sticks and stones

I was reminded recently that I still foolishly believe in my own ability to right societal wrongs by taking justice into my hands. Although the lesson left me scraped and bruised (literally), I'm sure it is one that I won't soon forget.

I was jogging along a path for bikers and runners last week when I heard the sound of a dirtbike coming my way. Motorized vehicles are normally not allowed on this path for safety reasons, and I could feel the anger rising in me at the fact that yet another young punk had decided to break the law and put people at risk.

For some reason, I made a split second decision to do something about it and placed myself in the middle of the path as the biker raced toward me. I put my hands out motioning for him to slow down, which of course, he did not. He sped right past me, close enough for us to brush shoulders, and kicked his foot out just a tad bit too late to actually hurt me. He turned back and flicked me off with a universal sign of disapproval before carrying on with his ride.

With heart racing and still feeling in a bit of a huff over the encounter, I continued my run. I must admit that several times in the minutes that followed, I imagined various aggressive and even violent scenarios in which I replayed the clash, mostly to my own advantage. I was surprised at how quickly my mind got carried away with my emotions, and how creatively it conjured up alternative courses of action.

And then I noticed him. A young man, around 17 or 18, possibly of North African or Arab descent, standing at a junction in the road ahead. He was holding a large, sharpened stone in his hand, and was clearly waiting for someone. As it turned out, that someone was me. It was my dirtbiker friend.

I slowed down as he came toward me, and said to him in French, "You're the guy on the dirtbike." He tried to conceal the stone, and actually claimed that he had a knife in his pocket. He began screaming at me, threatening to kill me, and eventually holding the stone up as if he was going to strike me. He wanted to know why I had gotten in his way, why I had "attacked" him. "No one does that to me," he shouted several times.

The rage that he displayed undoubtedly had far deeper roots than our brief encounter on the trail, but I was now its object; I had made myself an excuse for the unleashing of a pent up storm. I could tell that he wanted very much to strike me, but for some reason, he could not bring himself to do it. He told me to apologize, which I did, and then he seemed ready to leave me alone.

Then it happened again. That sense of need to right a wrong, to take justice into my own hands, kicked in. As he walked away I foolishly said, "I was wrong, and what I did was stupid, but you were wrong too." Well that pushed him over the edge. He came at me with a fury that I have never encountered before in my life. Still unable to bring himself to strike me with the stone, he began kicking me and screaming at me to leave, which I was more than glad to do.

But as I turned to walk away, he just kept kicking me. Twice. Three times. A fourth time even harder than before. And with this last kick, I turned as he was extending his foot for a fifth blow. I grabbed hold of his foot and took him down to the ground. For a brief moment we fought for the stone that he still clutched in his hands. I succeeded at dislodging it from his grasp and tossed it far from us.

By this time, several of his relatives had driven up and were yelling at us to stop. I let him go and he immediately raced over to them to explain that I had attacked him. He went looking for his stone as one of the ladies yelled at me to run away . . . advice that I readily accepted.

When I finally got home, I noticed the deep gashes on my knee and the scrapes on my arm. I could feel my heart pumping inside of me as I replayed the event over and over in my mind. Who would believe that I had just been in a fight with a teen-age dirtbiker? The absurdity of it was almost laughable. I imagined one of his family members walking into our church some Sunday morning when I was in the pulpit giving the message and saying, "that's the guy that attacked our boy!"

In the days that followed, I asked the Lord about what I could learn from this humiliating experience. I knew for sure that He was very pleased that my pride had taken such a beating, but with the pleasure of a loving Daddy who wants His child to learn a hard lesson that he refuses to learn.

The idea that has come to mind again and again is that no form of violence or aggression will ever succeed at bringing about justice. Justice is the work of the Lord. My decision to confront that young man physically was taken as a sign of aggression, and it failed to accomplish the desired purpose. Actually, it simply made matters worse, inviting an aggressive and violent response.

In the past few days, I have thanked the Lord for the limited consequences of this lesson in lowliness, knowing that a different set of circumstances could have produced a far more painful and perhaps enduring result.

Interestingly, a few days ago, I was at the church praying when a man came in carrying a piece of metal pipe. I was the only person at the church at the time, and the man was clearly angry. I quickly prayed for grace and for the Lord's peace, and then approached the man to find out what was up. He had come to "regulate" a conflict he had had with a member of the church, and he showed me his metal pipe.

I could sense the peace of the Lord flowing through me in this moment as I talked the situation through with the man. We even opened God's Word together and read from the book of Galatians. Part way through our discussion, he put his metal pipe away and said, "I think I had better get rid of this thing."

It was truly a joy to be used as an instrument of God's peace, and I sensed the Lord redeeming my previous encounter through this experience.

The gospel calls us to radical acts of social justice, but I am of the opinion that these will never require aggression or hostility of any kind. Although they may put us in danger, it will not be because someone feels physically threatened by us. Following Jesus will inevitably bring us into conflict with others, but if we suffer, let us suffer for doing good (not for being foolish as I was). This calls to mind a passage from 1 Peter, with which I will close:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler (maybe I would have fit into this category). Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name . . . Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (I Peter 4:12-16, 19).