Dust in the Ray

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY, 2015.

            I read an interesting short story the other day. It centered around a guy thinking his life was being led the “right way.” He was honorable, he was a good citizen, he was lawful. And, as such he could pass judgement on all the wrong he saw. There he was one morning, ready to take on the world when he saw it. There in the kitchen a ray of morning sunlight shone through the window. In the ray he saw thousands of particles of dust, usually invisible to his eye – in a room he knew was spotless, just like his life – and yet there it was in that ray clear for all to see. He realized in that ray his life was exposed. The ray was pure; it was God’s light. And the dust was all his arrogance and pride and judgment – he really was no better than those he’d held in judgment.

            I read that story and smiled. I got the metaphor of the ray. How odd I would “get it” in here during a week when my mind was bombarded by commentary and talking heads telling me who “loved” this country; who was law-abiding, who spoke for God. I thought all about it as I did another week inside, paying “my debt” to society for breaking the law.

            So the former mayor of New York says the President isn’t “like us.” He doesn’t love “America the way we do.” What spurred those comments? The President stated that what is happening in the Middle East is no more representative of Islam that the Klan is of Christianity. And you know, he’s right. No “religion” has morality cornered. History is replete with people doing horrible, awful things in the name of God. How often, in our visceral reaction to the beheading of a journalist or the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot, that we immediately utter how barbaric “those people” are. Yet, we forget that it wasn’t that many years ago when an angry white crowd in St. Louis threw a small black baby into a burning home; it wasn’t that many years ago when the churches in Alabama and Mississippi shielded killers – Klansmen who lynched and tortured simply because of one’s color. Do we remember how the churches in Germany were co-opted by a murderous tyrant? The ray of sunlight exposes the dirt.

            There is a tension at work between faith and devout citizenship. Too often, we think being faithful means supporting. The status quo. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

            “The church is not the master or servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and critic of the state, and never its tool.”

            Put another way, civil life doesn’t necessarily equate with spiritual wellbeing. Or, as C.S. Lewis remarked, “Almost all crimes of Christian History have come about when religion is confused with politics.”

            You cannot read the New Testament, those magnificent parables in the four Gospels, and come away with a self-righteous attitude that we are good and they are bad. We care called to live in tension with society. Coziness with the state – any state – and the church may be good for the state but it is bad for the church.

            Throughout his entire adult life Jesus’ ministry was to the outcast, the downtrodden, the sick scum on the fringe. His anger, so seldom vented, was directed to who? The Pharisees – those who lived by legalistic interpretation. Jesus understood that proof of spiritual maturity is not how “pure” you live, but how aware you are of the impurity in your own life. We aren’t “pure;” we are covered in the dust. As Phillip Yancey says, “what trivial matters we obsess over, and what weighty matters of the law – justice, mercy, faithfulness – might we be missing?”

            This isn’t about Rudy Giuliani – though I wonder why when he talks about his “love” for the country he neglects to point out how over and over he sought and received military deferments to avoid service during Vietnam, how his “moral compass” didn’t preclude adultery. “You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it.”

            I lived a life of a legalist. I saw the world in black and white, right and wrong. Trouble is, without being right with God – and by right I mean understanding what He really is about – you can’t begin to see the wrong in yourself. “Father forgive them. They knew not what they do.” Here He is, wrongly accused, convicted, tortured, and now death’s throws and He is not calling for retribution; He isn’t even calling for justice. He is calling for mercy.

            I think a good deal about mercy – for those who wrong us; for terrorists and for those of us doing time; mercy; because we realize while we may not be “them,” we aren’t that far removed from them. That was the point being made with the adulterous woman’s accusers: “If you are free of sin, then carry out the sentence.” And the crowd, they saw the dust and dirt and grime of their own lives in the light; and they were humbled and they left.

            “Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?”

            “O the Bible! To be sure it says a great many things;

            But, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them.”

            That dialog came from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pre-Civil War master piece; Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One hundred and fifty years later has anything changed?

            Every day in here I deal with broken, lost, sometimes violent men. And I ask myself in moments of silent meditation, “why” – why this? Nothing the state does or can do can clean the hearts of those of us in here. Our nation can drop tons of bombs but hearts will not change. The conclusion of the adulterous woman story is revealing. After the crowd leaves only she remains with Jesus. “Woman, where are all your accusers?” “They have left.” He looks in the face of an obviously remorseful woman, a woman who has seen “the dust” of her life in the ray. “Then neither will I condemn you.”

            Why am I writing about dust? I guess because my faith journey has led me to realize Atticus Finch was right. We have to try and walk around in the other guy’s skin; we have to show empathy, mercy, kindness especially so to those who wouldn’t show it to us. For far too long I lived in the shadows of cleanliness. The light exposed the dust. Those of us who profess faith would do well to remember that when any representative of the state tries to tell us what is right.