in prison because he couldn't get the healthcare he needed.

While I listened, I wept.

What was going to follow this story was a scathing review of race relations in America, a frustrated blog post on why things are broken, what racism is and how God will judge us not only separately, but also for our nation's sins, our race's sins and our class' sins as well.

But then something happened.

I am nearing the end of The Ragamuffin Gospel and during the last chapter Brennan Manning invites the reader on a "faith exercise" leading the reader through several different stages of admitting who you are--all the brokenness and everything--with response in Biblical passages, praying and imagining Jesus looking at you in mercy and inviting you to come as you are. I was somewhat skeptical, but I decided to try it.

During the second part of the exercise--the part where you were to close your eyes while imagining Jesus looking down in mercy on you--I was determined not to imagine the white Jesus that is so often depicted in Western paintings.

I guess I should stop here to explain that I have always been quite annoyed and disturbed with these "sissy" paintings of Jesus looking heavenward with His golden locks careening down His back. Jesus wasn't white, and He didn't have blond locks of hair, and even if He would have been white, you probably couldn't have been able to tell because it was real dusty and He probably would have been dirty most of the time. Just sayin'.

Anyway, back to the exercise. As I was laying on my back trying not to see this Jesus, an amazing thing happened. I saw many Jesus'. While my "annoying" white image of Jesus was there, so was a Chinese version of Jesus, and an Iraqi version of Jesus, and a Nigerian version of Jesus, and a Mexican version of Jesus, and a Philippino version of Jesus, and the list goes on. And then they all combined...and I couldn't see what that Jesus looked like. And I think this all goes to say that Jesus transcends race. He's more than that.

I've struggled with what my old boss calls "White guilt" for some time. The guilt that comes with knowing the history of Caucasian Americans and what they have done to so many different people groups that sometimes it makes you want to throw up or pull your hair out or something...anything to change the past. And I think that sometimes I live out of this White guilt instead of out of love. And living out of guilt will just burn me out eventually. And that doesn't do anybody any good. I think the reason I tend to be so hard on everyone else is because I'm so hard on myself. If I live out of guilt and anger towards the way I am, then I'll show people the same anger and expect the same guilt. I want to live out of God's love for me, and show that love to others. Just like Jesus lived out of love.

I think it's important to remember that God is a God of love. That He wants to give us grace. That He wants us to come...even though we are failures. Even though we don't have it figured out. Brennan Manning wrote this amazing passage in The Ragamuffin Gospel. He said:

...I witnessed a Peter who claimed that he did not know me, a James who wanted power in return for service to the kingdom, a Philip who failed to see the Father in Me, and scores of disciples who were convinced I was finished on Calvary. The New Testament has many examples of men and women who started out well and then faltered along the way. Yet on Easter night I appeared to Peter. James is not remembered for his ambition bor for the sacrifice of his life for Me. Philip did see the Father in Me when I pointed the way, and the disciples who despaired had enough courage to recognize Me when we broke bread at the end of the road to Emmaus. My point is this: I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself...

This is in direct contradiction to living out of guilt. It means we live out of grace. And yes, we mess up. But then we accept grace and keep on moving--remembering that grace that is inactive is an illusion (Manning, again).

Do I believe that we will be judged as a nation? Yes. I think that justice and righteousness is important for us to seek--together. It's important to God...it's why Jesus came. I think that we must cry out to God, asking for forgiveness on behalf of our country and our different races and cultures.

But I also believe in grace.

My mom and I were talking today about "blooming where you're planted", something that I'm working on doing in this time of unemployment. I was going to change it to my blog title. I think "Gateway to Hope" is good too. In Hosea God seeks after an adulterous nation...one that has left and turned away. God has compassion. He wants to turn Achor (meaning trouble, the name for the Valley where the people were first judged in the promised land) into hope (Hosea 2:14-15). And I think that's what blooming where you're planted is. Watching God turn trouble into hope. And following Him into that hope.

I think that Jesus appears to different people in different ways. As long as we remember that as we follow the Jesus we see passionately, that there are other people following the Jesus that they see just as passionately. And we make up a whole body of believers who all see Jesus differently and are following Him passionately. That's what makes the church work. That and the unrelenting love, and unending grace of God. I want to live our of that love and grace.

I didn't mean for this post to be so long. I'll leave you with an image from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here in DC. It has images of Christ that different churches from around the world have sent to the Shrine. They are all different, fashioned after different cultural and ethnic views of who Jesus is or how He has appeared to different people groups over time. This is my favorite. It's from Nigeria. You can't really tell in the picture, but He is distinctly African (you can see it better if you click on the picture...a bigger image will appear). And I like the idea that Jesus can appear different to many people, but be the same Jesus that we all follow.