Deep Divides and God's Solution: Woolwich, Rwanda

Scenes near Woolwich Barracks last week shocked us all; the sight of that cleaver-bearing young man with blood-covered hands, the astounded onlookers – all on an otherwise ordinary day on an otherwise ordinary British high street. Signs of an alarming disparity of viewpoints have surfaced yet again within our society.

My friend, Rukundo, has seen bloodshed on the streets of his native Rwanda immeasurably worse. In the 1994 genocide he lost 78 members of his family and over half a million of his own countrymen.

Rukundo spoke to us all in our golden marquee on Saturday (the Jesus Fellowship bank holiday weekend) and his message was clear: God’s solution to the deep divides of any society is in the church. All of us in some way are a part of the problem but gladly we can all be part of the solution too.  One verse in John's first letter, says, Rukundo, sums up the whole New Testament:   'And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.’(1 John 3:23)

 We are in a school of love. The first stage is when we call God my father (an important step) but this must lead to the second stage, the stage of brotherhood when God is ‘our father’ and we live as one God-family. The third stage is – ‘hallowed by Your name, Your kingdom come; not my will but Yours be done!’ This is when everything we are and own is given over to God.

For Rukundo, there is a fourth tribe in Rwanda. This is the Jesus tribe. In 2007 he founded a group called, ‘One Heart One Mind’, with the aim of bringing people together from different churches with a united message: forgiveness and reconciliation must begin in the church where both Tutsis and Hutus and the smaller tribe, the Twas  (considered primitive and inferior by many Rwandans) are called to live in harmony as members of one ‘body of Christ’, as a fourth ‘Jesus tribe’.

Our UK society is a far cry from Rwanda. But the seams are apparent and it appears that fanatical elements on different sides would try and divide us further. We need the Jesus-tribe, every much as Rwanda.

Ah, I see him now in the marquee crowd - a warm, humble, sincere, smiling, African face and the next minute he spots me and gives me a massive bear hug. One of my good friends, indeed.

Rukundo, come again, your message reaches our hearts. We carry the solution, God’s solution, in our land of a multiplicity of creeds and viewpoints and factions and in our small way can make a difference. I so want to belong to a church which together cries, ‘Our father, not our will but Yours be done' and whose heart is fashioned by Jesus, big enough, strong enough, to embrace every kind of person and overcome all that naturally divides. 

And yes, Rukundo, please bring your wife next time and little boy too and anyone else because, our dear African brethren, we have so much to learn from your experience of suffering.