Searching for Shalom

The Korean word han expresses a deep-down pain that has moved beyond initial shock and anger. It represents a deep-seated wound which has no easy target, no direct person or place on which to focus anger or punishment or retribution.

Families of the victims of the WTC attack, for example, felt deep anger at the beginning. Now for many the anger has turned into han. The particular people who perpetrated the attack are themselves dead. Seeking justice will be at best only partial and provisional.

Meanwhile, the absence of their loved one is becoming more deeply felt—and life goes on with the sense that something is not right, not normal—and will never be made right or normal again. This is han.

When we examine stories of han and injustice, we see that it remains unresolved when it feels like the suffering could have been prevented, and when it feels like the conditions that led to the suffering still exist so that the same thing could happen again. Many (but not all!) of us in the U.S. have never had to face the kind of political or structural injustice that is han-creating; thus our shock at the WTC tragedy was all the more profound.

Stories of han are important. So are stories of shalom, the opposite of han. I want to share a couple of examples of han with you. I pray that we might allow ourselves to feel and experience han in stories like these, and that as we do so it might provide a solid ground from which to begin to seek shalom.

Incident at Gibeah

First, consider the story of the concubine in Judges 19, summarized below. Maybe you haven’t heard this one before; it’s not often read.

A man from Ephraim got married to a woman from Bethlehem, and he said he loved her. There is not clarity from the biblical account about whether this was indeed his only wife. However, they had a fight, she left, and it deeply upset him. After some months, he got up, took his servant, and went after her. She greeted him. His father-in-law, at least, was glad to see him, took him in, and begged him to stay.

After several days, during which they made much merriment and the father-in-law kept convincing him to stay, he finally left with his wife to go home. They left late in the day, and because of this they were in a city of foreigners when it began to get late. The man insisted that they must stay in a town of their people.

They came to the town square of Gibeah just at dusk. Now for Israelites, as is true for some of our cultures, hospitality was very important. In fact, if some traveler stayed the night in the town square, uninvited to stay in someone’s home, then shame would be on the entire town. Still, for some time no one picked up these travelers. Late, past dark, an old man invited them to stay with him.

As they made merry, ate and drank, a crowd gathered around the house. A group of men demanded sex with this traveling man. The old man was horrified by their inhospitality and intended violence. Finally, in hopes of securing safety for himself and his male guest, he offered the crowd his own daughter and the wife of his guest. The crowd was uninterested. So the man himself took the wife whom he loved, and pushed her out to the crowd. They raped, abused and tortured her all night long.

In the morning the man opened the door to the house, and saw the prostrate body of his wife, unconscious and reaching for the safety inside the house. He tried to get her to go with him. She did not respond. So he took her body and continued home.

When he arrived there, he cut her body into 12 pieces. These he sent throughout Israel to show the tragedy of what had happened to him.

Perhaps from this story we can begin to understand something of the han of women. What happens when the existing structures of society seem not only to allow violence towards women, but interpret such acts only in light of their negative impact on certain men? What happens when the very texts which are supposed to provide comfort and assurance actually function to increase the terror?

And what if these realities continue in our day? Perhaps you know the statistics: a woman is raped every three minutes; a woman is beaten in her home every fifteen seconds; one of four women in emergency rooms is battered. More than four million women are beaten annually by current and former male partners, and between two thousand and four thousand are murdered.

And there continues to be no definable person or group on which to focus anger or from which to demand accountability. The violence is widespread, and the source is pervasive and often surprising. The systems of society, be they family or government or church, are precisely the place from which the han is perpetuated.

Han and Terror

Second, consider the connection between han and “terror.” Han is more deeply felt and more unresolved when there is a terror in people’s hearts—an expectation that the wrong which has been done will most likely be done again at any time.

During a certain recent month, five thousand people in a certain country died. The factors that led to their deaths are complex, and it seems overly simplistic to pin the cause of their deaths as the result of their own choices. Most from this country blame another nation for these deaths. Some point the finger at their own government, saying “It is your policies which cause this!” This, of course, makes these people pretty unpopular at home—although there are people from other countries who support and agree with them.

Am I referring to the destruction of the World Trade Center here? No. I’m referring to people dying in Iraq, due to both the “leadership” of Saddam Hussein, and to U.S.-initiated international sanctions. That figure of five thousand dying has occurred nearly every month since the end of the Gulf War.

What might it feel like to watch your child die from hunger and disease, realizing that you have no power to change their fate? What do you do with the anger you feel, when there are so many sources to direct that anger towards? What can you do with such pain? Again, it does not have a focal point, so the pain and the anger and the missing loved one and the profound sense that something is not right sink deeper down inside. These mix together and become han. When it seems obvious that the factors that may cause further han to yourself or to those whom you love are beyond your control, you experience terror.

On the other side of that coin, if I am careless about the han I cause other people, because my agenda or political goals or lifestyle is more important, then the seed of terrorism is planted inside my heart. Watch out!—because it could take root there and grow.

For terrorists everywhere, the goal is the seizing of political power, and human lives are a means towards that end. Yet are we blind to the terror we can create? Our nationalism, while rightly making us attuned to certain kinds of terror, can blind us to other kinds. George Orwell commented that “the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” How true is that of us? (Ouch, that’s a risky question!) From where do we get our news, and what forms our opinions about happenings in the world? Do we have a discipline of engaging and listening to other voices?

There is a relationship between sin and han, but it is not true that I suffer in any kind of proportion to my sin. My sin may cause me to suffer, but equally my sin may cause other people to suffer. And not only that, but sin inside of structures often causes the greatest amount of han.

The Hope of Shalom

So here’s one good definition of shalom, to mix Korean and Hebrew: shalom is the healing and resolution of han. Shalom is the opposite of han. Borrowing from author Perry Yoder, shalom is material and physical, relational (personal, international, intranational), moral and ethical. Shalom is the presence of holistic well-being—the way things should be.

Thus, if things are not as they should be (that is to say, if han is present and unresolved), then no amount of outward tranquility, no amount of social order can create shalom.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for shalom. We say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” In that plea is a recognition that all is not as it should be, the structures of our society are broken, han is present and shalom is not present enough. Thus our prayer is a rebellion against the status quo, against the forces and structures that result in han in our society. We cry out, “God! Your kingdom has not fully come, and I am not satisfied with the little shalom which is now present.”

We seek shalom because it is about God’s breaking into the present order and establishing his reign.

Since shalom is both justice and peace, then talk about peace based on reconciliation alone is inadequate. You’ve heard the chant that often echoes on college campuses, “No justice, no peace.” That is a biblical idea! Jeremiah and Ezekiel both warned against “saying‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace” (see Jeremiah 6:14 and Ezekiel 13:10). If we go after peace without examination of the unjust structures underneath, then it is like a thin coat of paint over a wall with holes and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, Christians are often known on campus for a tendency to gloss over all the deeper issues. I experienced this when I joined IVCF staff and began working at Hunter College. I came armed with books and talks about the importance of racial reconciliation. I expected to connect well with people who cared about race and other social issues. What I found instead was an unwillingness on the part of social radicals and justice people at Hunter to come to our racial reconciliation meetings. Reconciliation can be a dirty word for people who care about justice. It’s too often used in a way that glosses over the deeper issues in favor of a “relationships-only” kind of conversation.

This point was illustrated for me when I participated in one of InterVarsity’s urban projects. Two students from South Africa were with us. Teboho was a black South African, a Xhosa. Gareth was a white South African, an Afrikaner. They got along well on the project. Yet the differences between their living situations at home was clear. At one point during the project, they both needed to reach their families about some matter. Gareth dialed direct and spoke with his family. Teboho placed a call to a phone in a nearby village, and needed to find someone there willing to walk a message to his family. One conversation between them was illustrative. Teboho pointed out that, while he was happy to be friends on the project, they would not have shalom until the underlying social conditions for each of them was addressed.

I witnessed a similar thing happen with two churches in New Jersey. As part of the follow up to a Promise Keepers rally, a group of pastors met to pray and talk about racial reconciliation. The program included a spotlight on two churches, one white and one black, whose leaders had begun meeting monthly for coffee and prayer as a response to the PK call to reconciliation. The pastor and head deacon from the white church were on stage, but the two men from the black church did not show up. So the two white men tried to explain the partnership (a little awkwardly, since their friends were not there). Ray Bakke, an author and speaker who has partnered some with I-V, began to ask a series of questions: Are the differences in socio-economic backgrounds between the two churches being addressed? Have you looked at the differences in the kinds of pastoral care needed in urban settings versus suburban communities? Ray pressed a few more such questions, and the further he delved into structural issues, the more it became apparent that these two churches were dealing with reconciliation in a purely relational context. It was not producing shalom.

But structural justice doesn’t come easily. There are problems connected to seeking justice without attention to peace and reconciliation. Sometimes, seeking justice in radical ways can undermine hope of future peace. (Consider the possibility that we could have jumped in after 9-11 and carpet-bombed the entire nation of Afghanistan. That would demonstrate punitive retaliation, but would it have moved us toward true justice along with reconciliation and peace?) As Vinoth Ramachandra has pointed out, injustice is always exclusionary. Therefore true, biblical justice must be inclusive. There is never a point where the invitation is not extended to the practitioners of injustice to become shalom-makers. True reconciliation, while it includes justice, must be more than justice.

Fighting Evil

As those who are part of the community of shalom seekers, we accept a call to continuously invite people in. So then, when we encounter evil, what do we do? How do we oppose evil without becoming evil ourselves?

The biblical writers addressed this question. They claimed that there is a war going on, but not between two human armies. The war is Christ against the powers, the rulers and authorities—angelic beings that were thought to rule every nation. And what did their rule look like? They created han. They broke shalom. They thrived in situations of injustice. They tended to be self-perpetuating.

But we do not have to live with defeat in this war. In Colossians 2:13-15, we find that we who were dead in sin are now made alive! And Jesus has disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in his resurrection.

In ancient times (and in some cultures today), when two armies warred, the conqueror would hold a triumphal parade in which the captives were displayed to magnify the victor’s glory. Jesus fought a war, but his opponents were not people. They were “rulers and authorities” which had been triumphant in the past. They made themselves evident every time one group caused han to another, every time shalom was broken.

Jesus, on the cross, won victory over the powers and the cycle of violence. Once for all, he answers the question of opposing evil without becoming evil himself. And today we are invited into the answer to the question of facing evil, into the gospel, into this Good News that Jesus brings. We have been invited out of the violence cycle, and into shalom.

How to Break the Cycle

What can we do? How can we become shalom-makers? How can we respond to those around us who are angry and han-filled?

First, seek to understand the root of the anger. When we demonize the enemy, we perpetuate the cycle of non-shalom.

Speak out against all terror (particularly that which we tend to be blind to). In conversation this spring with Vinoth Ramachandra, I was struck by his comment that the primary barrier to the acceptance of the gospel in large parts of the Muslim world is CNN. What does this mean? It means that, thanks to technology, the actions of American Christians are on display for all the world to see. And when Muslims see U.S. Christians protesting abortion on one hand but supporting Zionist causes on the other, and generally (from a Muslim perspective) speaking out only in terms of self-interest, the Good News about shalom is diluted or distorted. However, if Christians in the U.S. lived as if shalom—world-wide shalom—really mattered to them, the openings to talk about the gospel would be amazing.

Keep pressing invitations to honesty toward those who feel excluded. This is the hard work of continuing relationships which do not sacrifice speaking truth. What would it mean for your fellowship to be known on campus as shalom-seekers, those who stay in difficult relationships, love people who are hard to love and love them even during disagreement? What would it mean if I-V on your campus was synonymous with always seeking to invite all who disagree into becoming part of the community of shalom-seekers?

Listen to and rehearse han-filled stories, and pray for their healing in shalom. How are you doing that on your campus? If you don’t already provide space for this, how can you begin?

Seek an understanding of systems. How does injustice tend to perpetuate itself? Here’s a call for those of you who are social science majors: there is a great need in our society for those who grasp the academic social science tools and who also understand spiritually what is happening to perpetuate han. You are in college to study systems and institutions, and these systems and institutions have a profound effect on people. How seriously are you taking your studies? But even more, is your growing faith providing needed insights into how systems and structures function? How is the gospel good news in these situations?

The call is for others as well. For example, for scientists: do you realize that there are more scientists and engineers living now than the cumulative total in the world prior to this generation? We display the most impressive array of talent and intelligence in history, yet more than half of these people spend their lives working on building better bombs and fulfilling other military contracts. If these gifted people were committed to seeking shalom and understood the structures of non-shalom, how would resources be differently managed? We have the brains to provide adequate mass transportation that is nearly pollution free. Who will champion the cause?

You are spending significant sums of money on your education. My college education had a price tag of more than $100,000. I squandered a major part of that because I did not understand my faith enough to realize that my academics were important to living out my Christianity. My faith in Christ should have led me to treat my academics differently.

Thus, I propose an educational supplement. Why not add a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars to what you are already investing. There are a host of events for very little cost that will do more for your understanding than most academic university courses ever will. Consider the upcoming Urbana 03 missions convention, or participate in one of the many urban and global projects that InterVarsity offers.

As part of the community of believers—those of us who follow Jesus’ example and who find in him the strength to work to resolve han and seek shalom—we have an important call. Do you hear it?

Kevin Oro-Hahn lives with his wife, Tania, his daughter, Zoe, and his soon-to-be born son, Max.  He is proud that his and his children's names each add up to 12 Scrabble points. Kevin walks silently but carries a big stick—just ask his staff team in New York City, where he serves as area director.