Hi, I'm Nancy. I'm about to leave the country, go to the other side of the world to learn about a whole new culture, give my skills and talents to the Mennonite Central Committee in Bangladesh, gain new experiences, and use what I learn in whatever community God brings me to. And this was a long time coming.
In 2012, I was a wide-eyed baby freshman who met a God who cared deeply and saw people; who care about justice and didn't turn a blind eye; who saw me, a young girl that didn't know that God could have these values. I probably didn't process this at the time but meeting this facet of God was important to me, an Asian-American who spent a lot of time in a predominantly white community and was figuring out how to have one foot in my home culture and another in my ancestral culture.
My decision to follow Jesus took me all over the world and exposed me to different worldviews, gave me the chance to see God's miracles, and built lasting friendships with brothers and sisters in Christ.
This decision also opened my eyes to see how historically the Church has hurt people. I heard a dear friend's story on how being silenced was so normal that she had to learn from scratch how to use her voice. This friend of mine is a woman who grew up in a very conservative denomination that is still known for telling women that men are the heads of the church and the household and the women are there to solely support their men and their purposes. This denomination is also known for telling folks exactly what to believe about God and Heaven and that if they did not end up agreeing with the denominational leaders, they were not right with God. This messaging was relayed in such a strong way that for a long time she was unable to identify when she felt doubt or discomfort or advocate for herself.
I learned about the history of Christian colonization from the colonized. And I am witnessing my country's leaders profess to be Christians, hurt marginalized folks, and then try to convince me that their work is amazing.
Both experiences are the opposite of each other and yet equally valid.
I have questions from my experiences:
Are ministry and missions ethical? At a particular mission conference, a speaker from a Majority-World country said something around the lines of, Dear Western Church, we love your kids, but we are tired of raising them. There's a lot of criticism of usually young Western missionaries entering a non-Western country for a limited period of time to serve in some capacity. Sometimes, these short-term missionaries take part in feeding ministries or to build a house for a community member. The common criticism is that as much as the missionaries' intentions are good, their actions and efforts are often ineffective or downright harmful. This is usually the result of a lack of humility and culturally sensitive awareness and forgetting to take the posture of a learner and ask, What actually would serve the community here? How can I, a guest in this culture, get to know the community here? Who am I, an outsider, to show a culture that isn't my own what they need?
Can I still be American and Christian at the same time? Navajo theologian Mark Charles has clearly stated, "You cannot discover lands that have already been inhabited." This is a direct response to the Doctrine of Discovery, a 1452 Papal Bull that gave the green light for Western European colonizers to go to new lands, enslave the native peoples, and convert them. This unfortunately is an ugly part of our country's history and is rarely held accountable. And because there is so little accountability, the spirit of this decree becomes embedded in our theology and our way of life so much so that it seems as if American Christianity has become a weird syncretic religion that worships taking power more than Jesus himself. Sound familiar? So can we be American and Christian at the same time?
I do not have the answers to these questions. But I can remind myself of how Jesus' description of the Kingdom of God, the Beatitudes, modeled how we ought to see people, cast a vision of what Heaven is, what ministry should be like.
Sermon by Nancy Li
On July 6, Nancy shared about her upcoming service in Bangledesh.
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In the early days of Jesus' ministry, a crowd of people followed him to a mountaintop where he told them:
The Kingdom of God is coming and it is for you.
To the poor in spirit, those who longed for more spiritually but maybe couldn't quite put their finger on what it was that they needed - Jesus said, The Kingdom of Heaven is for you.
To those who mourned and knew grief maybe a little too well - that they would find comfort and healing.
To the meek, those emotionally trampled by society, Jesus told them they would receive the Earth.
To those who longed to be truly righteous in God's eyes, they will be filled with such beyond measure in a way that they maybe didn't understand but needed.
To those who had a reputation of being merciful, Jesus promised that they would be shown mercy.
To purest hearts, Jesus promised that they would see God. I'd like to think that the pure-hearted folks would see God just as God, El Roi, had deeply seen so many downtrodden people and reminded them that they were deeply known.
To the peacemakers, Jesus told them that people who see them would know them as the children of God.
To those who were persecuted and insulted - those who had tried to point out injustices and advocated for peace at expense of their reputation - Jesus promised them the Kingdom of Heaven.
This message wasn't one that stated that financial riches were a sign of God's blessing, similar to the prosperity Gospel preachers of today. It also wasn't a reality talk show-style message where the host says, "You get a hundred dollars! And you get a hundred dollars."
No. The was a message where God said to the most economically and socially marginalized of society that they were deeply seen and known by God. It's easy to forget how revolutionary Jesus' message was. Jesus' crowd was filled with folks who viscerally felt the oppression of the Roman Empire and were ignored or judged by their own communities. Through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed the Upside Down Kingdom, a kingdom where societal order was flipped on its head so that kinship connections could be made and challenge oppressive societal structures and make people feel known.
It's hard to remember that Jesus brought the Kingdom of Heaven or see that this Kingdom is present when our news feeds are inundated with updates about horrible things happening in our country. For those who have experience in the non-profit, community organizing, and ministry world, its hard to see the Kingdom of Heaven when you encounter flawed systems and leadership and see, in the words of my friend Heather Creamer, that the people are peopling - maybe a bit too much. I believe that the foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven - of the ministry that Jesus modeled for us - to be seen and to be known by the Lord and to see and known each other, neighbors.
So, I'm leaving soon. I'm going to Bangladesh as part of the Mennonite Central Committee's volunteer program where I will be a Multimedia & Climate Advocacy Assistant. In this role, I will work with the MCC Bangladesh team and tell stories about how climate change is affecting ethnic minorities in Bangladesh. I hope to work with faithful folks and continue the practice of deeply seeing and knowing people.
And I know that wherever we are - whatever vocation that God has us in or has called us to, we are seen and known by the Lord and deeply see and know our neighbors.