I have heard you say

I have heard you say of me, "He is naïve, unrealistic. He doesn't understand the way the world works."

I hope you hear the truth when I tell you how it is: I can assure you, I fully understand. I've seen the way the world works, in the burdens of my father, and my father's father who labored that you could live in luxury.

His brokenness you ignored. His struggles you shamed. His cares you cared not to lift a hand.

I have seen it in the vagrants and the refugees, those whose lives you sold for profit. I call them friends and family, but you have chosen to shun, to reject, to ignore.

I have seen it in the outcasts, the untouchables, those who have been my greatest teachers, about the character of God, the nature of grace, the truth of the dysfunction of our condition, the truth about privilege and power, about being human, about being free.

Yes. I can assure you I understand. It may not seem to you realistic. But it's the reality of injustice, the reality of broken bodies, of too many endless wars, too many hungry, too much of life stolen.

I am aware how the world works. I am no stranger to it.

But here is what I hope you will understand. While I may be in this old world, I refuse to live by its ways.

I've pitched my tent in a brand new world. I live by the rules of a new Jerusalem: a land filled with hills of promise, a place filled with love plenty, a home for the fullness, and the goodness, of life.

Until we can live as if this world is home for all of us, it can never truly be a home for any of us, and will continue to be a place where God is unwelcome.

Yes, I understand how the world works. And that is why I'm confident in saying, I may reside in this broken world, but I live according to another, the revolutionary one being born anew, whose seeds are taking root, and will soon grow and thrive all around us!