Radical

I've been doing a lot of knitting over the past couple of days because I've been stewing ever since I hit publish on my post on Saturday. Knitting is good for stewing as it allows one's hands to be busy, but given the right kind of knitting, requires very little thought about what you are doing. This frees the brain up to think about other things. 

Those other things I have been thinking about tell me that I need to add some clarification to my post. Well, one clarification and then a chance to flesh out my premise just a little more. I do not want to be misunderstood. First my clarification. When I was writing that post, I was definitely intending my audience to be my fellow white evangelicals... or those who used to identify as evangelical. Frankly, I'm not sure where I fall at the moment because there is so much about the conservative evangelical church that flies directly in the face of what Jesus teaches. I cannot be a party to that. I am not a person of color and I have not lived anything but a pretty darn privileged life, so I would never dream of assuming I could speak into the experience of one who doesn't enjoy that privilege. There, that makes me feel a bit better.

Now on to expanding on my original theme. I'm seeing a lot of posts about how if we are trying to build bridges, we are somehow letting those who accept systemic racism among other things off the hook. That it is akin to an abuser saying they are going to change and then expect the abusee to forgive them and get on with life. As a white person, I'm not sure that analogy works for the white population, but I understand the point behind it. It is the deep need for someone to answer for things others see as deeply wrong and hurtful. 

I tried to touch on this in my post, but I'm not sure I was clear enough. The act of loving our enemies or loving our neighbors even if they are different from us is not an act of weakness. It is an act of strength. It is not a person who was abused cowering before their abuser hoping things will be better. It is not giving in or up in order to assure peace. It is not caving into society pressure in order to be nice. 

To really understand the power of Jesus' instructions, we first need to have a little history lesson about the Roman Empire. Like many governments and empires, Rome was a mixed bag. There were some very good things about it. For instance, the Pax Romana actually aided in spreading the Gospel because for the first time in history you could travel widely with relative safety. But the Roman Peace came with a price, and that price was an iron hand when it came to dealing with Rome's far flung conquered territories, which included Judea. To be under Roman conquest was not really very pleasant. Roman soldiers could pretty much ask you to do anything. If there was an uprising, which there were, the culprits were caught and crucified, often in rather large numbers. To be under Roman rule and not be a citizen was to have very little freedom or autonomy. This was the world in which Jesus was born. 

A world where the Roman ruler could decide to have every baby murdered after Jesus' birth. We don't like that part of the Christmas story, and unless you are following a lectionary, it is very easy to skip over it. It doesn't go with the Christmas spirit very much. And then, once skipped over, it is very easy to forget once we are sitting listening to Jesus as he is teaching the multitudes on the side of a mountain. But this is a mistake. If we forget for an instant what kind of world Jesus and the rest of the Jewish people living in Judea lived in, we do not hear the full impact of Jesus' words. 

Blessed are the peacemakers. Full stop. Not blessed are the peacemakers unless you're trying to make peace with the soldiers who crucified your brother or son or husband. Jesus doesn't equivocate. This is uncomfortable to my ears, and I don't even live in that society. But yet this is how Jesus calls us to be. Instead we are told to love our enemies. I'm afraid to our modern ears, this is too easily interpreted as loving someone who said something nasty to you on social media. We have to remember Rome. The people Jesus was talking to had enemies. Enemies who had the power to harm them or the ones they loved without recourse. Jesus is telling His followers to love these people. When you actually stop to think about it, His words sound crazy and wrong and impossible and why on earth would someone want to do that? Well, maybe on some level it made sense to turn belly up and not make waves...

But is this what Jesus is asking His followers to do? Be passive and let whatever happens to them happen? No, actually it's not. Let's skip ahead where Jesus teaches that if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, then turn to him the other one. Years ago I taught a junior high Bible study and we were looking at this passage. As you can imagine, since 12 and 13 year olds are all about fairness and justice, that this particular passage was a little hard for them to stomach. (If we're at all truthful, I think it is difficult for most of us.) So we stood up and acted it out a bit. (No actual slapping occurred.) If you slap someone on their right cheek, their head swings to the left, making it a prime target for the person slapping to come right back and slap their face going back the other direction. We see it in movies all the time. But if you turn your head, offering your other cheek, they cannot do that. You have made a choice and caught them off guard. Now, does this mean they won't slap you some more? No, probably not, but in life under an occupying army, it gave you a small bit of control when you knew you were going to be slapped again.

We see this again in the next example saying that if someone compels you to go one mile (and one can only assume this is a Roman soldier because who else would be doing this?), then go with him two miles. You have made a choice. You have taken compulsion and made it volition. It is not passive, it is active. Active in a way that is going to be surprising and off-putting. It is rather radical.

While we're at it, this being radical, let's take a brief look at one more item. Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Neighbor sounds a little better, at least it's not a Roman soldier. To clarify, one of Jesus' disciples asks who his neighbor is, at which point, Jesus tells the story of the "Good Samaritan". Now, this is another story that we like because we like stories where people help each other. Jesus isn't that simplistic. And to figure out what really is going on, we need another little history lesson. 

Way, way back during the time of King David, Israel was one country, David dies, leaving the throne to his son, Solomon (you know, the really smart one). Israel is still one country. Solomon dies and things get complicated. There is not a clean line of succession and the country splits into two... Israel and Judah. The book of Second Kings tells the stories of the kings of both of these countries and the trouble they got their countries into by not following God. Eventually, as foretold in the prophets, they are both carted off to exile in Babylon. Over those years of division, Israel in Samaria starts to set up its own centers of worship since Jerusalem and the temple was in Judah. By the time of Jesus, these divisions between the historic lands of Judah and Israel/Samaria are deep and wide. Each is convinced the others are heretics and that God wants nothing to do with them. They wouldn't talk to each other, touch each other, and would avoid each other at all costs. And they were both absolutely convinced that they are doing the right thing by avoiding the horrible heretic and vaguely non-person.

If you know this, then you also understand that to the people outside of Samaria, there was no such thing as a "good" Samaritan. I can only imagine the shock of Jesus' hearers when He casts the Samaritan in His story as the hero. It would have sounded repellent. Yet, here is Jesus pretty explicitly saying that our neighbors are those with whom we disagree at a truly fundamental level. Radical.

Nothing about Jesus is easy. He stretches us, exposes our assumptions, asks us to see the humanity in the very people we are quick to despise. This was radical then and it is radical now. 

So what are we to do with this? We are called to be peacemakers, to love our enemy, to love our neighbor. That love is active, a choice. It involves seeing humanity where we would like to deny it even if others are denying ours or those we care about. It involves conversations and questions and acts of service. It is hard.

What is it not? It is not passive and just letting anyone do anything to you. Jesus set boundaries around himself. He told His disciples to shake the dust of a town off their feet if that town didn't welcome them. He spoke truth, often in bold and disconcerting ways to the religious establishment. I mean, "You brood of vipers" is hardly being nice just so everyone can get along. We can speak truth.

Even as I write this I don't know where every line for every interaction falls. That's partially why I'm typing this out, because it helps me think about things as I do the hard work of sorting it all out. At the very least, though, this I do know. Jesus did not call us to be afraid of other people. He was not afraid of being near and showing love to those others considered unredeemable. Women, lepers, Roman centurions, Samaritans, prostitutes, tax collectors, that helpful catch-all phrase 'sinners', beggars, religious elite, Jesus had time for them all. He behaved exactly as He asked His followers to behave.

It's a tall order. It's a good thing that God can send camels through needles.