Listening to the Liturgy

For many of the Sunday's that I've been here I've gone to a liturgical church and I've appreciated the rhythm of the liturgy and that I know at the very least I'm going to hear two lessons, a psalm, and a gospel reading. And since my Swahili is still getting up to snuff, having the consistency of words that I know what they mean.

In Zanzibar I stayed at a guesthouse next to the Anglican church that was built on the grounds of the old slave market, after the end of the slave trade on the island in the second half of the 19th century.

Each morning I would hear the early morning call to prayer, since the island is 99% Muslim and a mosque was only a couple of blocks away. But on Sunday morning I also heard the 6am church bells ringing. And I stumbled out of bed to go to the early Swahili service.

It was interesting and I was surprised that there were more people present at the service than I expected, considering the small population of Christians in Zanzibar and that this was the early morning service. I caught a bit of the message, but the priest spoke a bit too quickly. So I found my mind wandering back to the Scriptures that were read the previous week that were still ringing in my head, because it runs so counter to the way that the world tells us to live:

Romans 12: Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone... If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And even in the Old Testament reading, which sometimes includes not-so-palatable stories of death and destruction, there's this crazy account in 2Kings 6. The prophet Elisha sees the Aramean army coming, and his servant freaks out. Elisha says, don't be afraid we've got more on our side than they have on their side and prays for the eyes of the servant to be opened, and there's this supernatural army standing guard. Then Elisha prays that the Arameans would be blinded. Then he leads the blinded straight to the king of the people they were trying to attack, then opens their eyes again. The king of Israel asks Elisha what to do and whether to kill them. Elisha responds: "Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.” So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.

Isn't that just insane? I mean, who does that? What would the world look like if we sought to overcome evil with good, to feed our enemy, and didn't choose to repay evil with evil? What if the church as as revolutionary as that?

SWAHILI WORDS OF THE DAY: kanisa = church, mapinduzi = revolutionary