This week our city has seen evil at a level none of us could fail to be impacted by. Monday night’s attack was abhorrent. The anger, frustration, confusion and fear felt in the aftermath was both natural and understandable. How those emotions were manipulated and twisted by some into hatred, racism, intimidation and violence was (and continues to be) a horror. We cannot ignore deep issues and fears within our communities but we must not allow them to consume us with hatred or drive us towards evil. None of this is ok!

As we drove home on Tuesday night, literally watching the city we love, beginning to burn, I was struck by a realisation of how easy it would be to hide away from all that was going on. We drove past masked rioters consumed by anger and suited police doing their best to curtail them. We drove past rising plumes of smoke and multiple emergency vehicles of every description speeding to where they were needed most. And then as we neared home, in the leafier suburbs, we drove past joggers and dog walkers and folks cutting their grass, going about their lives as normal and the temptation to shut out the horror hit me hard.

The colour of my skin is not something I have to give a single thought to most days. Even this week I have felt no fear stepping into the streets of our city. The number on my payslip, and the family lines that intersect in my household mean I’m afforded the privilege of a neighbourhood where lawnmowers were louder than sirens. It struck me hard that it was perfectly possible for me to come home, draw the curtains, ignore my phone and entertain myself to a place of comfort and peace.

Wealth has a way of inoculating us from the horrific truths of the broken world we live in.

The temptation was strong but even knowing the possibility was there, grieved me deeply as I thought about the abject fear and the consuming hatred that was right then ripping through our city. I wasn’t willing to do that on Tuesday night, but I wondered how many times I have before. How often have I “pulled the curtains” on the heartache of others’ lives? How many times have I allowed injustice to sail over my head? How often have I closed my eyes to poverty and oppression and pain?

Paul writing to the church in Corinth implored them to recognise their oneness, there belonging to each other across all their differences and to both suffer and rejoice as one.

²⁵ In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part shares in its joy. (1 Cor 12 NIRV)

The despair of feeling like we can make no difference is totally understandable. The uncertainty of what might happen if we enter in, even just with our hearts, is real but allowing whatever privileges life has afforded to shelter us from the pain of another cannot ever be the way of Jesus. If the gospel our lives tell is not incarnational, is not engaged with the suffering and the broken, the confused and the tormented, the fearful and the despairing, then it is not the Gospel (capital G).

Whether it is racism and violence in Belfast, war in Iran, genocidal acts in Nigeria, Sudan, Gaza….homelessness at epidemic levels across the UK, addiction, suicide, domestic violence or any other darkness that dehumanises and destroys the God given significance of every single life, we cannot draw the curtains and simple say I’ll just worry about me and mine. We, as followers of Jesus, are called to suffer with our brothers and sisters, in our neighbourhoods, in our cities and across the world. We must not close our eyes. We are also called to love our enemies, to seek the good of the cities God has placed us in, to serve and to bless the stranger and, in all things, to be peacemakers. We must not draw the curtains.

When we block ourselves off from all that is dark and painful and hard, we also hide the redemptive, restorative power of the hope we carry in Jesus from shining out. We take what we have to offer and horde it for ourselves denying what could be a life-giving succour to our cities. The temptation to hide, to ignore, to numb our senses into ambivalence, is strong but what would it look like to open a crack, to peer out for just a moment into the brokenness and pain and to let our hearts feel it? What would it look like to find even one small way to enter in? One heartfelt prayer, one phone call, one street crossed to greet “the other”, one spare bed made up, one bigoted, hate filled statement challenged?

Photo by James Hoey on Unsplash