We’ve been reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard during our current learning posture. The chapters we’ve read the past few weeks have been so rich and meaningful for me in connecting with the reality in which I currently find myself. Willard talks about how in the Beatitudes, Jesus proclaims the availability of His Kingdom to everyone, even those who are in the midst of brokenness, suffering, despair. He offers a few descriptions of the people who might make this list in our world today:

“Then there are the ’seriously’ crushed ones: the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant-too-many-times or at the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced…” (Willard, p. 140)

Back in California, every few weeks I would spend an afternoon or evening volunteering at a home for teen moms (or “unwed mothers”) in East Palo Alto. I once talked about this ministry with a friend who was looking for places she could serve. She said she couldn’t ever work with girls like that; that they were in that situation due to their own poor choices, and she wouldn’t have patience for that kind of thing.

So many people would say the same of the kinds of people on Dallas Willard’s list: It’s their own fault, really. It’s because of their sin, their mistakes, or their poor choices that they are where they are. While talking to my friend about her impatience with the teen moms I worked with, I remember feeling saddened by her attitude toward them, but also feeling just a little self-satisfied, a little more “Christian.” Lately I’ve realized that the same type of blaming attitude has long been present in my own heart, just in different ways.

John chapter 9 recounts a story of Jesus healing a man who had been blind since birth. The disciples come to Jesus with a similar question of where to place the blame:

His disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:1-3)

Before coming to South Africa, when I heard of a person who had AIDS, my first question was how they got the disease. My thoughts echoed the words of the disciples in this story: Was it their sin, or the sin of another? Is it their fault, or is it someone else’s? What Jesus does in this story is to shift the focus away from the question of sin and blame. He simply heals the man, declaring that the work of God will be displayed in this man’s life.

Since being here I’ve encountered more and more people–friends–who have AIDS. And I’ve realized that my recurring question of “how did this person get AIDS?” has ceased to be relevant. However they contracted HIV, whatever the reason behind it, that’s not the biggest issue. It’s not a matter of finding out whose fault it is. It’s a matter of discovering how I can communicate the good news of the kingdom of God, even in the face of such a disease.

“Jesus offers to all such people as these the present blessedness of the present kingdom–regardless of circumstances. The condition of life sought for by human beings through the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus.” (Willard, p. 140)

It’s not ignoring their present reality. AIDS isn’t something that goes away. But it is something God can walk through with them. And it’s something I can walk through with them, offering whatever I can of myself.

“You are really walking in the good news of the kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God.” (p. 138)

What the “hopeless” need to hear is that there is hope, even for them. Though there are things that won’t be fulfilled until heaven, the “kingdom reality” that God promises us is available now.

Ma Ntabiseng, widowed by AIDS. Martha, whose life was claimed by AIDS, leaving behind four children. Doris, Valrey and her daughter Motlope…all living with the disease, managing it as best they can, and at the same time, caring for those around them. How can I proclaim the kingdom of God to such as these? What does the Kingdom look like for them? What does that blessed life look like?