I am Zacchaeus.
As a disciple of Jesus, the temptation is to identify with one of the “good guys” in our holy book. Not me. I stand squarely in the Zacchaeus camp. Allow me to explain...
We are told that Zacchaeus made money in a dishonorable way. He was not considered a good man. There were some things about him that kept him from seeing what was good and holy and he lived in a way that kept him from seeing what was good and holy in himself. But then one day he climbed a tree so he could see God. He put himself in the path of what was most good and most holy and, when he did, Jesus said: “Zacchaeus! Climb down — I’m going to your house for dinner.”
He put himself in the path of God and God attached to him, pulling himself out of his mess. And then Zaccheaus did the spiritual math and decided to give back everything he could and be of service. Jesus said: “redemption has come to you.” And people WEREN’T happy about this. They said, “HOLD ON. This Jesus guy hangs out with sinners.”
But that is the work of God. It is the duty of the holy to restore broken people, and it’s always been like that.
[Paraphrased from The Confessional Podcast with Nadia Bolz-Weber]
Now, mind you, I wasn’t a tax collector… I was worse. Now I'll enter my own confessional: in my young life, I desired, like many folks born to sleepy Midwestern towns in the United States, an escape. I’d take any opportunity to leave the cornfields and vacant strip malls behind to seek out a new beginning. Unfortunately for me, in a town where the General Motors factories had closed down and employment was at an all-time low, golden tickets were few and far between. A college education seemed quite far from reach as the firstborn to a struggling family.
What was I to do?
Like many young people in America, the allure of military service was intoxicating. Being raised in a culture where loving God and worshiping ‘old glory,’ were synonymous, stealing away to chat with the Army recruiters became a regular pastime. The promises of international adventures, job training, and college tuition assistance seemed like the perfect solution I’d been dreaming of — especially in contrast to my current prospects, which ranged from cashier at the local dollar store or waitress at some mid-range steakhouse.
So there I found myself, in the Autumn of 2002, sitting across from a uniformed man discussing how serving my country was both honorable and beneficial. For the simple wager of eight years of my life (and the possibility of taking another’s), I’d gain so much!
I had no idea how much it would actually cost.
Alisha in training cerca 2002.
At my young, impressionable age, like so many others in my position, I rationalized that the exchange of the ‘benefits’ of military service far outweighed the toll it takes on one’s soul. Before I knew it, I shipped out to Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. As an idealistic, political, vegetarian artist packed tightly onto a tiny 5’2” 100-lb frame, I won’t say that I adapted immediately…but my hunger for excellence and blind patriotism gave birth to a super soldier, far surpassing all expectations of my Drill Instructors.
In the subsequent eight years (plus two more as a Department of Defence contractor), I achieved great things and earned much respect from those in my field. I traveled. I was taught and I taught. I was counseled and I counseled. I learned and matured and did my best to cultivate positive impacts in my sphere of influence. In addition to the military benefits and attending multiple professional schools in the areas of administration and human resources to further my professional development, I earned a good salary as a Department of Defence contractor.
For those of you who know me personally, the anecdotes are many. However, the harsh reality that these positive attributes of Army service are outweighed by the fact that I was trained to take a life, carry a gun, suppress enemy fire, discharge a claymore mine, choke out ‘the enemy,’ and throw a grenade with horrifying accuracy.
What now must be revealed, is that, at the time of my enlistment, I was a member (and employee) of a Christian church that displayed the American Flag on their stage adjacent to the pulpit and communion table. A few years into my enlistment, I met my now husband — a Mennonite — and soon married into a peace church.
A funny thing happens to one’s soul when you separate service to God from service to country. You are walking a line of split allegiance that requires you to read the Gospel through a red, white, and blue lens. It’s impossible to live out the commands of the beatitudes when the ARMY VALUES are in stark contrast to the meekness and gentleness which the service to Christ requires:
“No version of the kingdom of the world, however comparatively good it may be, can protect its self-interests while loving its enemies, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, or blessing those who persecute it. Yet loving our enemies and blessing those who persecute us is precisely what kingdom-of-God citizens are called to do. It's what it means to be Christian.
By definition, therefore, you can no more have a Christian worldly government than you can have a Christian petunia or aardvark. A nation may have noble ideals and be committed to just principles, but it's not for this reason Christian.”
[Gregory Boyd from “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church”]
Two kids in love, despite (at the time) considerably different views on military service.
In my twenties, through the teachings of wise Anabaptist authors and a few really great pastors at Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz., I was encouraged to challenge this belief of God and Country and consider the question: What if Jesus really meant what He said? In this decade, like Zacchaeus, one foot above the other I slowly left my boots on the ground and started climbing that tree — leaving my military life behind, attempting to climb closer and closer to God, grasping for a glimpse of the divine. From this new vantage point, the air was fresh and I could see the beauty of God’s bounty below. Folks of all colors and creeds with beautiful cultures to be celebrated, not oppressed (no matter how much oil their country possessed).
Now I’m in my late thirties and, with my Army contract behind me, I carry the weight of my “service to country” like a heavy millstone, burdened by the memory of my youthful ignorance at which time I believed caring for both Christ and country were one and the same. May God forgive my transgressions and direct my path in ways where my experience can be a cautionary tale to others: one cannot serve two masters, not with the name of Christ written upon their hearts.
US holidays like Veterans Day are especially hard for me, as I now serve on a different mission. I no longer carry a gun and discharge grenades. Instead, I carry a Bible and discharge truth, hoping to inspire others towards the light of Jesus. My steadfast loyalty to God and my duty to the Mighty Creator sustains me and I feel no shame in this service, as it’s done with a purity of heart.
Thankfully, in my time as a soldier, I never was in a position to take a life. But that's not necessarily the point. Being part of a system built on violent force warps your worldview in a way that makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to understand and live out the Gospel message. God loves the people in the military, but Jesus teaches us to reject violence, love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.
In practicing repentance and dedicating his life to the cause of Christ, Zacchaeus and, in that sense, I experience redemption. And, while that redemption is immediate, I still find myself on a path of forgiving my younger self.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
In retrospect, we can pinpoint the spring of 2021 as the time our laughter disappeared — when our four-year ministry in Barcelona began to fall apart. As concerns regarding COVID-19 began to ease, expectations in the local church community changed. Gradually, things arrived at a point where our family needed to step away.
It's hard to laugh when it feels like the world is crumbling around you. It's an act that feels almost audacious considering the state of the world: pandemic losses, church divisions, guilt and anger over White privilege and indirectly benefiting from systemic racism, environmental collapse, rampant economic ruin, and war. How can one laugh when the world we live in is so far removed from the one Jesus describes throughout the gospels?