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.
