I have a brother in Chile.

My Barros Luco con palta

When I found out last week that I'd be making a last-minute trip down to Santiago, my mouth immediately began to salivate at the thought of eating delicious Barros Luco sandwiches covered with Chilean avocados and washing them down with perfectly crafted pisco sours. Then, my very next thought was "I can't wait to see Javier."

Javier and I first started working together on a market intelligence project in early 2010. We hadn't met in person, but would frequently connect over the phone or instant message. A few weeks into the project, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake rocked central Chile, killing 525 people. Upon seeing the news, I immediately called Javier to make sure he was okay, and was relieved to hear he and his family were safe. We continued to discuss the destruction in Santiago, and I told him I was praying for him and all of the people of Chile. And that's when our relationship changed.

wreckage from the 2010 Chile earthquake

A few months later, I had the opportunity to travel to Santiago, and met Javier in person for the first time. He took me to a Peruvian restaurant, and over dinner he told me how much my prayers meant to him. He said when I told him I was praying for him, he could sense the sincerity in my words, and he asked me about my faith. Javier told me he, too, is a Christ follower, and it formed an immediate bond between us.

As we continued to discuss our faith, I became more and more amazed. We had grown up in completely different cultures, speaking different languages, watching different TV shows, eating different food, having different political viewpoints, and yet we were brothers in Christ. We shared the same worldview, the same love for others, the same struggles and temptations, the same beliefs in a loving, personal God, and the same need for grace. Javier taught me an important lesson that night: Jesus was not an American.

Javier with his fiancee

I know that sounds like a ridiculous thing to believe in the first place since Jesus never even stepped foot in the good ol' US of A, but it's a trap I've found myself falling into far too often. In the States, we envision Jesus as this handsome white man, when in reality, he was from the middle east, and thus his appearance would probably make him have a difficult time getting through our airport security. We paint Jesus as this great campaigner for the Republican Party, and politicians have morphed him into a pawn for their viewpoints for centuries, when in reality, Jesus didn't seem to care about politics at all. Even when I think about missions, I associate them with Americans bringing capitalism, universal suffrage, and Coca-Cola to distant shores, instead of simply sharing the gospel, the news of the faith once, for all, with people everywhere.

As Javier shared more with me, I saw how our cultures place different obstacles in front of Jesus. In America, we have imbeciles such as Pat Robertson making outlandish claims in the name of God (I think my favorite was his claim to being able to leg press 2,000 pounds), and we've created an entire sub-culture with specific rules about the music you have to listen to, the books you have to read, and the bumper stickers you must emblazon your car with in order to be a "true Christian." In Chile, a common barrier is people are more concerned with being Catholic than they are with following Jesus. That's not a criticism of Catholicism (Javier himself is a Catholic), but rather a criticism of how we often get so caught up in rituals and how our culture defines religion that we completely miss out on a relationship with Christ. The need for Jesus is universal, but the cultures around the world vary greatly, as do the cultural obstacles placed in front of Christ.

Last spring, during a brief visit to Athens, Ashley and I had the opportunity to visit Mars Hill, also known as the Areopagus. It was on Mars Hill where Paul preached to the Athenians, as recorded in Acts 17. During the sermon, Paul quotes the local poets and discusses the specific idols worshiped by the Greeks. He took the time to understand their culture, and thus was able to present Jesus in a way they could understand. He didn't have to alter Jesus or his message in any way, he just had to put him in their context. As I stood on that big rock, I reflected on Paul's message, and thought about how I need to stop pushing my white, American, capitalist, Republican Jesus, and rather just engage the culture around me and share the Jesus who does not put up obstacles to a relationship with him. I just want to share the Jesus who is relevant to all cultures, who died for all peoples, and who connects us all to the God who created us.

Ashley and I on top of Mars Hill in Athens

I'm thankful for the time I'm getting in Chile this week, I'm thankful for what Javier has taught me about the cultural universalness of Christ, and I'm especially thankful for these delectable avocados. Yet I know my ministry isn't here. I don't know the language, I can't quote their poets, and I don't understand the barriers their culture has placed in front of Jesus and how they should be broken down. But Javier does. So I will continue to pray for him and encourage him in any way I can, and I will continue to thank God for giving me a brother and dear friend in Chile.

What I'm listening to during this post: "Portraits" by the Wheeler Brothers

I value authenticity.

If you've been reading my blog or following my Facebook updates, you may be tempted to believe that I have it all together. After all, I untag myself in the photos I don't like, only write posts that paint me in a positive light, and I strictly control the information I release to the interwebs. Yet if you've spent any amount of time at all with me in person, you know there are quite a few missteps and shortcomings notably absent from my timeline. Every day I become more and more aware that I am a flawed human being in desperate need of grace.


I've lied, I've cheated, and I've lusted after that which isn't mine. I've been gluttonous with the pleasures of this world, I've sent others on the most treacherous harbingers of guilt trips (I'm especially bad at that), and I've been an all-around horrible witness of Jesus Christ. Now if your first reaction to reading my list is to compare it to your own inventory of past transgressions, then please stop. First of all, it's hardly an exhaustive list - rather just a sample of ways I've screwed up within the past 48 hours. More importantly, that's not how God looks at our sin. Thankfully, He doesn't rank us according to some complicated demerit system - we're all in the same boat here.


I think the difference comes in how we deal with our sin. Do we dig a hole and bury it as deep as we can, or do we expose it to light and deal with it? Do we bog ourselves down with guilt and regret, or do we accept the grace God so freely gives? Do we continually fall into the same stupid trap, or do we make a clean break with our old ways? 


When I was in college, there were a few Christian guys who I greatly admired and grew quite close to. A few years after graduation, I was shocked to learn that they were leading double lives, and were involved in some destructive behavior, unbeknownst to anyone in the Christian community. What's funny is their sin isn't what hurt me - it's college, everyone makes some bad decisions! - what really made my heart churn was they felt they couldn't discuss it with me. It made my seemingly close relationship with them, something I had highly valued, feel like a complete sham. 


On the other hand, I had some other Christian friends who were more open with their struggles, and they were promptly ostracized from the community. Not surprisingly, they fell deeper into their struggles and some left the faith altogether. When they stopped believing in God, the ones who had shunned them took it as validation of their judgement, saying "see, I told you so." Meanwhile, my response was simply "can you blame them?"

As I've written before, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes, and I like his diagnosis of this problem in the church:


"It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy"…"He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone."

Bonhoeffer's words struck me because I've always longed for a community where I'm not alone in my sin, and where others aren't scared to share their struggles out of fear of being ostracized. Yet now I've found an amazing community, and I'm finding it's still not easy to be candid about my vices.

Some of the great people in my community group

On a Saturday evening a few weeks ago, I messed up pretty bad. I hurt people I love, left them to clean up the mess I made, and had to suffer some consequences. Yet I couldn't stand the thought of being alone in my sin, so the following Monday evening, I sheepishly confessed my sin to my dear friends. Their responses marked a stark contrast to the kind of pious fellowship that Bonhoeffer warns of - they were filled with words of encouragement, empathy, and promises of future accountability.


A week later, I was still feeling some guilt about my actions, and my friend Brittany quickly scolded me. "Jay, guilt is NOT from God; you need to get over this!" she exclaimed as our friends all roasted marshmallows around the fire. She was right. I may have tattooed the word grace on my arm a year ago in Copenhagen, but sometimes I still need a verbal reminder of it from friends who are more concerned about my future than my past mistakes.

A photo of my tattoo - the Greek word for grace

While this kind of encouragement, accountability, and reminder of grace is quite wonderful, it still isn't enough for my friend Sarah. At a recent gathering of our community group, she brought up how it's really difficult to share your struggles with a room of 14 people, especially when it's mixed company. She recommended we split into groups of 2-3 people (of the same gender) occasionally so that we could create a better environment for authenticity. It was one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time, and I'm excited to see the fruit it bears.


The fellowship I have with my Christian community is the greatest thing I have going for me in my life right now. We throw parties together, we pray earnestly for each other, and we just plain have fun together. Yet what lies at the heart of what makes our community so awesome is the authenticity, and the encouragement, accountability, and living, breathing example of grace that flows from that authenticity. My prayer is that all of my friends pursue and find that kind of fellowship, in whatever form it may come, so that they no longer have to be alone in their transgressions.

Sarah and her husband, Justin, roast a heart-shaped marshmallow by the fire.

What I'm listening to during this post: "Empty House" by Delta Spirit