George had grown up in the projects and been a gang member all his life. But after 9 months in a juvenile rehabilitation camp, he had changed considerably. The Jesuit priest there, Greg Boyle, explains, “Taken out of the environment that [kept] him unsettled and crazed, not surprisingly, he [began] to thrive. [At the end, he was] nearly unrecognizable. The hard vato with his gangster pose [had] morphed into a thoughtful, measured man, aware of gifts and talents previously obscured….”
Toward the end of his 9 months in camp, he successfully completes his GED exam and is absolutely beaming. The cherry on top is that he will be baptized by Greg before leaving camp. Over the course of the nine months, he has heard the good news of God’s love that Greg has been proclaiming, and he has decided to follow Jesus.
The night before George’s baptism, his brother Cisco is walking home in their neighborhood when the quiet is shattered by several loud pops. Gunshots. He is killed instantly.
“It is the most difficult baptism of my life,” Greg shares. “For as I pour water over George’s head…I know I will walk George outside alone after the service and tell him what happened.
“As I do, and I put my arm around him, I whisper gently as we walk out onto the baseball field, ‘George, your brother Cisco was killed last night.’
“I can feel all the air leave his body as he heaves a sigh that finds itself in a sob in an instant. We land on a bench. His face seeks refuge in his open palms, and he sobs quietly. Most notable is what isn’t present in his rocking and gentle wailing. I’ve been in this place before many times. There is always flailing, and rage and promises to avenge things. There is none of this in George. It is as if the commitment he has just made in [baptism]”–his commitment to follow Christ–“has taken hold and his grief is pure and true and more resembles the heartbreak of God. George seems to offer proof of the efficacy of this thing we call [faith], and he manages to hold back all the complexity of this great sadness, right here, on this bench, in his tender weeping.”[1]
…
When Jesus says to the man who has lost his father, “Let the dead bury the dead,” I really struggle with it. What kind of pastoral care is this? Can you imagine a sympathy card with those words? It is unthinkable.
But when I heard George’s story, I began to hear Jesus’ words differently. I heard more clearly the words Jesus says next: “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
I hear Jesus now as though he’s talking to George, saying, “Let those who live in the old, dead ways of the world, do as they must. But you—you live differently. Live in God’s kingdom.”
When Jesus invites the three would-be followers on the way of the cross, he issues the same invitation: leave the world and enter God’s kingdom. Let go of your attachments to places, people, and things, and receive the freedom of love, which is always at home (no matter the place), always among family (no matter the people), always with God (no matter the things you have or don’t have).
From the world’s perspective, following Christ looks like you’re giving something up. Maybe it’s your national pride. Maybe it’s your family reputation. Maybe it’s your gang’s territory. From the world’s perspective, following Christ looks like losing.
But from the perspective of God’s kingdom, you are gaining everything. In the gospel of Mark, when Peter declares that the disciples have left everything to follow Christ, Jesus responds that they received even more in return: “[T]here is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields” (Mark 10:29-30). There is no one who will not receive a hundredfold…
So it was for George…who left behind the death-dealing ways of his world and followed Christ into God’s kingdom of love, a kingdom of more brothers and sisters and mothers and children than he’d ever known, a communion that would sustain him, even in the deepest of losses.
[1]
Story and quotes from Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless
Compassion (New York: Free Press, 2011), 84-86
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