Category: Humanity

What I Look For In A Leader

I am a follower of Jesus, so what I look for in a leader is some semblance of what Jesus declared is essential to our true humanity created in the image of God. Here is what I want to see in a leader:

Compassion for those who have been pushed to the margins of society and who carry heavy burdens.

When he saw the crowds, Jesus had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

A desire to serve rather than exercise power over others.

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves.” (Luke 22:25-26)

Able to show mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. (Matthew 5:7)

Committed to working for justice.

Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)

Shows humility.

Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:4)

Makes peace rather than stirs up division.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

Demonstrates faithfulness and honesty in exercising responsibilities.

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. (Luke 16:10)

Demonstrates love for all people, without distinctions.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Filed under: Humanity, Leadership, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

Obama On Unity, Division, and Politics

All across America, in big cities and small towns, away from all the noise, the ties that bind us together are still there. We still coach Little League and look out for our elderly neighbors. We still feed the hungry, in churches and mosques and synagogues, and share the same pride when our Olympic athletes compete for the gold. (Barack Obama)

In his address to the Democratic National Convention, Obama points beyond our political divisions to aspects of our humanity that bind us together. He calls us to embrace our common humanity and reach out to each other beyond the fault lines of our politics. From our common ground, we must listen to each other for the concerns and needs that are beneath our various political positions.

He also shares what he sees as some of the causes of our divisions:

We live in a time of such confusion and rancor, with a culture that puts a premium on things that don’t last – money, fame, status, likes. We chase the approval of strangers on our phones; we build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves and then wonder why we feel so alone. We don’t trust each other as much because we don’t take the time to know each other – and in that space between us, politicians and algorithms teach us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other.

Obama calls us to go beneath our politics to the underlying causes of division. He names money, fame, status, approval. He implies that we put a premium on protecting ourselves from one another. From a spiritual viewpoint, he is naming pursuits that we have made central to our identity and that put us in competition with or in fear of others. We therefore tend to isolate ourselves. We “don’t take the time to know each other” or trust each other. We are ripe for manipulation from “politicians and algorithms.”

Again, from a spiritual viewpoint, our pursuits have left out love for one another. We have lost our true center in Love. Our divisiveness and our inhumanity toward others is rooted in the loss of empathy and compassion.

With love, we are able to enter into the lives of others and be open and welcoming of others whose cultures, histories, and views may differ from ours. Love is not put off by differences. Nor does it seek superiority over others or pride of place. Rather, it makes us available to others.

Jesus spoke of love in radical terms when he said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” which requires us to put ourselves in the place of our neighbor, which further requires us to listen to our neighbor. It does not necessitate agreement, but it does mean we do not write off another person. Love transforms us and others—if we let it.

When it comes to leadership in our nation, we need persons who have empathy and compassion toward others without which we will only have further divisions. Those who show compassion are those who are aware of their own brokenness, who are no longer running from their own pain or providing a cover for their own insecurity.

A man who is unable to acknowledge weakness and vulnerability is dangerous in a position of leadership. If he has a practice of denying his own weakness, he will manipulate the weaknesses of others. A man who says he never asks for forgiveness has little basis for a true relationship with others. A man, who carries past hurts and grievances and lashes out, bullying and belittling others, needs healing. He does not need to be put in a position of leadership.

Donald Trump, as president, is dangerous not only for our nation but for the world, and especially for those who have been marginalized. If we know this, and as the election approaches, we must share our views of leadership with one another. Where love is the foundation of our relationships, we are able to do this without ridicule or putting down others. Love makes it possible to share from the deeper reality of our common humanity and from our most basic needs and concerns as human beings living in community.

If we have come to know love as the basis of our relationships, we must share the truth we know and do so in love for others and for our nation.

Filed under: Compassion, Humanity, LoveTagged with: , ,

Nations Become What They Decide To Be

The decisions we make manifest themselves in what we become as human beings. If we decide to get back at others for what they said or did that hurt us, and make a habit of such reactions, we become someone who operates from hurt and anger. On the other hand, if we decide to act from a place of love for others, regardless of how they act toward us, we become lovers of humanity—yes, of a broken humanity. If we have a habit of doing what Jesus instructs his followers to do, “turning the other cheek,” “loving our enemies, “praying for those who persecute us,” we are on a path of growth into our true humanity as children of God.

Our decisions determine what we become. We decide for our humanity or inhumanity. We decide to be lovers or reactors. We decide to give to or to get back at another human being. We decide what we become.

Nations decide what they become. In our nation, a congress, a president, a supreme court, and “we the people” decide what we will be toward each other and the world.

As a people, we have opportunities to decide what kind of nation we will be. We can be tribal in our decisions, reacting against others (owning the libs, or detesting MAGA people). We can make decisions from grievances and the despising of others or we can make decisions from a vision of wholeness and compassion.

In a democracy, even a partial democracy like the United States, the decisions of “we the people” regarding who and what kind of leadership we want, in some measure, provide us with the nation we have. The less we are an autocracy and the more we are a democracy, the more clearly “we the people” are responsible for what we get.

We are responsible for choosing a government that seeks justice for and the uplift of those marginalized or a government and nation that marginalize. We know that it is possible to decide for a government that annihilates a people as the Nazis did. Or, as we did, decide to institute slavery and then, with its abolition, decide for the continued marginalization and oppression of a people by implementing Jim Crow laws and by terrorizing a people with lynchings as the South did or by establishing racist policies, actions and mores as the North did.

Of course, if we care little for anyone beyond ourselves, our family, “our people,” our religion, then we will give little attention to the effects government and societal decisions have on people other than ourselves. We will not spend time trying to understand how others are affected by laws, policies, mores. We will, by our support, ignorance or simply not caring, keep in place laws and mores that maintain the oppression of others outside our circle. (Slavery remained for 250 years, Jim Crow laws for 70 years through a combination of support and/or apathy from a majority of Americans.)

However we think about our decisions as a people and a nation, we see what we have decided by what we have become. Germans must come to terms with the nation they became, a nation that was responsible for killing 6 million Jews. Many, at the time of the Holocaust, may have excused themselves by saying they were not voting for genocide, but the truth is the seeds were there in the rhetoric of Hitler and others.

Americans must come to terms with what we became, a nation responsible for the genocide of millions of Native Americans through displacement and massacre, and the death of millions of Africans who died in the Middle Passage and millions who were brutalized as slaves. Of course, coming to terms with our past means acknowledging the truth of our past. Our oppressive actions locally and globally remain, unless we acknowledge our wrongs and repent. Trying to rewrite or ignore these aspects of our history only binds us to past decisions and future acts of oppression.

We continue to decide what we become—especially by our decisions toward those who have been marginalized, excluded, pushed aside in our nation. Of course, what we become as a nation comes from the decisions of a cross-section of the electorate. What many of us would like to see is not even on the ballot, but must be lifted up and worked for though doing justice, loving mercy and living faithfully. Therefore, Jesus calls the children of humanity, who are also children of God, to be light in the darkness. We are to be witnesses to what we have come to know of the love of God.

Jesus spoke of the age we live in as an “evil age.” In this age, we are to witness to what we have seen and have come to know of our true humanity created in the image of God. Like yeast, we are to have an effect on the whole; we are not to force something on others, but to effect the decisions of others and our nation by our witness to the love of God that is good news for the oppressed, heals the brokenhearted and welcomes all.

Filed under: Decision, Humanity, Justice, WitnessTagged with: , ,

Who Are Our Enemies?

There is this tendency to identify the bad guys with the assumption that we are the good guys: If we (the good guys) only got rid of all the problem people, all the vermin, things would be so much better. If we simply excluded or neutralized certain kinds of people, maybe whole categories of people, the ones we view as threats, who are the enemies of our communities and our nation, then things would be made right.

Running for president a second time is a man who makes a pledge: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

He tells us that there are people who are “poisoning the blood of our country, it’s so bad and people are coming in with disease, people are coming in with every possible thing that you can have.” “Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons, we know they come from mental institutions, insane asylums, we know they’re terrorists.”

It has been noted that this kind of rhetoric has similarities to the language that Hitler used to enthrall the crowds that came out to hear him.

Donald Trump is often accused of creating divisions in our nation, when he is mostly stoking the divisions that are already there. The fear of others, the experience of threat from this or that group of people, the identification of our major problems as being outside of ourselves (those others) rather than within, sets us up for manipulation. Trump simply hooks into our tendency to ignore our own sin and make the place of evil external. The truth, as Paul tells us, is that “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all a problem. We are all in need of spiritual transformation.

We have this tendency to see the problem as being mainly out there in “those people.” Exclude them or get rid of them and things will be okay. This tendency runs deep; it can be tapped into and is tapped into by wannabe authoritarians who need us to have an enemy they can promise to vanquish.

Jesus speaks to this tendency to see the problem mostly outside ourselves: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?” He makes it clear that until we take the log out of our own eye we are in no condition to help our neighbor, to see the speck in order to take it out of their eye.

When we operate with this kind of blindness and “have religion,” we are particularly dangerous. We are the good ones. We have God on our side. We are the ones who know where the problem comes from and what must be done.

It was religious leaders that handed Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified. When given the opportunity to choose the release of either Barabbas, an insurrectionist, or Jesus, they chose the insurrectionist.

When we remain unaware of the depth of our broken condition and project our disorder on others, blaming others for the very things we are guilty of, blaming them for the state of our nation, then we may seek judgment upon them. We gravitate to a leader who will put them in their place. And then, whatever afflictions they experience, we deem those afflictions as something they deserve.

The divisions we maintain with these attitudes run deep. They are ideological, cultural, ethnic, religious, and political. The attitudes that support these divisions are moralistic, judgmental, hardhearted, resentful, merciless, oppressive, and unloving.

The truth is we are all related, children of God, made in God’s image. We are all siblings of the same humanity whatever the differences of culture, ethnicity, religion, and vocation. And we are all broken. And the decisions we make affect others, all children of the same Creator. Therefore, St. Paul writes, “Let each of you look not to your own concerns but to the concerns of others.”

We must stop listening to someone in a position of power or desiring power badmouth our siblings. We must listen to our siblings, far and near, living under different circumstances from ours, facing difficulties, some of which, as with us, are of their own making and some of the making of others. Some experience societal forces pushing them to the margins. Others experience forces that ease them toward the center.

Whoever and wherever they are, we must seek to understand what others are going through, what forces affect their lives and their relationships. Get to know their needs. Get to know them. Have them on our minds, in our prayers. When a so-called leader tells us who threatens us, who we must be afraid of, who must be eradicated, we must refuse to listen. He or she is talking about our siblings. Even if there is someone who makes themselves our enemy, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for them.

When we make decisions that will affect others (when we vote, for example), “let each of us look not to our own concerns but to the concerns of others.” Therefore, get to know the experiences and concerns of others. Hold them in our hearts so that, rather than trample over them, we respond to their concerns.

“Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night
I will go, Lord, if you lead me
I will hold your people in my heart.”

Filed under: Compassion, Fear, Grace, Humanity, Mercy, SocietyTagged with: , , ,

Christmas Reflections 2023

At Christmas, those of us who find our center in Christ celebrate our humanity. We celebrate our true humanity in union with God. Traditionally we have used the term “incarnation” to speak of this union: God revealed in the flesh; God among us and in us.

St. Paul writes of the glory of God in the face of Christ and of Christ as the image of God. With these words, he connects Christ to the story of creation in the book of Genesis, where we are told that humanity is created in the image of God.

Humanity, when it is being true to itself, is the expression of the God who is love. Our true humanity manifests love, compassion, mercy, justice. It reveals God’s love.

The attraction that brought crowds out to Jesus was the love of God that shone in his life as he reached out with compassion to heal and to liberate. Jesus said he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to seek and to save the lost. And that is what we see in him. He came in humility and openness to hurting human beings joining himself to the suffering of others, even to the point of death on a cross.

What we see in Christ is our true humanity as the expression of God who is love. We have needed to see this example of humanity, because we see, in ourselves and others, much that is false to our humanity. We see our inhumanity, the ways we put down others and operate with arrogance and selfishness, passing on the other side of the road when encountering one who has fallen, hurt and broken.

In Christ, we come to participate in our true humanity, for we experience our relationship with God. In Christ, we come to trust God. Christ’s faith becomes ours. Christ’s love and hope become ours. In Christ, the way into union with God is open.

In a world at war, divided, torn apart by our inhumanity toward one another, the words of the angel to the shepherds in the field speak to all who have ears to hear: “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Anointed One, the Lord.”

Therefore, many of us join the shepherds watching over sheep at that first Christmas; we join with them and the angels in rejoicing and giving glory to God.

Filed under: Humanity, Love, Praise, SpiritualityTagged with: ,

Unattractive Religion

Unattractive Religion Type 1: Repulsed by what is false.

There is much religion that must be fled, if we care about reality. It is one of the reasons many leave churches. They do not find truth there. They do not find life-giving reality. They do not experience the reality of love—a love that is welcoming and supportive and includes all.

Some are repulsed by a church’s bondage to dogmatism and legalism, by the central place given to doctrines, principles, and morals, and the roles that categories play in defining its members. They feel that the experience of humanity’s depth is missing, the experience of the Spirit, of Holy Mystery, and of grace and freedom.

There are many who are repulsed by the eroding of Christian experience by that which is foreign to the Christ reality. There is something terribly false about a White nationalist Christianity that makes an idol of nation and whiteness, or a prosperity Christianity that displaces the will of God with our prosperity. There is something critically false about a legalistic Christianity that has left grace and mercy behind in judging and condemning others.

Many global religious traditions began with an enlightenment or revelation or experience of Holy Mystery that opened, freed, and deepened our humanity. Their beginnings were like a spring of fresh, inviting water bubbling up on the side of a mountain, fresh at its source, but then picking up various debris as it traveled down the mountain side.

It did not take Christianity long to pick up ingredients foreign to its beginnings, becoming conformed to cultural and political values, taking on forms of “worldly” power and dominance, making its doctrines the thing that had to be protected—even by violence, rather than (with Christ) losing its life for the sake of the world. Early on, in the New Testament and with Jesus, there were warnings about false prophets and false religion.

What is true for Christianity has been true for other religions as well, at times with horrific results: Religion becoming simply a mask for evil.

As with other religious traditions, Christianity can be critiqued from within its own tradition. Simply go back to the source, the fresh spring. From the source we begin to recognize the debris that has accumulated over time. We discern what about our Christianity has simply become a cover for our cultural commitments and values instead of being the spiritual reality that critiques our ways of operating in the world and restores us to our true humanity.

Jesus speaks to the heart of his movement when he says that others will know his followers by their love, which he calls the central commandment: Love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself.

When we move away from this reality, repulsion to what we have become can be the beginning of coming back to what is true.

Unattractive Religion Type 2: Repulsed by what is true.

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” But there is that, in us, which runs from the truth, especially inward truth which will have us facing up to what is false in us, false to our true humanity created in the image of God who is Love.

Jesus called us to a recentering of our lives which involves the relinquishing of ourselves to God. Jesus said, “Lose your life and you will find it.” His was a call to trust the whole of ourselves to Holy Mystery. All true religion calls us to let go of our lives in order to find ourselves.

Our egocentric selves revolt against this “letting go.” Our egocentric values revolt. What we have built of our lives apart from God, revolts. Our false self wants to hold on to what it has been building and therefore is repulsed by anything that would take its place. Our false self refuses to recognize a self created in the image of God for love.

Our false self is repulsed by what is implied of such a true self, a self that loves enemies, forgives those who persecute us, loves those who hate us instead of hating them back, a self that relinquishes its idols (the centering of its life around its own control, power, pleasure, riches; its own nation, people, and political party).

People were repulsed by Jesus because he spoke truth to power—to self-centered power. He told his followers that they could expect the same repulsion from others and be blessed for it. He said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice.”

It is no wonder that we will craft a religion of our own making, one that fits our idolatries and values. Repulsed by the truth and desiring a god who is on the side of our idols, we make for ourselves a religion that our false ways can be comfortable with.

Or we decide it is simply easier to have no religion or at least one that does not need a god. (Atheism can be such a religion.)

Being repulsed by what is false in religion opens the possibility of being open to what is true. Being repulsed by what is true calls for a turn to the truth wherever it is found, but especially to the truth of ourselves, the truth of our inward reality.

The Spirit will help us come to the truth of ourselves, so that we distinguish the false from the real through the relinquishing of our lives to the Source of all reality. Jesus tells us that if we continue in the truth, the “truth will set us free.” We will be on a journey of getting real.

Filed under: Humanity, Love, SpiritualityTagged with:

The Present Age and the Age to Come

St. Paul writes of the “the present evil age.” Jesus speaks of the “age to come”—as Paul does also.

We experience the present age as evil. We experience violence, mass shootings, road rage, all kinds of rage, deep divisions in our society, breakdown in relationships and families, mental health struggles with our youth, racism in police departments, politicians motivated by personal power rather than a holistic vision, and, of course, the roots of our problems in the selfishness, arrogance and greed that are a part of the human condition. We live in an evil age.

The flip side of all this, of course, is that it is our experience of the goodness and beauty of creation, including of humanity made in the image of God that enables us to see the starkness of evil. It is human compassion, mercy, care for justice; it is human beings forgiving one another and being reconciled to one another that puts the existence of evil into sharp relief. As we grow as children of God made in the image of God, we increasingly recognize what we have lost of our humanity. We recognize something of the depth of evil in this age, and we long for a time when everything will be made right.

When Christians celebrate the resurrection to eternal life, they look, in part, beyond the present evil age to the age to come when we will know the fullness of our true humanity in God.

In this present age, we get a taste of this resurrection life. In Christ, we have the experience of dying and rising, dying to a false self and becoming alive to our true humanity in God. But we remain in a battle. We are up against “spiritual principalities and powers of darkness.” We are in a great struggle, and so we look forward to the day when the battle will be over and all things will be made right.

We stretch out for that day. We view what we are going through in this present age with a vision of the age to come when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

St. Paul kept hold of this vision which sustained him in the midst of the evil of this age. He was able to face battles because he believed in the resurrection. Paul made it clear that this belief enabled him to put himself in danger. He was able to fight, in his words, “wild animals at Ephesus” where a crowd came against him. He was able to face the mob and jail and beatings because of the resurrection from the dead. He could freely face death because it was not the end.

When I think of movements toward justice, I think of those who have kept the future before them—a future with hope that makes present action possible. It is a vision of what could be, what ought to be, a vision of a world where justice reigns that sustains present action for change. The most expansive vision for such action is that of the age to come when everything will be made right.

In this present age, we journey into mystery toward that future age. St. Paul: “Look, I will tell you a mystery! …. We will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).”

There is no blueprint for this journey, for living out our days in this present age, but there is the leading and empowering of the Spirit. And there is the assurance of faith that there is an age to come when we will know fully what we now only know in part: We will know the fullness of the resurrection in the presence of God.

Filed under: Humanity, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Jesus and Trans Persons

There has been a plethora of legislation crafted, or in the process of being crafted, by state legislatures across the country, that affects transgender persons and the people who love them. Generally, these laws being considered or already passed affect transgender children, their parents, doctors, and educators. They tend to make life more difficult for those directly affected. They further marginalize those already marginalized in our society.

There are many situations that do not need laws. There are many decisions that need to be left to those who are most affected—who live close to the issues. And there is this reality, also: There are many attitudes present in our society that will support oppressive laws.

Not all societies marginalize trans persons as ours has. There have been societies that have had very different attitudes toward transgender persons than our society. As I understand it, indigenous peoples of the Americas have historically simply recognized the gifts and special place of trans persons in their communities. Their recognition provides an alternative.

Laws motivated by fear, discomfort, and prejudice will end up being oppressive; they will further “disinherit” and put “people’s backs to the wall” (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited). This is particularly true when politicians, concerned with maintaining power, tap into the fears and prejudices of others in order to gain standing for their next election.

As a follower of Jesus, I tend to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Where is Jesus on this matter of laws that further marginalize people? What do we learn from his life and teaching?

What is clear about Jesus is that he spent his time with the marginalized and outcasts—with the poor, the beggar along the road; the sick, the blind, the deaf, and the lame; with lepers who lived outside the community; with those experiencing mental breakdown. He spent time with those in need, the brokenhearted, and those who were bound. He brought healing and deliverance.

When he was invited to a religious leader’s house and noticed the kind of people who were invited, he said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:12).” It is clear where Jesus’ heart was.

When a woman was about to be stoned for adultery in accordance with the law, Jesus did not join the religious leaders (all men) forming a circle around her. He joined the woman.

Jesus’ harshest words came against those with social standing who set themselves over others. Many are familiar with the beatitudes or blessings of Jesus, but not so familiar with Jesus’ “woes”:

“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep (Luke 6:24-25).”

These words speak to those who have “made it” in society, who have position and influence, and who may also have leadership roles that directly affect the lives of others. Jesus calls all to turn from positioning themselves over others and oppressing others.

He calls his followers to lives of compassion and serving others. He calls us to enter into the lives of others. No more making decisions about others from a distance, decisions that continue to marginalize.

Do not further marginalize. Do not add to people’s experiences of being bullied. Enter, with compassion, into the lives of parents who are raising a child who experiences their gender as opposite to their biological sex. Listen to parents who demonstrate loving acceptance of their child and their child’s experience of themselves. Support them, and encourage teachers who are trying to provide a loving, welcoming space in their classrooms and schools.

Jesus is with the trans child and the trans adult. He comes to them with compassion and acceptance. Like every one of us, trans individuals must make their own decisions about their lives, take the steps they see to take. They will seek guidance from those who love them. They may seek God’s guidance as well.

At the heart of it all is this: we are to love others. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is open to the other person’s experience. Love listens.

Legislators, if you are not listening to trans persons or the parents of trans children, do not craft laws for them. Do not further burden them with your fear, discomfort, prejudice, or that of your constituents.

What is required of you as a human being is to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).” Justice does not add to the wrongs but makes right what is wrong. Mercy sees the burdens others are carrying and does not add to the burdens but lifts them. Therefore, walk humbly, listen, and be open to the experience of those who are being marginalized. They are in a better position to speak of their needs than those operating from fear, discomfort, and prejudice, or from a desire to maintain power.

Filed under: Compassion, Humanity, Justice, MercyTagged with: , ,

Politics Won’t Save Us

When traveling recently, I saw a very large sign that read, “Save America. Vote Republican.” I can imagine a similar sign from a Democrat.

I believe that politics matters and therefore who we vote for matters. When I consider who to vote for, I look for those who demonstrate some sense of social justice, mercy, and faithfulness. I have in mind the prophet Micah’s words about what God requires of human beings: “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

I expect that those who are committed to justice will have some understanding of what is unjust in our society, what government policies and actions are unjust, and what steps a government can take to address injustices. I also want people in government who demonstrate mercy and compassion, who are not entirely self-absorbed and out for personal power. As far as walking humbly with God, I will settle for a demonstration of some humility. I tend to avoid politicians who do a lot of God-talk.

Politics are important and I take voting and participation in the political process seriously. But I expect very little from politics when it comes to salvation. The unethical ways that political campaigns are run and the ways that many voters are manipulated by appeals to the worst in us do not indicate much in the way of a rescue from what is tearing us apart.

We have ways we talk about our torn selves and society. We use psychological terms (repression, suppression, denial, avoidance, wishful thinking, rationalization, anxiety, obsession, addiction, etc.) and sociological terms (systemic racism, ethnocentricity, discrimination, sexism, power structures, class conflict, etc.). But there is another term that, outside religious circles, gets little mention. And that is the word, “sin.” It points to the underlying spiritual condition of our fragmentation.

In the New Testament letters of Paul, “sin” is often used to refer to the underlying power that affects our lives. Indicative of this are various phrases he uses: “power of sin,” “enslaved to sin,” “freed from sin,” “captive to the law of sin,” “sin that dwells within,” living “under sin,” and not letting “sin reign.” With this language, Paul indicates that sin is at the root of all human brokenness. He, therefore, rejects the idea of listing various sins that we must then work on eliminating in order to better ourselves. Our problem goes much deeper than something we can simply work on.

The problem of sin is the problem of our alienation from the source and center of our being and identity. Ultimately, the change that is necessary is spiritual. All other solutions to this fundamental problem are simply ways of managing our emotional, mental, and physical brokenness so that we can, on some level, maintain relationships, employment, daily business, some semblance of “success,” and the ability to “carry on.”

That is why scriptures, in one form or another, call us to the recentering of our lives. Our deepest need is to be reconciled to God. And, given the depth of our problem, only God can do this. So, Paul writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to God’s self.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

The Gospel of John points to an enlightening that must happen for us to begin to acknowledge the depth of our problem. We are told that the Spirit of truth comes to prove us wrong about sin (It is worse than we think). The Spirit brings us to a point where we acknowledge that our problem is something we are unable to manage. It is more than all our psychological and sociological descriptions and solutions.

Furthermore, the Spirit must prove us wrong about sin, “because we do not believe in [Christ].” (John 16:8-11) We do not believe in the need for God as our Rescuer. We think we can solve our problem. We do not need outside help. We do not need the work of reconciliation that God has accomplished for us in Christ Jesus. So, the Spirit comes to enlighten us.

When we find ourselves giving up on ourselves to fix our problem; when we come to recognize our radical need for help and begin to turn to God, our Liberator, it is the Spirit proving us wrong about the nature of our condition and drawing us toward the help we truly need. Spiritual change is on the way.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, Spirit, TruthTagged with: , ,

Light In The Darkness

I have previously written about “The Coming Collapse” and the sowing of injustice that operates like a parasite eating its host. It reaps the death it sows.

The words from Psalm 10 express this reality: “In arrogance, the wicked persecute the poor—let them be caught in the schemes they have devised.” They are caught in what they have devised! They reap what they sow and do not see it coming. But how much will evil destroy before there is nothing left to destroy? In the face of evil, love must act, doing the work of justice and mercy.

It does not matter how we think about what we are sowing, the seeds we sow will determine what is produced. We can put a religious facade over our actions and deceive ourselves about our oppressive ways, but the outcome will reveal what we have sown. We reap what we sow, and we know the activity of both love and evil by their fruits. The one will produce justice, mercy, and life, the other oppression and death.

The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures often proclaimed a “word of the Lord” directed to what is being sown—to the evil sown—and what is about to be reaped. The reaping is seen as God’s judgment, but that judgment is also inherent to human actions. If we act against our true selves, as beings created in the image of God, we experience God’s judgment as the judgment of our false selves, our phantom selves that are being wasted away by evil.

It is possible to think of human history in this way—and our present time. Frederick Douglass recognized the destruction that slavery brought not only to those enslaved but to slave owners. Abraham Lincoln viewed the Civil War, which brought a greater loss of life than all other American wars combined, as the judgment of God inherent to the evil of slavery.

In our own time, we see democracy—which our nation has made so much of, whatever its form—being eaten away from within. A growing number of people would prefer autocracy if it were their autocracy, their hold over government, in order to maintain or achieve their positions over others. Many are afraid of equality in a multi-cultural nation. They are afraid of the voices they have sought to silence. In their actions, they end up silencing love and justice. They sow oppression and reap destruction, theirs and their nation’s.

With evil sown comes much hurt and breakdown and injustice. What we hear over and over again in the Hebrew prophets, the Psalms, and the New Testament is that God is with the broken: the poor, the needy, the outcasts, the imprisoned, those who are oppressed. God is their comforter, protector, and deliverer. If we want to be where God is, be with those experiencing oppression. Sit with those who hurt (It makes no difference, their class, ethnicity, gender identity, political party or any other way they may identify themselves). Be with those our former president called “losers.”

And also call out those who are oppressing others so that they may be warned of the coming judgment (the reaping) and turn back to their true humanity made in the image of God. Call them back to the love of God so that they may receive mercy and be changed. And then each of us must keep turning to God so that, in the words of the old Shaker hymn, “by turning, turning we come ’round right.”

God calls forth those who will be light in a world of oppression, who will do justice, love mercy, and operate with compassion. Such people may or may not have a set of “religious beliefs” but they will have the experience of real compassion which literally means to “suffer with” and which always comes from the God who is Love—as does all that is expressive of our true humanity, all that is real. Those who act with compassion will be witnesses to a humanity made in the image of God and will be light in the darkness.

Filed under: Compassion, Evil, Humanity, Justice, Racism, Suffering, WitnessTagged with: , ,