As I was growing up in Richmond, Virginia, my universe largely consisted of the five miles between my private school and my home. I loved my school, and my family was then and remains today extraordinarily close. I cherished my childhood. And yet as I grew, I increasingly knew that not everyone had access to the same opportunities I was given, that globally as well as locally the support and resources requisite to thrive as God intends are not equitably accessible. At that time, though, I also had a jammed schedule oriented toward college, and as is too often and easily the case, my attention, energy and concern were consumed with the family, community and institutions of which I was a part, including my home church.
So in the midst of affirming that God is good, that everyone is crafted in God’s image and that I’m called to love my neighbors as I love myself, I did not pay much attention to my neighbors. In line with James’s rebuke, I said, prayed and sincerely believed things like “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” but my actions revealed narrower loyalties than neighbors near or far (James 2:16). While I did not articulate it at the time, when I recently saw an image of Judas kissing Jesus, it hit me that as a teenager I had begun feeling like a lip-servicing traitor to God and neighbor. Kind words and prayerful blessings alone over those whose lives are being cut short from the goodness God intends land empty, meaningless and hollow — like betrayals with a pious kiss, or like holy, sacred platitudes unleashed at best by rote, at worst for show. I have worked to be far more useful to others as the years have passed, but that feeling of betrayal remains because so much remains to do to be a blessing to others not simply “in words or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:18).
Yet it is precisely awareness of that betrayal, which is a recognition of sin and the call for repentance that bears fruit, that lights a generative restlessness. If used well, that restlessness can provide generative space to lean into the incredible forgiveness we have in and through Christ Jesus being for us — not as some quiescent salve of cheap grace, but rather as an enlivening opportunity to be grown actively into the twin love of God and neighbor. That restlessness can provide generative space to bear actual fruits of the Spirit: justice, love, generosity, patience, peace, compassion, humility, faithfulness and gentleness. That restlessness can be prayerfully leveraged into an abiding hunger and thirst for righteousness that will not be quenched with a guilty conscience, but will spur instead effective, actionable allegiance to God’s creative, redeeming, reconciling Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That restlessness can be – must be – like a fire in the bones.
Nelson Reveley is parish associate at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia.
