Where are we called?

I remember when I was in high school my history teacher once wondered aloud in class, “why has the reformed tradition created so few Mother Theresa's?” He wasn't expecting an answer, I think, but that question has bothered me ever since. I thought about that question again at the Stephen Lewis lecture. Hearing his stories about the brutal things that are happening in Africa—rape, AIDS, war—and how the North is doing so little about it makes me wonder how it is possible for us to let those things keep happening without doing anything about it.

Although I love the reformed way of thinking and I realize that its ideas of structure and direction and every square inch belonging to the dominion of Jesus our Lord are very helpful, I think the answer to my high school teacher's question lies in part in those same ideas. They are good ideas because they are the precise things that prompt us to become involved in the world, in all its different aspects. They help us see our task in the world as building culture, and through them we empathize with the exiles and their call to work for the good of the city.

But although they are helpful, the ideas of structure and direction and that every square inch belongs to to Jesus our Lord put us in danger of forgetting where the world is suffering most. They almost provide us with an excuse, so that we don't have to go where we don't want to. It becomes so easy to say things like, “I know that there are people dying on the streets there, but I think I'm called to redeem the fashion industry.” (I'm only using this as an example, insert whatever job you want to go into). But perhaps in this context redeeming fashion would mean to put it aside because we know that the issue of people dying is more important. Perhaps there are certain issues of justice that are more pressing and more urgent than others. I'm not saying that the others are not important but that they need to be put aside for the time being. We sometimes forget where the greatest need is, where the task is most urgent, and we continue just practicing proximate justice.

It is easy to leave the Stephen Lewis lecture, the Social Justice conference, and the earthquake in Haiti behind us, and continue to redeem parts of our society. It is not that we don't care about what happens, but it's just that we are already involved with redeeming the culture around us. And we care about our home and city and country. But maybe some of us (and I am not saying all of us) can leave this last week and remember that we are also called to the places of need. Maybe it is not enough to just go out in all parts of the world, maybe we need to pay special attention those places where the suffering due to hunger, war, or disease is so painful that culture-making seems almost insignificant for the time being. Perhaps we also need a theology of determining where the biggest needs are in the world.