Become the Change you Hope and Pray for...
Kon Karapanagiotidis grew up in a small town in rural Victoria, the son of an immigrant family – refugee grandparents who had escaped war and struggle in their homeland. He was different in a school where everyone else looked, sounded and acted the same. His name was long and difficult to say – too many letters and syllables.
Kon experienced racism and bullying and life was tough for him and his family. He realised, as he grew that his parents and grandparents had had a tough time and found it hard without the language and cultural awareness. They were taken advantage of in the workplace. It wasn’t fair. They only wanted a safe and free life for their family.
As he grew older, Kon also became aware that he was not alone in experiencing racism and disadvantage because he was different. There were many others like him who had come from many places across the world to make a new home in Australia, far from the persecution, warfare and struggle of their homelands. Some were able to make a decision and flee and others had no choice. They were displaced persons and refugees seeking asylum and safety wherever they could. Kon recognised the struggles and challenges these people experienced, the racism and rejection, the difficulty accessing services and help, and the problems with language and culture. Kon reached out to others as he could. He used his own resources to help. As he became increasingly involved with others, he realised he needed more and gained degrees in law and business and drew other people into the movement of help and support. Eventually he formed the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which has helped and supported countless people over the last couple of decades.
Kon didn’t wait or call for someone to come and fix the mess but recognised he could make a little difference if he had a go. Others joined in, many others, who were not people of power or might or vast resources, but whose hearts were moved, and eyes opened and who wanted to love and care.
I wrestle with the big stories on the news of the day, stories such as the invasion of Ukraine, war and conflicts in the Middle East, Africa… and of course the environmental crises that confronts our planet and its creatures, and so much more. I feel small and powerless to change anything or make a difference. I watch as innocent people are swept up in the chaos and violence in the Ukraine, Gaza and other places, crying out for help, salvation, freedom… I imagine their prayers in homes, churches and other places, crying out to God for freedom and deliverance from this pain and chaos – cries and prayers that often amount to nothing.
Where, O God are you? I hear the voices of those who mock our praying, wondering where our God of power and might, not to mention love, is and why God isn’t responding as we are promised. We long for someone to intervene and change everything; to remove the megalomaniacs of the world who cause so much pain and damage. We long for everything to be set right in the world and wonder why it isn’t!
With these images and ideas rattling through my mind, I read a simple story from Luke’s second volume, called ‘Acts.’ It is the story of a radical movement of people following Jesus’ way in the world and turning it upside down. In the opening section, Jesus, in the Risen, resurrection form, is preparing to leave stage right (or stage up??). This is the transition moment when he moves on and promises that God’s Spirit, the Spirit of love, life and creation, will come and empower them in new ways to live his life in the world, to be his witnesses locally, regionally and across their known world.
In the midst of everything, his followers ask him a question: ‘When will you come and restore the nation of Israel?’ In other words, when will you set everything right? When will you get those horrible Romans out and let us live in freedom? When will everything be restored to the way it should be? And really this is our question, isn’t it – well at least it is mine! When will you turn everything around and fix it, God? When will you make it all good again?
It's as if we’re asking God to wave a magic wand and set the world aright or to send a superhuman person to make it all good. But do we really want that? Do you and I really want the world to be changed and set right? I suspect I really want the things ‘over there’ that look wrong to me to be fixed. I don’t really want to conceive of the idea that maybe I am part of some of the problems. I’m not sure I want to recognise my own participation in the chaos, violence and suffering of our world. I am happy for those over there, the baddies, to be changed, as long as my world remains relatively unchanged and okay – for me. I wonder what I am really praying for – even when my heart breaks open at the suffering of innocent and ordinary people?
I read Jesus’ response, which is also Luke’s message to a community of followers several decades after Jesus, followers who have suffered the persecution of dangerous Roman Emperors and a world that hates them. He says that God’s time and activity is mystery, but he will send the Spirit upon these followers and anyone else open to it and they will be the witnesses to this alternate, radical way of God throughout their world. As witnesses, they will live and speak this alternate way into being through their lives. This is not a promise to send another messianic figure or powerful superhero. It is the call to go and do it themselves – go and set the world aright, yourself in the Spirit’s power!
I am confronted and challenged! I am to be the very answer to my own prayers – ‘You want the world to change,’ suggests God, ‘then be changed in your own being and live it out in the world around you!’ We are invited to join the movement and become part of the renewal of the world. As Ghandhi, Martin Luther King jr, Rosa Parks and so many other ordinary people have done, we are invited to be changed in our being, let go of fear and judgement, live out of love and seek justice and peace for all. It is not a call to do it alone. We are invited into the movement that flows through history and sprouts up wherever people seek love, kindness, compassion, justice, hope, peace in an inclusive community.
I recognise that I can’t change the whole world – certainly on my own! I’m just a simple, ordinary person but when I allow myself to be open, to be changed, then change will happen around me. As I draw others in or am drawn to others already doing their bit, the movement grows, and change happens. We work together and the mystery of God’s Spirit in, through and around us does what we can’t alone, and the world shifts a little on its axis. Change is in the air, and the wonder and love God’s Reign opens before us!