Spring 2006 Nick BryantThis winter, Nick visited and worked with the Tierra Nueva community in Honduras. For more information about the Honduras arm of TN, visit our website, www.tierra-nueva.org.
“Asà es, Nicolas. Hay que sufrir.” He said it so nonchalantly, like a flat and unsatisfying period to punctuate so many problems and pain. You have to suffer.
As he stooped to heft one more brimming bag of beans to his shoulder, I couldn’t help but wonder where God was in the midst of this. Does the kingdom of God look like a gradual alleviation of poverty through the patient and persistent efforts of nine Tierra Nueva promoters, who share the good news of improved farming methods, natural medicine, and nutrition among the extremely poor? Is it the filling of church pews or the political empowerment of peasant campesinos?
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”
“But Jesus,” I want to say, “you can heal this man’s back bent by too many heavy loads; you can even invite him out of the shame and condemnation that he believes he somehow merits.
But what are you going to do about his poverty, about third world debt and corrupt governments, about CAFTA and immigration legislation and the oppressive structures and institutions that caused these infirmities in the first place?”
Returning with more questions than answers, I’m beginning to see that our liberation is realized in both exodus and crucifixion: it is a salvation from the oppressive reality in which we find ourselves. And it is an invitation to live and die in such a way as to demonstrate that these earthly structures have no power over us. It is in this tension between the spiritual and the material that I pray with our Honduran brothers and sisters, “Kingdom of God, come!”
