My experience in Rwanda has solidified in my heart and mind that the key to effective Christian witness, both locally and globally, is to show Jesus by serving through love. The role of the church is to help foster what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called the “Beloved Community.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King of the Civil Rights Movement understood the preciousness of every human life, the endurance of love, and the power of redemption. Although Dr. King exercised tremendous political astuteness in waging non violent strategies, he was predominantly a man of deep and abiding faith, guided by an intense, albeit high aspiration, to achieve the “Beloved Community” based on Godly agape love – he was a man of Christian witness. [1] Dr. King said that in the Cross resides the highest expression of divine agape through the “greatness of God and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.” [2] Dr. King said:
I must continue by faith or it is too great a burden to bear and violence, even in self defense, creates more problems that it solves. Only a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men can live together without fear. Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. [3]
I conveyed this message of love when reading the story of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King during one of my Saturday programs with the kids. What really stood out to the children was how much Dr. King loved people and prayed which was what I hoped the children would observe about the story. I also highlighted the importance of love in my third and final sermons preached in Rwanda. My scripture reference was John 13:34-35. I focused on our commandment to show love to others based on Jesus’ sacrificial love for us. I emphasized that to serve is a beautiful thing but to show love is truly Godly as God is love. I explained that in order to truly serve God’s own beloved, you must love God’s people. I further explained that it is only through love of our Father Jesus, that we are able to love others truly, and also be able to forgive. I was emphatic about being a force of love as Jesus cautioned us that it is through our love how others will know the Lord. As the scripture reference of my sermon pronounces, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
During my time engaged in ministry in Rwanda it was my sincere desire to be a beacon of hope and love. In terms of practical ministry, I feel that the basis of what we are called to do as disciples of Jesus Christ is to show love – a radical form of love in the way Rev. Dr. King stood for in the midst of intense hatred and racial oppression. Through love – true Agape love, healing, forgiveness and reconciliation are forging its way in the hearts of Rwandans - a people that I love so very much.
[1] John J. Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Non Violent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 187.
[2] John J. Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Non Violent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, 15.
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990), 56-57.