“I hate Communists!”

Some years ago, I spoke at a Sunday morning church service in Grapevine, Texas. I don’t remember what I said, only that I was sharing about our work in China. What I clearly remember was an encounter I had with a gentleman after the service.

He came up to me, no “hi” or “howdy” or “my name is…” I was at least hoping for thumbs up for having delivered the message of the century. Not even that.

His face all tense, he blurted out, “I hate Communists!” He paused for what was probably only a nanosecond, but what felt like time suspended, and then repeated himself, “I hate Communists!”

I had probably said something when I was speaking about how we were working with government officials in remote Northwest China to get a lot of amazingly good things done for folks who were struggling to get into the 20^th century let alone the 21^st – which was then dawning. I’m not sure. Maybe it was only that he knew I had been in China.

As I was struggling to maintain my poker face, I searched for some response that wouldn’t jeopardize my honorarium.

Then he added, “What do I do about that?”

Right then and there I realized I was talking with a man who was being as honest as he knew how and who had the Holy Spirit shaking him to his core. He was trying to reconcile the heart of the gospel with everything he had staked his life on, and it was not a pretty fight. He was overwhelmed.

I thought a minute. He certainly wasn’t wanting some canned response – and to be honest, I had never been presented with such a challenge and question in my life. So, I didn’t have a canned response ready.

But I did think to do this: I shared with him the name of a dear friend in China, a government official, a bona fide card-carrying Communist Party member, and someone who had done much to help me in my work there. And I said to this guy in Grapevine who’d probably never met a Communist in his life, “Why don’t you pray for my friend in China and we’ll see what God does for the both of you?”

To this day, I long to know what’s come of each of them. I’ve never been back to Grapevine and wouldn’t know the man if I saw him. And the last time I connected with my friend in China was 2008.

What I can tell you is what I know of each of those men – the Texan and the Communist – that they were both hungry for the truth. And I have a sense that the Texan, if he is still alive, might still be praying for my friend in China.

Some time later, an amazing gathering did occur between certain Texan Christians and Chinese Communists. I wasn’t around for it. I only heard about how it went down after the fact. And it went well! We’d left China in 2007, but plans I’d put in place led to these Texas pastors and Chinese Party officials – including my government friend – having a grand meal together.

Such gatherings always make me anxious, concerned as I am that some cultural faux pas might happen. People from vastly different cultural settings can react like the same end of magnets, getting close but flipping at the thought of getting closer.

But in the end, I heard that everyone called it a great success. Texas Christians and Chinese Communists really can get along swimmingly given the opportunity and having the right motivation.

I have stressed out on many an occasion bringing cultures together, but how I love it when barriers break down and people realize that these other people are just as human as they are. That makes the stress all worthwhile.

I’m thinking again now what I told that man in Grapevine, about praying for my friend in China and seeing what God would do for each of them. I know this, that if we are serious about our praying, we won’t remain the same. There’s an old saying, “prayer changes things.” For sure it changes us who engage in prayer.

When I honestly take some concern to God and ask that something be done about that concern, what starts to change – again, if I am really being sincere in my praying – is me. I cannot approach the Throne of Grace about anything without being transformed by that encounter. Even if the object of my prayer doesn’t appear to be about me.

Well, wait a second. How can I really be concerned about anything enough to ask God to do something about it if it has nothing to do with me?

Say that I am asking God to meet the needs of starving kids in Sudan. Maybe I’ve never met a Sudanese. Maybe I’ve never been to Africa, let alone Sudan. Maybe I’ve never been in such bad straits as what those Sudanese kids are going through. Maybe I don’t even like kids.

I can’t really bring their needs to God unless something stirs inside of me. There are a gazillion things to pray about in this world. And my brain can only contain so many thoughts, so many prayers. I am not likely to pray about anything unless it somehow connects with me, no matter how remote it may be. Maybe the only connection initially is that I see a news report on TV or hear a story from a missionary in church and the report or story keeps hanging with me.

By “connects with me” I mean that there is something about that need that makes me want to use up precious brain space and emotional energy required to bring it to God even for a moment. What exactly stirs me to want to pray for that need instead of another? There are so many to choose from.

Somehow that need has touched me. Or, to put it another way, for some reason I have allowed that need to get inside my head, to break through the crowd of a gazillion other needs I could be concerned about.

Take the guy in Grapevine. He would never have bothered to pray for my friend in China unless I had asked him to. Grapevine Guy would never have known that China Guy even existed.

But Grapevine Guy already had an emotional connection with my friend in China before I even mentioned his name. He hated my friend in China without even knowing his name. He didn’t start hating Communists when I showed up – he had already given space for them to live inside his head – negative though that space might have been.

One of the core concepts in Chinese culture is summed up in the Mandarin word “Guanxi” (pronounced “gwan-she”). In short it means relationship. Nothing happens in Chinese culture unless there is some relationship. So, the first thing you do in the Chinese world to get anything done in life is to establish at least a minimal level of relational connection.

One time I went to bat on behalf of a foreigner (American) I didn’t even like. But as much of a pain in the neck as she was, her landlord was taking advantage of her. So she asked me to intervene. The first thing the landlord did when we met was to ask me how old I was. He had a sense I was about his age. Turned out I was exactly one week older than him and thus his elder. We established a relationship based on our age differential and everything went swimmingly ever after.

When I’d bring Westerners together with Chinese, the Westerners wanted to get right down to business. The Chinese wanted to connect over a meal or drink tea and leave business for after the meal or tea was done. In Chinese culture, you can’t conduct business unless you’ve established a relationship, even if it is a purely business one.

Also in Chinese culture, an enemy is not the opposite of a friend. You have a relationship with your friends and, as odd as it may sound, you also have a relationship with your enemies. The opposite of a friend is someone you have no relationship with, no connection at all. They are nothing to you.

I don’t have very many enemies in my life. But say I did. Say the guy down the street and I don’t get along together at all. In fact, we’ve had some serious arguments, almost come to blows. Because he is so irritating, I do everything I can to avoid him.

But there is another guy who lives the other direction from me. I have no idea who he is. I’ve never met him, know nothing about him, don’t even know he exists except that I can assume someone lives in that house. If I were to pass him in the hardware store, we wouldn’t even acknowledge each other. I have zero relationship with him. The Chinese phrase for “no relationship” is “meiyou guanxi” (the meiyou sounds like “mayo” as in mayonnaise).

You know what else “meiyou guanxi” means? It means “it doesn’t matter.” When I make a mistake and my friend wants me to know it’s okay, she’ll say, “meiyou guanxi” – or “meiguanxi” for short. She’s telling me it doesn’t matter. Don’t give it another thought.

It’s what my mother used to tell me when I was a kid. Don’t let that other student in school get to you, don’t let them bother you, don’t let them get under your skin. Put them out of your mind. We have all kinds of ways of saying “let it go.” It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing to you.

Before I ever met Grapevine Guy, he already had a visceral reaction to the word “Communist.” For whatever reason, he didn’t like them. He hated them so much that the mere mention of someone being a Communist brought very strong emotion to the surface. His anger was a sign that Communists have meaning to him. It might be an extremely negative meaning, but it still is meaningful.

Oddly, someone who is mad at God might be closer to God than someone who has never given God a thought. Because you can’t hate something without thinking about it – and if you think about it, you allow it to become part of who you are. Even if in a negative way. A God-hater is wrestling with God. Someone who doesn’t give God a thought isn’t.

But there was something else about Grapevine Guy. He may have hated Communists so much that the mere thought caused his veins to stick out on his neck, but he also apparently loved God so much that he couldn’t resist what the Holy Spirit was telling him. That question he brought to me, “What do I do about that?” is the Spirit working us over.

Grapevine Guy was close enough to God that he couldn’t stay where he was – hating Communists. Because he believed in Jesus, he had to do something about his internal struggle. When he heard me speak that Sunday morning, he could no longer resist the Spirit’s leading. And so he sought me out.

I asked that man to pray – to pray for my Communist friend. But really, he, Grapevine Guy, had already started to pray. His question to me, “What do I do about that?” was a prayer, a prayer in response to what God was doing inside of him.

Again, I have no idea what became of Grapevine Guy or his prayer. I do know that if we take to God what causes emotions to rise up in us, we will be transformed.

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Photo: My father, not a Communist, standing in the historic Communist Party Hall in Yan’an, China, where Chairman Mao once stood.