Darriel Harris, Duke Divinity School student and 2009 Umoja Project intern
Strength and Weakness. Among the many lessons I’ve learned in Kenya, none have been as profound as the lesson of strength and weakness. After comparing my personal lifestyle – access to education and healthcare, the ability to earn a quality living, and friends and associates with like capabilities – to the lifestyle of many Kenyans, I have had to reassess my understanding of strength and weakness.
The grandmother of a child sponsored by the Umoja Project is a woman that would be considered weak by most standards. She has a medical condition which has left her morbidly obese and growing larger daily. She is unable to walk more than a few steps at a time. She experiences great pain in her lower back, underarms, and legs. Many days she’ll crawl outside in an attempt to split wood, pick beans from the garden, or do other things to prepare food for her two orphaned grandchildren. Her attempts usually cause her to stay outside for long periods of time, laying stretched out on the ground calling for a passerby to come to her aid. When no-one hears or responds to her pleas for help, she lays there, unable to muster enough physical strength to get back into the house, reach the latrine, or feed herself. She simply waits for her nine year old grandson to come home from school, find her somewhere in the yard behind the house, help her to her destination, prepare food for her and ensure she eats it. Certainly, by most standards this lady would be considered weak.
As I walk around, living life, interacting with people, I’ve always considered myself strong (as has popular culture). I am a relatively healthy 28 year old man. I have the ability to walk, run, and jump as I please. I’m well traveled and well educated. I’ve worked prestigious jobs. I have a bachelors degree in electrical engineering, a masters degree in organizational management, and I am currently working on a Masters of Divinity degree. Yet with all my educational accomplishments and physical abilities, which provide an illusion of strength, I have been too weak to assist this grandmother in need. I’ve donated food to the grandmother, and I’ve contributed to paying a utility bill. I’ve even funded and helped organize a project to secure her front and back doors from the thieves who frequently break into the home and take what little the grandmother owns. However, I’ve done nothing to help with the heart of the issue that has plagued this lady and unsettled the grandchildren who live with her.
Certainly a weakness exist in the midst of my perceived strength. I’ve only demonstrated the strength to do what is comfortable, to perform deeds and donate funds out of the abundance I have received. Yet, when confronted with the realization that more is needed, that the work I’ve done has slightly reduced but has not removed her ailments, I find within myself a weakness that beckons me to walk away. This weakness inclines me to think that I’ve done enough, that my donation has been sufficient, that the ailment of this Christian woman is not my problem, that another person should take responsibility. If I agree with this weak voice within my flesh I will be able to just walk away. I’ll continue living life, purchasing itunes, ipods, ibooks, and iphones, making imovies, talking on ichat, and living life to satisfy me, myself, and I. Meanwhile, this grandmother will continue life as she has been – suffering daily, excreting her bodily fluids on herself, missing meals while struggling to feed herself after she feeds her grandchildren – until the evermore probable day when she is overcome by her treatable illness, leaving her already orphaned grandchildren totally without a guardian.
What manner of weakness is this that would allow me to walk away from such a dire situation.
Through a few brief conversations with the grandmother I have learned that her condition is reoccurring. She has been treated before but her last attempt at medical help was thwarted 5 years ago when she lacked the equivalent of roughly $475 US to cover the cost of treatment. Surely the cost of treatment today will have escalated in proportion to her deteriorated health status. Still, I know I would easily spend 10 times this amount if I experienced a portion of what she suffers. The reality is I spend almost 3 times this amount annually in medical insurance just in case I get sick.
An honest re-evaluation of strength and weakness brings me to the conclusion that I am weaker than I have ever understood. I have been strong enough to wear nice clothes, shoes, coats, and suits while being weak enough to allow others to lack basic healthcare. I have been strong enough to vacation several times a year, entertain myself through movies and shows often, but I have lacked the strength to aid a Christian widow in need. Strong enough to study the work of scholars, write essays, and complete masters degrees, while being so weak that I could witness the helpless struggles of another without sensing a necessity to act. I have been strong enough in faith to receive revelation that Jesus Christ is Lord, understand and heed God’s call to church leadership, but I have been too weak in the faith to trust God to provide for me as I provide for others. I have been strong enough to accept scholarships and other forms of support at the sacrifice of others, but too weak to make substantial sacrifices of myself. Strong enough to take but too weak to give; too weak to sacrifice a portion of my luxuries so another can have necessities. Strong enough to pray, but too weak to act, so weak in fact that I’ll speak from my comfort and tell the suffering to be strong, to endure a little longer, to look elsewhere for help.
How can I stand in the judgment, knowing that “faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:20)? Perhaps I had forgotten the story of Lazarus. Not the Lazarus Jesus raised from the dead, but the Lazarus who was full of sores and was laid at the rich man’s gate begging the rich man to give the leftovers from his abundance. Upon both Lazarus’s and the rich man’s death, the rich man found himself suffering in Hades begging for Lazarus to help. But it was responded to the rich man, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and you are tormented” (Luke 16:25). James echo’s this point when he writes, “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy…if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, And one of you says ‘Depart in peace be warmed and filled’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” (Jas 2:13-16)
The Christian call is a call of giving. First, giving our lives to Christ – recognizing that we are in the need of mercy, crying out for God’s forgiveness, and submitting ourselves to God‘s will. Second, giving ourselves to benefit the Christian body and perform the will of God. Thus it is only right to give out of our abundant blessings from God to those who are experiencing hardships. Paul reminds the Corinthian church of this when urges them to help the famished saints in Jerusalem writing, “But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack – that there may be equality. As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.” (II Cor 8:14- 15). Paul later reminds them of the reality that, “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” (II Cor 9:6).
How can I expect, or even desire, a bountiful harvest when I am only willing to give little? Moreover, how can I consider myself strong when I find myself too weak to sacrifice? Was not the strength of Jesus in the sacrifice of His will, “being obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:8)? If strength is defined as the ability to perform an act, then perhaps I am strong and the widowed grandmother caring for her grandchildren is weak. But if strength is defined by measuring our actions as a factor of our abilities then I am weak and the widowed woman caring for her grandchildren is strong, for I am able to do much, yet I have done little. I pray then for the strength of the widowed grandmother, who enduring disease and great pain does beyond what seems possible for the benefit of another . Surely it has been the Spirit of God within me that is working against this fleshly weakness, prompting me to give more, share more, and love more; urging me to use a portion of my abilities to assist a woman utilizing her total ability to help raise two orphaned and vulnerable children.