JESUS’ CHOICES

For my Easter sermons this year, I decided to spend some serious time looking at Jesus and the Easter story. Because of my theological predispositions, I don’t see the Easter story as a predetermined process that made all those involved act and respond in a certain way. I have long espoused a theological view that allows freedom—we have real choices and what we chose has real consequences.

When I bring that theological slant to the study of the Easter story, I realize that the freedom that God has given to us is also given to Jesus. He was, after all, fully human and like all of us, he had choices before him. I will quickly add here that Jesus was also fully God. Both must be a part of our thinking about Jesus.

But for this Easter season, I have been thinking about and preaching about the process from the perspective of the human Jesus. And from that perspective, the story seems to be to be very clear that at each step along the way to the Cross, Jesus had to decide to go to the cross. He had other options. Certainly, the perfect option was to go to the cross. But along the way, there were other options presented that might not have been perfect but which would have been okay.

For example, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is acclaimed by the crowds entering the city for the Passover. This huge crowd was stirred up by their religious passion for the Passover. They were excited by the stories they had heard about Jesus. They were also angry and frustrated with the continued Roman occupation of their country. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn that crowd into an army of liberation.

Jesus could have used them to liberate the nation and the temple. Sure, a lot of them might die—but there were enough that the vastly outnumbered Roman legions would simple get worn out trying to kill them all. Add to that the fact that Jesus isn’t just limited to human means—he could heal and even resurrect people.

While we might want to dismiss this as the fantasy of a preacher tired of the traditional approach to Easter, we do, I think, need to realize that this was an option open to Jesus. He could have done it, just as he could have given in to the temptations of satan early in his ministry or walked away from the whole thing in the garden before the arrest. He keeps choosing the painful and difficult.

For me, understanding that Jesus had choices makes the whole story different and more powerful and significant. The cross was necessary—but not inevitable. Jesus chose the cross—not just once but repeatedly. Knowing the pain and suffering that would come from the whole process, he still chose to follow that path.

And for me, this reality sheds all sorts of exciting light on the story. When Jesus says he loves us, we can take that to the bank because his love gets shown every time he makes a difficult choice that brings the cross closer. His is an active, powerful, dynamic love that looks at the benefit to us in the fact of the suffering he will face and somehow always manages to find the courage and determination to make the choice that benefits us the most.

I could perhaps write that I don’t know how he could do that but that wouldn’t actually be true. I know how he found the strength to make those painful choices. The human/divine being who was Jesus makes the difficult human choices in the presence and power of the divine. He has powerful help.

And the story gets even better because the risen living Christ offers to us the same help. When we accept the love of Christ shown in the cross and resurrection, we receive not only reconciliation with God but the active and real presence of God in our lives through the Holy Spirit. We have access to the same divine help that enabled Jesus to make the difficult choices.

Now, obviously, the divine isn’t integrated into our lives like it was with Jesus. But we as believers have access to the divine power and guidance and help that enabled Jesus to make the hard choices.

May the peace of God be with you.

SINNER OR STUPID?

Another public figure has recently been outed. A picture has show up; a blog post has surfaced; an informant has come forward. The past has been revealed and the public figure is now in the process: denial, grudging admission, pleading for understanding, all followed by the inevitable crash and burn. For political figures, that means resignation and finding a real job; for media celebrities, it means no more screaming fans; for church leaders, it means loss of pulpit and reputation.

Since we live in an age where everything is likely documented somewhere and someone has the ability to discover the past, it is pretty much inevitable that nothing can ever be hidden forever. I fully expect that this trend will reach the point where the startling revelation will be that so and so messed their diapers at age 3 months, which shows that they are totally unfit for whatever prominent position they are currently occupied.

Leaving aside the basic problem that our western culture, after having dethroned the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition that was used for so long, is now in the process of developing a new ethical system on the fly, a system that seems to be based on highly subjective feelings tinged with a strong desire for revenge and which changes with the volume of outrage that can be stirred up, there is a problem with all the revelations and reactions.

The problem is that people aren’t being allowed to be real people. Real people are sometimes sinners and sometimes just plain stupid—it is hard to tell the difference but there is a real difference, especially in the way they need to be dealt with. Sin is a deliberate choice to break the rules. Stupidity may also break the rules but tends to be the result of poor thinking choices sometimes encouraged by peer groups, substance abuse or bravado.

Sin, that deliberate choice to break rules that can cause harm to society, others and self is only really dealt with when people confront their inner motivations and desires and accept whatever help they need to make changes. In a culture increasingly divorced from religion and faith of any kind, it is harder and harder to deal constructively with sin and sinners, which may be why condemnation, denunciation and punishment are the go to approaches in our culture.

Stupidity, however, is sometimes a bit easier to deal with. What I am labelling as stupidity is more likely ignorance—people don’t actually know that what they are doing is wrong or offensive or unacceptable. Ignorance can be dealt with by providing information. We can teach people out of stupidity and ignorance. Most of us have successfully grown past a lot of our ignorance and stupidity. But if, after being taught and understanding the teaching, they persist in whatever was wrong, then they are likely following the path of sin.

So, some public figure gets caught about a decades old problem. Again, leaving aside the shifting moral sands that our western culture pretends isn’t a problem, the response to the revelation probably needs to be more nuanced. Was it sin or stupidity? If it was stupidity, has the individual in question learned and grown out of the stupidity? Are they as ignorant today as they were back then? If the action in question was the result of stupidity and the individual has grown out of that particular stupidity and both knows and lives better today, maybe we need to let it go, just like we let the dirty diapers of infants go.

If, however, it is actually sin, a conscious choice to do wrong (again, ignoring the fact that our western culture doesn’t have clear standards of right and wrong) and the individual hasn’t shown any desire to be different and only stops because they got caught, we need to deal with that differently. There is a way to deal with it, a way that involved confession, remorse and asking for forgiveness, a process that can still be found through God, even if our confused culture isn’t sure what to do with real sin beyond seek revenge.

People are going to do sinful and stupid stuff. The more prominent a person becomes, the higher the likelihood that their past will end up as headlines somewhere. Before we start piling on, maybe we should try and discover if the person who was sinful and stupid back then is the same person before us today. That would be the graceful thing to do.

May the peace of God be with you.

FEELING GUILTY

The other day, I was at the fall fundraising event for several of the churches in our area. Rather than set up competing events, the churches get together, rent a large hall and do the event together. So, in one big space, there are bake sales, jam sales, quasi-yard sales, silent auctions and a really good brunch. Since we browse the tables at different speeds, my wife and I quickly got separated but since we both knew we would end up at the brunch tables, that wasn’t a problem.

As I looked at the tables and talked to people I knew from all the various churches, I came to the table run by a neighbour who is on one of the same committees I serve on. She had volunteered to take the minutes of our last meeting, which I would then scan and send on to the rest of the committee. As soon as she saw me, she joked about feeling guilty because she didn’t have the minutes done. My joking response was that my job as a pastor was done because I had made her feel guilty. We both knew we were joking and went on to talk about other things—and in the process made a tentative plan to get the minutes done.

I have been thinking on the topic of guilt since then—well, to be honest, it is a topic that I have been thinking about on and off for a while. It seems like guilt is almost synonymous with being a person of faith. I have heard pastors (and comedians) talk about various religious groups as being the inventors of guilt. I remember one person whose faith I admired telling a visiting speaker that she really appreciated his message because it made her feel so guilty—she was giving him what was her supreme compliment.

There is a connection between faith and guilt but not the one that is popularly assumed to be there. It seems like many people both inside and outside the faith want guilt to be the supreme quality of a religious person. Such thinking almost has a valid point. Most religions begin with the idea that we human beings are imperfect and that there is a better, holier and perfect something beyond us. Our continued imperfection is a problem—and guilt seems to be the appropriate response for most people.

Interestingly enough, most people want to maintain a perfect level of guilt. They want to have enough to feel religious but not enough to change behaviour. This is a hard balance to maintain, though, and often people get caught in the swamp of uncontrolled guilt that causes them to slip into low self-esteem, despair, even hopelessness. The process isn’t helped by the vast amount of guilt producing preaching, teaching and advice given by religious leaders.

But what if guilt isn’t the purpose of faith? What if, instead of guilt being the goal and focus of faith, it is only a tool to get us to something greater, a tool that has a important but limited use? What is God uses guilt to motivate us to confess and accept his forgiveness so that we can be free of guilt? What is guilt that can’t be dealt with by God’s offer of forgiveness is false guilt and isn’t something that we need to or should deal with?

I think that this what if is actually the case. I think our Christian faith is based on the reality that God doesn’t want us to feel guilty. In actual fact, he wants us to feel forgiven—and forgiveness by definition ends the hold of guilt on our lives. God wants us to live in the freedom that comes from knowing that we are forgiven and that there is no need to hold on to the guilt that led us to accept God’s forgiveness. Sometimes, that left over guilt is really a sign of our inability to really accept and appreciate the forgiveness that God has given us in Jesus. We hold on to our guilt probably because we feel better feeling guilty that we do feeling free.

But as believers, we are free, we are forgiven and for us, guilt should only be a temporary reminder that we have more to take to God and when we take it to him, he takes care of us, relieving us of the need to feel guilty. Real faith is marked by a sense of freedom from guilt, a freedom that comes from opening ourselves to the grace of God.

May the peace of God be with you.

WHERE IS FORGIVENESS?

The Bible study that closes down for the summer was starting up again for the fall. People began arriving and the talking and sharing begins. I sit at the table, enjoying the presence of the group—I miss these sessions. My attention hops from group to group, sampling their conversations until there are so any streams going that I really can’t follow them. One of the sub-groups asks me a question that draws me into their conversation.

They are talking about the latest revelation about someone prominent who has done something that he shouldn’t have done. The conversation doesn’t take the predictable course, with speculation on whether he did or didn’t and whether he will get away with it. Interestingly enough, the incident opened a larger discussion of ethics and morality. Our western culture is in the midst of an ethical upheaval where established and accepted moral standards are being challenged.

While it is too early to tell exactly which direction the process will settle on, there was one question that this little group wanted to talk about. There is much about the new ethic that is commendable: any approach that protects anyone from being exploited and takes away the exploiter impunity is an improvement. When people can expect special treatment because of their age, gender, economic status, race or political persuasion or any other standard, that ethical and moral code needs to be challenged.

This challenge to the status quo is relatively new—but it has fairly deep roots. One could make a case that its roots go all the way back to Jesus and his teachings. But if we are not prepared to go back that far, we can at least suggest that the roots go back to the turbulent 60s. I am pretty sure that the movement will result in a significant alteration on the ethical practises of many in leadership, which is a very good thing. Exploitation and abuse are sin, no matter how accepted and normalized we want to pretend it is.

I have high hopes for this whole cultural process—but I also have a worry. There is an area of the process that probably needs to be given some serious thought. Opening doors on the underlying abuse and exploitation that has been a hidden and accepted part of our western culture is good. But at some point, we need to decide what we are going to do about, with and for the exploiters and abusers. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be much going on in that direction. Revelation and exposure are the key themes right now, with punishment of some form as a minor theme.

But the question that needs to be addressed is this: Is this developing ethical and moral movement going to include a process for forgiveness? Will there be a way for the exploiter and the abuser to put the past behind them and develop a new life? This question is incredibly important because if we say no to forgiveness, we simple invert the present process and turn the victims into the abusers.

Abuse of any sort destroys significant parts of the victim’s life. Exploitation of any sort destroys significant parts of the exploited’s life. But to simple turn the tables and make the abused the abuser and the exploited the exploiter doesn’t make things better because abuse and exploitation also destroy significant parts of the abuser’s and exploiter’s lives.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, allows both sides an opportunity to change direction. It provides a new start. Certainly, there will be effects and consequences for both sides that will have long term effects. Abusers should suffer consequences like imprisonment and loss of status. The abused will suffer consequences like long term emotional struggles. But without a process of forgiveness, both abuser and abused are locked into their respective roles and consequences with no hope of anything better.

Forgiveness unlocks the chains binding both the abuser and the abused, allowing them to see, accept and move beyond the evil. Forgiveness opens new roads that replace the roads blocked by the abuse. Forgiveness also provides a much needed alternative to the dangerous and empty road of revenge and counter-revenge which some find so tempting.

Abuse and exploitation in any form are wrong—and the current movement to stop the institutionalized abuse and exploitation that has been so deeply a part of our culture is a good thing. It will become a great social movement when it begins to include the reality of forgiveness in the process.

May the peace of God be with you.

BEYOND SELFISHNESS

I am colour blind and by now, most people I spend any amount of time with know that. Most of them have asked me what it is like and I have given the explanation, including how I deal with traffic lights. But even with all that, people who know me well regularly give me directions that include turning at the orange and purple sign and following that road to the green house, directions that are incredibly useful to most people but which are totally useless to me and many others.

I also get really upset when I am reading a magazine that gives me a really interesting survey results in the form of a graphic in which each variable is represented by a different colour, all of which look pretty much the same to me, making the chart useless to me.

My response is simple: I am starting a movement to outlaw colour or at least colour where it matters. You can have your colours in the privacy of your own home, as long as you aren’t exposing children to them. But outside, there needs to be a complete absence of colour where it matters. Traffic lights, directions, magazine charts—anything that relies on colour will need to be re-formulated and re-visioned so that we who can’t see colour are not longer the victims of discrimination and prejudice and danger.

The unfortunate reality of our modern age is that it I actually started such a movement, there would be followers, some of whom would commit completely, filing the quest for a colour neutral world with anger and partisanship and bickering and maybe even anti-colour terrorism. We all want our agenda to be the agenda for everyone and struggle to deal with the fact that our wants and wishes are not the most important things in the world.

This is also an approach that is bound to create more problems than it solves because once I begin pushing my stuff, others feel the need to push back in defence of their stuff. If I see colour, why should I have my freedom limited because of those who can’t?

This is the problem of seeing ourselves as the centre of the universe—there is no room for anyone else. And this is the essential problem that God was faced with at our creation. We were created with self-awareness and self-understanding and the ability to love and appreciate ourselves. I think that is part of the meaning of being made in the image of God.

But we need to remember another part of the meaning of the image of God to balance this self awareness. Being made in God’s image also means that we were created to be in relationship with God. In fact, we can only realize the fullness of who we are and what we are meant to be when we are in relationship with God. This relationship with God gives us the proper perspective on creation. We are important and significant bur we are to be in relationship with God, a relationship which helps us understand the real order of creation.

We are not the centre of creation. Our thoughts and desires and wishes are not the be all and end all of everything. Getting my way isn’t the goal of life. Making people do things my way isn’t the purpose. Trying to make everyone into me isn’t why I am here.

The antidote to human selfishness is an openness to God. As we develop the relationship with God that is inherent to being made in his image, we learn how to deal with our selves without becoming self-centered. When we are God-centered, we fit in the universe. We discover that in God’s vision, we have a place that fits and works. We are not at the centre but we are in the universe, we are important and we do have a place.

Our faith is rooted our being willing to open ourselves to God and accept his vision and version. We are required to surrender our desire to be God and be willing to be in relationship with the real God, who by definition is a God of love and compassion. Surrendering our selfishness to His love and compassion allows us to become who we really are in a way that no selfish plans and schemes can ever do.

May the peace of God be with you.

CHISELLING OFF THE NAME

When I was in school, I had a serious ambivalence about history.  I had some serious dread associated with the topic partly because most history teachers have this thing about students remembering dates.  Because numbers tend not to stick in my mind, I was always getting dates wrong.  On the other hand, I found the narrative of history fascinating and loved looking at connections and relationships and how actions in one place and time affected actions in another place and time.

During one of the course I took in history, we were looking at ancient Egypt. Fortunately, the dates for that course were not particularly important and I could really focus on the narrative.  One interesting fact I discovered was that when a new pharaoh or dynasty took over, one of their first official acts in office was often to send out crews of workers whose job was to chisel the name of the previous ruler off all the public and private monuments that they could reach.  Sometimes the name was simply chipped off and a blank space left–and other times, the new ruler had his name cut into the monument.

I thought at the time that that was hilarious.  The ruler was trying to do away with the past, probably trying to wipe out the existence of a predecessor just by removing a name.  No matter what the new ruler did, someone would remember the previous ruler and depending on what the ruler did, would laugh or applaud the vain efforts to get rid of the past.

Well, skip ahead.  We live in a whole new era, an era where we have a deeper understanding of history and people and how things work.  But we are still trying to chip the names of the monuments–or in some cases, removing the monuments.  When we discover that our heroes of the past had feet of clay, we often feel that we have to remove them from the historical record.

In the nearest city to where I live, for example, there is a statue of one of the city’s founders.  He was a significant figure in the history of the city and our province and so his name is everywhere.  But he was also responsible for some significant evil, causing the death of a great many native people.

We don’t actually know what to do with such people.  Does the evil they did outweigh the good or does the good overcome the evil?  Do we build them a statue and name things after them or do we remove the statue and change all the names?  Maybe we are not all that much different from the ancient Egyptians trying to alter history by chipping names off monuments.

People are people.  The greatest are sinful and the worst are good somehow.  The man who founds a city also persecuted natives.  The politician who did so much to help the nation also owned slaves.  The preacher who brought help to many also abused others.  The drug lord funded a children’s hospital.  The war criminal deeply loved his wife and children.  The liberator of the nation was also prejudiced against outsiders.  These are realities coming from the heart of humanity–we are both good and bad.

We probably need to discover how to live with that reality.  We need to learn how to accept and praise the good while accepting and denouncing the bad.  We need to learn how to balance our accounts so that both the good and the bad have their rightful place.  Some people deserve a statue or monument for their good–but their evil also needs to be recognized and condemned.  As we learn how to deal with this human reality in history, we can then help ourselves deal with it in our own lives today.

Chiselling names off monuments; erecting and then removing statues; rewriting history books to fit our cultural and personal desires are all rather expensive and pointless ways of trying to deal with an essential human reality:  the best of us are going to do bad stuff and the worst of us are going to do good stuff.  God knows how to deal with our reality:  he show us all the same grace in Jesus Christ.  I expect that in the end, our answer to the dilemma involves learning how to be as graceful as God.

May the peace of God be with you.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

I am a news junkie.  I watch at least two news casts a day and read several news sites on the internet every day.  If I have an opportunity to hear a newscast on the  car radio while travelling, I am happy–the trip is better because of that.  As a result of all of this, I tend to have a very good idea of what is going on in the world, or at least the parts of the world that the various newscasts choose to tell me about.

And because I love doing analysis, all that news goes into the analytical part of my mind and rolls around and gets looked at and correlated and categorized and compared and produces conclusions and summaries and concerns.  And one of my major concerns these days is the marked increase in groups and individuals demanding that that their particular understanding of life become the norm for everyone.  Even more troubling is the almost total lack of ethical concern with such claims.

Outright lying, serious distortion of facts, selective quoting, de-contextualization are all parts of the process and the only time anyone says anything about these tactics is when the other side is doing them–mind you, it isn’t unusual for those calling out the ethical failures of the other side to use the same unethical tactics in their denunciation.  Violence has become a regular part of the process of getting what our side wants.  It is made to sound better by labelling is as “defence” but people are hurt and killed for the cause, whether they are directly involved or not.

It seems like we are developing a world where selfishness and self-centeredness are now the norm.  And because I am now the centre of the universe, anything I need to do to ensure my will is accomplish is right and proper.

The interesting thing is that this whole process started from some very good and positive seeds.  Humans have been oppressing and enslaving and harming other humans from the days of Cain and Abel and while many cultures and peoples didn’t see that as a problem, the last couple of centuries have seen significant advances in creating respect for human beings:  we have seen ending of slavery in the west, the increasing reality of gender equality, great strides in universal access to education.  All these and more came about because someone decided that what was happening wasn’t right and needed to be changed.

But somewhere along the way, a dangerous corner was turned and we began to believe that in the process of curing oppression and injustice, it is okay to oppress and be unjust.  Unfortunately, all that thinking does is change roles:  the oppressed now become the oppressors and the harassed now become the harassers. Rather than actually change anything, we simply re-label the problems, give different people different places and the whole process continues along its way.

There has to be a better way to deal with the injustice and inequality and just plain wrong in the world.  As a Christian, I am convinced that my faith provides a better way–but even the Christian faith has been hijacked and twisted and abused to make it into an tool to use in defending the things we want to defend.  Everyone claims Jesus sees things their way–and in the process, forgetting completely that Jesus’ whole purpose in coming to earth was to show us just how wrong we actually were and how we needed a complete reset–what he called a new birth.

His message is that we are and were wrong.  Many who list Jesus as their sponsor really haven’t come to grips with the reality of his teaching and the power of his example.  He was fair and just when facing unfairness and injustice.  He was peaceful in the face of violence.  He sought to help others at the expense of himself.  He continually showed the error and even evil of our ways, but always did is from the perspective of someone who loved everyone involved, both oppressor and oppressed; both slave and slave owner, both male and female–and had it been as cultural an issue in his day as in ours, both straight and LGBT.

Given that our current approach is simply making things worse, maybe we need to take another look at the real Jesus, not the Jesus who has been co-opted by so many different groups for their own purposes.

May the peace of God be with you.

DO UNTO OTHERS…

Every now and then, I run into a “modern” version of the Golden Rule, the words of Jesus found in Matthew 7.12: ” So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”  This modern version is often presented in semi-humorous contexts and goes something like this “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

Unfortunately, it seems that our culture has decided that the humorous “before” is more applicable than the original “to”–since my rights and the privileges and desires that I feel belong to me by virtue of my existence are more important than anyone else’s rights, privileges and desires, I need to protect them.  And as we are often told, “The best defence is a strong offence.”

Others, especially others who are or might be different, are a threat to me and what I deserve.  Their choices and desires and practises threaten me and my freedom to be what I want to be.  I need to ban them, restrict them, overcome them, segregate them, control them–and in extreme cases, maybe even find a way to get rid of them.  And if that sounds harsh and hate filled, these are just the headlines that we humans have been reading, experiencing and creating over the years.

Jesus’ words about doing to others fly in the face of socially acceptable norms–norms that are as common and dangerous today as they were in his day–and which go back to the beginning of human awareness.  But Jesus knows that our self-focused, insane drive to put ourselves at the centre of the universe only results in pain, suffering, and continual conflict.  He calls for a different way.

We do to others what we would like done to us. In one compact sentence, Jesus manages to open the door to a new understanding of self and others.  His route doesn’t demand that I ignore myself to benefit others but it also doesn’t demand that I ignore others for the benefit of myself.  Jesus calls for me to engage in a conscious dialogue involving me, the other and the situation.  There is a fourth aspect to the dialogue but I going to hold off on that for a bit.

I need to know what I want/need in the situation.  I need to be aware of myself and my needs and wants.  To really carry out Jesus’ call here, I also need to be willing to examine the validity and necessity of my needs/wants–maybe some of what I need/want isn’t all that important and can be sacrificed or at least downsized.

I need to be aware of the reality of the other–what are their real need/wants.  That will probably mean I need to engage the other and develop some form of relationship–I can’t really get to know the other from a theoretical point of view.  I need to know the other as well as I can.

And I need to know the situation well.  If I am lost, hungry and bleeding, what would I need/want?  I probably wouldn’t want a Gospel tract, unless it was made of cloth and I could use it as a bandage.  I would appreciate directions, first aid and maybe a sandwich although if I am hungry enough, even a pocket-lint covered cough drop might help.

Realistically, that is a major amount of work–and doing it effectively demands that I open myself to the legitimacy of the other as I figure out how to do to them what I want done to myself.  In small, clearly defined situations, I can probably do it and might do it.  But the bigger the situation, the more complex the needs/wants, the more “other” the other is, the harder the whole process and the more unlikely I am to do it.

And this is where I need to remember the fourth part of the dialogue I am engaged in.  I need to involve God.  I need to open myself to the Holy Spirit, whose task in my life is to both guide me in my thinking process and strengthen me in the actual doing.  To really do as Jesus said, I need the power and help of God.  Fortunately, God is both willing and able to give me all the help I need to do to others what I would have them do to me.

May the peace of God be with you.

WORDS OF WISDOM

When my freedom to live in a colour independent world and your freedom to live in a colour dependent world collide, we have a problem.  One of the troubling solutions to that problem in much of North America is for us to start shouting at each other about our respective rights.  The process fairly quickly escalates:  we begin to push and shove, sometimes physically and sometimes legally but more and more often through the media.  Generally, the collision of competing freedoms results in pain, confusion and more collisions.

As a Christian, I think we need to be willing to look beyond the socially normal practises that we so easily adopt to settle our issues.  If we are going to claim to follow Jesus, we probably need to actually try to apply his words to our life situations.   And so, facing the clash of competing rights and freedoms, I look to him for some words of wisdom.  My preferred choice would be words from Jesus that support my particular desire, or at least words that I can beat into shape to support my desire.

Unfortunately, Jesus didn’t have much to say about colour-blindness so I can’t really quote him as supporting my desire for a colour independent world.  So, I have to actually look at his teaching and do some thinking, praying and work a bit–although it isn’t all that hard a task to discover Jesus’ teaching on clashing desires.  Jesus actually has quite a bit to say on that topic.

One of the foundational sayings comes from Matthew 22.39, where Jesus uses an Old Testament quotation to answer a question about the most important commandments.  After reminding the inquirer that the first command is to love God completely, he tells him the second is like it:  “Love your neighbour as yourself”.  As I have worked at this sentence over the years, I have come to deeply appreciate the layers and layers of truth here.

One layer deals with the complex interactions between competing human realities.  Jesus isn’t supporting my need for colour-independence nor the prevailing colour-dependence in our culture.  Rather, he is calling for an interdependence and mutual responsibility that benefits all.  Instead of “either-or”, Jesus is calling for us to work things out in an atmosphere of mutual respect and concern and appreciation.  I have to love my neighbour not at the expense of loving myself but in the same way I love myself.

Seen from this perspective,  the ultimate question isn’t who wins in the clash of desires but how we can mutually and respectfully work towards a solution that works for all involved.  This is a much more difficult process than making enough noise and causing enough confusion so that in the end, one side or the other gains some sort of victory.  Jesus’ solution requires that we engage with others to find a mutually acceptable solution, a solution that may not give anyone exactly what they want but which will allow them to develop a much stronger relationship with each other and with God.

Of course, this is just Bible talk, which we know has no real connection with the realities of life where winning is everything and my desires are my rights.  But given the reality that our western culture is becoming increasingly fragmented, increasingly fractious, increasingly violent and increasingly unworkable, we just might want to look at these words of wisdom as a better way.

The current direction of our culture leads us into a dystopian future where every left-handed, colour-blind, bearded,  60+  Jeep driving male runs the world–of course, every right handed, colour seeing, clean shaven, 20+ Prius driving female is also running the world which means that we are going to spend a lot of time fighting.

Jesus’ way is hard because it requires us to work together to find a balance between what we think we must have and what others think they must have.  If we love each other, we engage in a give and take–I will memorize the position of the traffic light I can’t distinguish because the present colour dependent system works better than anarchy.  But if you give me directions to your house, give me the civic number not the colour and tell me that there are two maples and a pine tree in the front.

If I love my neighbour as myself, I will be concerned with a solution that benefits us both and will be willing to give up something so that we both gain.

May the peace of God be with you.

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

I confess that I have never been a big fan of grammar.  In school, grammar classes were painful for me–having to learn about nouns and pronouns and adverbs and conjunctions and infinitives and all the rest was just no fun.  Given that I have developed a deep love for writing and make my living as one who regularly speaks in public, my dislike of grammar might seem strange but that is the way it is.  Language is a tool to facilitate communication and as long as I can communicate, I can’t get too excited about the rules.

However, there is one area involving grammar that I have been thinking a lot about in the past few years.  And that is the area hinted at by the title of this post–the grammar of how we refer to people.  Actually, I am more concerned about the theology and psychology behind the grammar of how we refer to people.

I see this working itself out in  practical terms in the church.  I often find myself in meetings with other pastors.  I have learned that the grammar pastors use to talk about their current church situation tells a lot about the future of that particular church-pastor combination.

Almost invariably, the pastors who talk about the church as “they” are either having problems or will be having problems.  Those who talk about “we” generally don’t have as many problems.  Another difference also emerges.  Those who refer to the church in the third person plural (they) haven’t been with that church for long–and won’t be there much longer.  Those who use the first person plural (we) have been there for  awhile and will likely be there for a while longer.

This grammatical distinction occurs everywhere, not just among pastors.  But the problem isn’t because of the grammar–the grammar points to the problem.  When we use the third person in the context of people, we are emphasising the differences, drawing distinctions and making sure that people know they aren’t included in our group.  “They” are different from us and we want to emphasise the difference.

When we use the third person grammar to describe individuial or groups, we open the door to all sorts of problems, like prejudice, discrimination, injustice, exploitation and on and on.  Beyond certain legitimate grammatical usage, the way we tend to use the third person becomes a way of excluding people and making differences clear, often with the unspoken understanding that “they” aren’t good or wise or smart or rich or capable or whatever as us.

So whether it is pastors discussing church members, citizens discussing immigrants, conservative theologians or politicians discussing liberal theologians or politicians, purple people discussing fuchsia people, cat people discussing dog people, the “they” tends to the negative and includes a put down.

And while it is true that we are incredibly diverse as humans, our diversity isn’t the most important thing about us.  Underneath the differences that make us “they” is a deeper reality that makes us a “we”.  We are all humans, created in God’s image, in need of a deep relationship with God and each other and we are all somewhere between what we shouldn’t be and what God meant us to be.  And to get from where we are to where we were meant to be involves not just our relationship with God but also our relationship with each other.  It was and is God’s plan that we best become what we were meant to be by recognizing the “we” rather than the “they”.  We all need God and his help; we all mess up; we all need help–and we all need to work with each other and God to become what he meant us to be.

Our differences are real–no matter how well I speak Kiswahili and no matter how much ugali I eat, no one is ever going to seriously believe that I am a Kikamba–the differences that make me a Msungu and not a Kamba are obvious.  But I am still in relationship with my Kamba friends–before God, we are “we”, all of us in need of his grace and love and help, grace and love and help which we will find best when we come together around our similarities rather than try to magnify our  differences.  We are all in this together.

May the peace of God be with you.