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Breaking Cultural “Walls” to Gain Spiritually
The two forms of greetings practiced by the Kamba people of Kenya, East Africa, where I was raised, are verbal and hand shake. The nature of blood and social relationships largely determine who to greet verbally or with a handshake. It is a taboo to use the wrong form of greeting in any occasion.
Hugging and kissing are new to the culture and are practiced by people with Western educational influence. Still, they don’t hug or kiss in public. I happen to be one of those with Western influence, but I never had hugged or kissed in public until 1988, while at the University of Wyoming.
Jana, a co-worker, hugged me, and I immediately told her that I was married. She didn’t understand my meaning and after several days, I brought my daughter with me to work for Jana to know I was really married. She kissed my daughter and hugged me. I had informed my wife, so I decided to have Jana meet my family. When she did, Jana hugged all of us.
I learned that hugs and kisses are forms of greeting in the Western cultures. Unknowingly, Jana had broken cultural “walls” and opened a channel of new thinking in me, a way of comfortably greeting my friends. Most importantly, hugging and kissing are the practices my children, who are growing up in this culture, know. I adapted to it!
My experience with hugging from Jana takes me to the time Jesus was with a Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:9-30). Jews had no dealings with Samaritans, the woman asserted. They were not to share a drink out of the same cup or well.
Further, it was culturally unacceptable for a man to be alone with a married woman, although this was a public place. Adam Clarke’s Commentary suggests that a man couldn’t even talk to his own wife if they met in a street “to keep up the appearance of chastity and temperance.” Jesus’ disciple marveled, without saying a word, why he would do that, what He was after and why He would talk to the woman, probably the way I wondered why Jana would hug me. Theirs was racial and cultural prejudice. What Jesus had done was not a customary practice.
However, the results of Jesus’ visitation with that woman, breaking cultural “walls,” indicate that she received salvation and inner peace and wanted all the inhabitants of her city to get the same thing.
What would have happened had Jesus not taken the initiative? That woman who had a heavy burden, having been married five times, would not have had the hope of eternal life. Traditional history indicates such a woman was not respected in her community. However, after her encounter with Jesus and her past was revealed, she had the courage and motivation to stand in public and declare, “Is not this the Christ?” The Bible says, “Then they went out of the city, and came unto Him.”
By taking the initiative, Jesus lifted the burden from this woman, restored her respect and created an opportunity for a city of Samaritans, commonly considered as gentiles, to hear His message of salvation.
Soul vexation starts when one considers cultural, economic, religious, tribal or racial “walls” that prevents us from helping lift the burdens of other people. I consider the greatest success to be when one soul goes to bed breathing easier or having hope in facing another day because I was there to listen, encourage, or lend a hand.
Times are turbulent. Lack of long-term job security, unprecedented family breakdowns, spiritual starvation, and individualism are rampant. This calls each one with the joy of the Lord to break any cultural, tribal, racial, religious, educational and economical “walls” and help restore hope, bring healing, and determination to those in need.
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