Children of God

“You know,” said David, “every time I see a kid carrying around a plastic bottle, I wonder who gave it to them.”

And we both laughed as flashbacks of grubby little hands snatching at our soda bottles on the dusty winding paths through the marketplace danced fleetingly through our minds.

We were at a very different kind of market now. The little Indian girl with the Mtn. Dew bottle carried on closely behind her mother, and I breathed in deeply the aroma of curry and tzatziki and Cajun that wafted from the various restaurants at the food court at Nashville’s Farmer’s Market. I watched her with joy as she gleefully waved around that silly bottle, shaking it at the ceiling lights and putting it against her eyes to tint her whole world lime green. Never mind that her mother was carrying a pack with toys sticking out of it. The child was completely content and enthralled with that bottle.

But then, I was not surprised. Across the world a lot of fun can be had with a plastic bottle. The kids in Kazembe make trains, or cars, or dolls, or any other manner of entertainment out of them. They use them for games, and sometimes they just hoard them. The caps off of glass bottles are prized almost as highly, and David used to get a great deal of amusement out of flipping them to unsuspecting Iwes as we ambled along the road.

One day during the Mutomboko ceremony we were hanging out under a tree by the palace next to the booth where press passes and touristy t-shirts were sold. I don’t really remember now how the whole thing got started or who initiated the first flick (probably David, since his pockets were usually full of bottle caps), but suddenly David and I were sitting on the ground surrounded by a couple dozen dirty kids. We flipped the cap back and forth a few times, then innocently flipped it to a kid on the inside of the circle. He was so surprised that he didn’t even catch it.

He caught it the second time, though. And then the next kid caught it. And then the next one. And thus the most uncomplicated game of catch ever conceived came into being, and we sat there in the dirt as happy as could be, flipping bottle caps back and forth with a bunch of kids we had never met.

The palace official did not approve of our antics.

“You! You my friends, we are happy to have you here as guests! But send these children away from here.”

Now as a sidenote, it would be an understatement to say that I have a temper. It would also be an understatement to say that said temper has a tendency to flair when innocents—particularly children—are mistreated or devalued.

So I very calmly stood up, held my hands out so my dear little urchins could cling on, then resolutely began to walk away, saying, “Come on everyone, we’ll all go somewhere else.”

“Oh no!” the official hurriedly interjected. “You,” gesturing to those of us who are white, “You are welcome! Just get rid of the children.”

“If they are not welcome to sit under a tree, then neither are we,” I replied.

The official began to protest again, when suddenly Zeger stepped in.

“But my good sir,” our resident non-Christian pleaded smoothly, “are we not all children of God? We are no better than they, and so if we can be here, than surely they can be too.”

Well now he had him. All sacrifices to the ancestors aside, this man was not about to let some random white people think that he was not a “good Christian.”

“Oh yes!” he exclaimed. “My friend! In my spare time, I am an evangelist! Of course, yes, we are all children of God! The children may stay, yes…”

As the flustered official returned to his kiosk, David, Zeger, and I returned to our game. 

(Also, I would like to point out that I don't think this official was really the "bad guy"-- he was just doing his job; part of crowd control in the village is kid control.)

Eventually the next part of the ceremony started, and we got up, brushed ourselves off, gave the caps away, and followed the crowds.

We retold the story many times in the days to come and indeed have recounted it on numerous occasions since returning home. It remains one of my favorites, because it turns out that even musungus can play the Zambian political game-- and even the lowest in society can often be protected from being devalued or shunted aside, if only someone with a voice will ally himself with them.

Even me

Les Misérables.

A thief pays the price. His scarred wrists proclaim his past, and the mantra of the righteous rings eternally: Once a thief, always a thief. Once a thief, never trustworthy again. Once a wretch, forever irredeemable.

And with that echoing in his mind, the felon makes the jailkeeper a prophet. He steals again. And as he does, we wonder if the prophecy is not true.  Once a wretch, forever irredeemable. The man of God had offered him shelter, food, safety, love… He had extended generosity. Generosity means little, though, in the eyes of one who believes what this man had been told…

Once a wretch, forever irredeemable.

And so the man called wretched behaved as his title would lead one to expect, and he stole. Again. From one who had given him so much. Many would have declared his fate sealed. Many would have condemned him here. Indeed, the Law did.  But the man of God did not.

The silver? Yes it is mine, he said.. But I have given it to him. The silver he has is his to keep, he said. Oh but wait. He has forgotten the best of all—take these silver candlesticks as well, he said. And pray child, use this silver to become an honest man.

It is not generosity or kindness alone that softened a stony heart. It was mercy. Forgiveness. And then generosity.  It was the cloak offered up once the tunic was forcefully taken. It was the man of God who would rather be without any earthly thing than pass up a chance to speak the Gospel into a man’s life—a man who would rather be wronged than be repaid—a man so concerned about the welfare of another human being that his own rights never even entered into consideration.

That man of God, I think, is the true hero of the story.

But the man of the Law still believed the prophecy.
Once a wretch, always irredeemable.

And so he pursued the wretch, seeking to punish and purify and uphold that which he believed to be holy and true. Such was his right. His responsibility, even.  His duty.

And it consumed him. His bitterness, his inability to believe in the redemption of man, his absolute conviction that the wretch was forever a thief… For passion can be misplaced, and his pulled him down to his end.

The greater message, I think, is that poverty is not all about materialism. We think it is. We act as though to toss a pair of used shoes or some hand-me-down clothes at some poor dirty street kid is significantly alleviating the problem, as if the only thing the wretch needed was food and a place to sleep. Materially, yes. That was all he needed. But man is not merely physical, and neither are his needs. Even the wretch—even the thief—is more.

Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate the world
This world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye!
Turn your heart into stone!
This is all I have lived for!
This is all I have known!

He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?

Redemption and her story came not through retribution and restitution, but through a willingness to be wronged and abused, if only for the chance that the thief might come to believe in the existence of his own soul.

And yet, it is just a story.

I have often wondered where the balance is between mercy and justice… forgiveness and accountability… the extension of grace and the enabling of poor behavior. I still don’t have the answer. But if I must be one or the other—the man of the Law or the man of God—I know which side I hope to fall on. For he believed that redemption could find any man, and he was willing to sell his own comfort to give that man a chance.

Even the wretch.

Even the thief.

Even me.