July 2013
… “Cause everybody’s got to have somebody to
look down; who they can feel better than at any time they please. Someone’s
doing somethin’ dirty, he’s supposed to frown on, if you cain’t find nobody
else, then help yourself to me.”
This
is the refrain from an old song by Kris Kristofferson called “Jesus was a
Capricorn”. While the colloquial language and hippy-dippy tune is kind of
amusing, it speaks to a deeper truth: human beings seem not to be able to
function within a larger community without creating a who’s in and a who’s out
list. And as society has grown and our knowledge of the world has expanded, the
“in” list has grown. Whereas at one time the human race had so little understanding
of the natural world that when we couldn’t understand some natural phenomenon,
we attributed it to an angry deity that must be appeased with blood sacrifice
or burnt offering. We now understand the role that the earth’s rotation,
gravity and even climate change has on
weather events. Whereas at one time Galileo and Copernicus were out because the
ideas they proposed were too far beyond our understanding, now their ideas are
just part of our body of knowledge; accepted as much as the rising and setting
of the sun. Whereas, at one time in this country, the vast majority believed
that people with black or dark brown skin were out because they were less
intelligent, less capable, less human, the vast majority now understand that
skin color has nothing to do with intelligence, capability or humanity. So
who’s in and who’s out has been on our minds for a right long time and it is a
hard thing to let go of. It seems to be in our DNA. I suspect it has a lot more
to do with the size of the groups we wish to exclude and the size of the who’s
in list than it has to do with actual “evidence” of unacceptability, that
invisible line in the sand, over which we will not step. Take for example our
current preoccupation with sexual orientation. We seem to have arrived at the
discussion here in 2013 with a couple of important bits of false information
and a good bit of ego.
Why
do so many Christians focus on the verses that seem to condemn homosexuality
while ignoring the ones that clearly condemn gluttony or greed, head coverings
or divorce? Is it possible that this has to do with the fact that so many
of our leaders are divorced, over-weight and super-rich? The sheer number of
those in this category and their desire to take themselves out of the spotlight,
seems to lead them to point the “finger of condemnation” at another group. Why is sexual orientation the most important debate
of this decade and not greed, materialism and abuse of power?
Though
you probably know a lot more people who are homosexual or homosocial than you
think you do, you probably know a great deal more folks who are divorced,
over-weight, or preoccupied with buying more and more stuff. And even as Jesus teaches
us in places like Matthew 7:5, “”you hypocrites, remove the log from your own eye…..” we like to focus on the shortcomings
(real or perceived) of any one other than our selves.
“Misery
loves company” the saying goes. We like to use obscure verses to make ourselves
feel safe. We also like to use deceptive language when talking about the minority,
so we can better focus on the specs in their eyes. We say things like “we are
speaking the truth in love”, we say “love the sinner the sinner hate the sin”.
But in all ways, what we are really doing is politely condemning others for
daring to be different. Sexual orientation is the new red-headed, left-handed,
dark skinned elephant in the living room.
We
can certainly find this in the religious leaders who ganged up on the woman
caught in adultery. As an unattached woman, she was no doubt poor, had no voice
and no power within the society. They charged her with the kind of offense everyone
could relate to….a sexual sin. Since Adam and Eve covered themselves in the
garden, anything related to “down there” has been considered dirty and suspicious.
When they brought her to Jesus, he says “He who is without sin can cast the
first stone” and they dropped their stones. Now Jesus does not come right out
and say “she has done nothing wrong, but does this suggest that she was unclean?
Perhaps, but it certainly suggests that her accusers were headed down a
slippery slope in suggesting that they had the right to condemn her.
Being
selectively literal is a dangerous game to play. Generally, in this sort of
thing, it is just a matter of time before the literalism comes to rest on our
own doorstep. Let’s take divorce for example. When I was a
child, divorce had a dirty connotation, and the word itself was whispered rather
than spoken out loud and even at school allowances were made for children who
came from “broken homes”. Yet, all of us can probably name children and women
we know for whom divorce was a literal “lifesaver”. Or how about obesity? We
all know people who struggle with weight issues mightily. Do we, in either case,
screen them before they join us? Do we ask to see their marriage license or
inquire as to their marital status before we accept them into the family at
Emmanuel? Do we take a picture of them and vote on whether they are too heavy
as to be considered godly, sober and upright?
It
is largely a case of “us versus them”. When
Jesus came to live among us (read “save us”) he was accused of “hanging out
with “THEM” (sinners). As we read it now we are telling ourselves two different
stories and in doing so we make Jesus real to ourselves and unify our community
but also use Jesus to divide ourselves. Jesus is special to us because he
accepted everyone, he sat with those on the fringe so that no longer were they
the fringe. We are now creating a new fringe each time we wrestle with these
issues. Do we not think that Jesus will continue to go and hangout with the
fringe we are creating? It is hard to
imagine that God is not aware of how we tend to divide ourselves. I suspect
that our wholeness and our unity with our creator will depend on us acknowledging
our tendency toward division and actively seeking ways to amend and restore
unity. Relationships seem to me to be the best way to destroy our divisions
and invisible lines, and to remove the logs from our eyes. I don’t think that
it is unique to our time, either. It happened to Peter and Corneilus and to Philip
and the eunuch. Knowing and being in relationship with someone makes it harder
to condemn them, whether it be politely or not.
So,
should we stop discussing the Bible
and trying to understand its message for us today? Absolutely not. Should we just keep our heads down and our
mouths shut and hope we aren’t called upon to begin the stone throwing? No. Do
we let go of our convictions about what is right and what is wrong and become all
milk-toasty? Definitely not; this would not please Jesus, our own Super Hero
role model at all. But, there are plenty of people who could use a champion!
There are plenty of oppressed, neglected and poor to go around. We don’t need
to make a more sub-categories to relegate to the fringe!
It
is good to recall from time to time that just as Jewish religious leaders had a
clear agenda in applying the “rules” to condemn Jesus and plantation owners had
a clear reason for interpreting Colossians 3:22 literally, we also have a habit
of selecting verses from scripture and using them to make us feel better about
condemning someone else. You can tell yourself that this is not the case this
time, but you would be mistaken. You can say to those who stand up against this
kind of exclusivism “It is not true! We are just speaking the truth in love”,
but deep in your heart, you know as well as I do that what we are really saying
is directly opposed to what Jesus taught. When we divide
and separate, when we reduce “others” to social/political/theological issues and
essentially render them invisible, powerless and unworthy then we are the ones who have stepped outside God’s embrace. Instead,
maybe it is time for us to spend some time at the table together, getting to
know each other in a deeper and more meaningful way than our marital status,
our weight management skills and our sexual identity. So keep your stones and
pass the bread, please.
