Created In The Image Of God - 3
Let’s Walk The Streets
May 2008, Kie-Eng

A Call

What on earth has happened to our world? While the eyes of the world were on China & Tibet, the news of a strong earthquake in Shezuan province had taken hundred of thousands of innocent Chinese, with more than 60 thousands people lost their lives. While the news of the neighboring country – Burma – with its deadly cyclone still filles the air. China & Burma are not the only countries are having turmoils. The world is no longer a friendly place to live, it has never been for a long long time.

Closer to home, Indonesia is still in a midst of a national crisis. The country has been having an identity crisis; a new phase of religious fundamentalism has forced a new social order and culture. A vision of a strong nation characterized by cultural diversity has faded away. Characterized with A weak leadership in the government has not allowed the country to regain its economic stability, especially in the real business area.. Struggling to establish law and order has encouraged FDI (foreign Direct Investment) to leave the country. Worsened with corruption and Thug-ism, the country’s unemployment and poverty are on a rise. The global oil crisis has only made the life of the low-class people becomes more and more unbearable.

In such of a difficult time, a question is still yet to be asked – what does it mean to be created in God’s image? What is the call for Christians? “I looked for a man, among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” Ezekiel 22:30. As Indonesian church, do we have capability to respond to that call, in a socio-cultural realities that have been shaping in the past 20-30 years? Or the question should be about – do we have the will to change and obey?

A daily path – passing by a blind beggar A call to respond to the realities in Indonesia could be started with something simple. John 9 should teach us that we are to respond to the things that we pass everyday in our daily walk, things that we might have become immune to, and yet significant in renewing the culture with God’s loving grace. On that day they saw a blind beggar sitting on a street side, as he had been faithfully doing for so many years. Yet, that morning they realized a deeper issue, a significant urgency behind this poor blind beggar – whose sin was it? In today’s evangelical theology, Jesus’ response would have him labeled as a heresy. Jesus said his blindness was not the result of his sin nor his parents’ sin; his blindness is so that God’s work could be performed and people could see the light of the world. This society with its system and culture has allowed God’s precious and marvelous creation to be depraved, and we have allowed our theology to only limit us to bring the reality of His Kingdom into this world. How could a community, claimed to have high reference of God, allow a blind beggar begging for simple things in life for the rest of life, losing his dignity? What do you see in this poor beggar? Do you see God’s image? Obviously the religious establishment and the political establishment have abandoned and condemned this poor beggar, no room for a change, only a waste of resources to do anything about it; and the society walked pass by him everyday. That day Jesus decided to open this beggar’s sight. Gaining his sight was a crime in the eyes of the elite, and considered as a threat to the culture. John 9 tells the story so vividly how this poor beggar had to face and fight the reality and the cruelness of the religious and political establishment at that time. He didn’t have any intellectual sophistication, let alone any theological insight, yet the elite could not deny his new gained sight. The persecution he had to suffer only to convince him that it was God Himself who touched him and gave him his sight. God is still in a business of changing the world, and in John 9 He started with a blind beggar sitting in our daily path

We pass thousands of beggars in Indonesia, yet we don’t see them. For some reasons our conscience has been made immune to the ill realities that we have in our family, church, work, and community. Our theology has seemed to isolate us from the original vision of God’s creation – the goodness of God’s creation. We have become so rich and comfortable that we could only celebrate Easter in a comfort of a nice church building. A vision of a Savior dying in a complete humiliation, hung naked, because of our sins, because of His love to provide hope and salvation to mankind has turned into a romantic story told once a year. In three and a half years, Jesus walked the streets and touched the people at where they were, and without hesitation he mocked and challenged the establishment with its corrupt culture, so that mankind could realize His image in itself. We dare not to forget the cost of touching a beggar on street-side was to die on a hill called Golgota.

Dare To Walk The story of the poor beggar was started when the disciples decided to walk the street and stopped to ask questions. There on the street Jesus equipped them with the most practical and yet precise theology of grace and mercy and justice. There are streets to be walked in Indonesia. Do we dare to walk those streets? Do we dare to stop to ask questions, questions that we have taken as given? We will never have enough theology to step out and walk the streets. Only in obedience and trust, when we walk the streets, God will respond, He will give us capability and capacity to face the ill realities of the culture..

As His disciples, we are to study His words diligently, so that we could know and be convicted of His call, not to be trapped in the today’s popular theology, rather to have capability and capacity to renew the culture. As an intellectual, we are to listen and learn from history. History has its own way to give us profound insight about life, and show us how much God is still committed to His creation. Having God’s principle and lesson from history would allow us to understand the cultural realities in Indonesia, and that is when our walk on the streets would bring a different. Every person is created in His image, and God loves each and everyone of us. Let us dare to pray so that we dare to walk.