Have We Crossed Your Line Yet?
Okay, y’all, it’s time for some real talk. I know, this sort of stuff makes some folks uncomfortable, but I’m not here to make you comfortable. I’m here to help you be more faithful. And faithful people have never been more important in my lifetime. So please, listen. Our government is broken. It has been for a long time. It did not break this year. I don’t know when to point to, but the American people’ve been living in a broken system for longer than I’ve been alive, maybe longer than any of you. We were built on lofty ideals that we didn’t uphold ourselves. We fought each other over those ideals, but let the brokenness continue. When we were at what many call our best, we were at our best at the expense of just about everyone outside of the majority. That does not mean that straight, white, Christians always had it easy. Of course it doesn’t, but it does mean that most folks that were had it easier than most folks that weren’t.
The wealthy’ve been exploiting the rest of us since our founding, and they’ve gotten extra good at it lately. Our military’s been dragged into conflicts we had no business being involved in time and again, and while it’s mostly the wealthy picking fights, it’s mostly the poor who do the dying. None of this should come as a surprise, regardless of how you tend to vote. Most of us agree that peaceful protest is a fine way to call for change. Most of us don’t want to see anyone harmed. Most of us know that all the hot button issues are more complicated than a simple “for” or “against.” Most of us know our neighbors are good people even when we disagree. But where we are now is a far cry from that kind of acceptance of reasonable differences.
A few weeks ago, I asked y’all to draw your line and decide for yourself ahead of time what could change in the political world that would be a bridge too far for you so that whatever the current spin is wouldn’t overshadow your own moral compass. And so today, I ask you if we’ve crossed your line yet. The US military has arrested not just civilians but citizens. A Florida sheriff has given drivers permission to run protestors over with their car and threatened to kill protestors that resist. One Minnesota lawmaker was assassinated in her home, along with her husband and the family dog, by a man posing as a police officer, and another Minnesota lawmaker was shot in his home; neither are members of the party in power. ICE continues to perform raids while wearing masks, sharing no identifying information, and scoffing at requests for warrants. The impunity with which they act has led to protestors trying to prevent them from doing their work, but because of the total lack of clarity of who is law enforcement now and who is not, actual legal raids in other legal categories are also getting gummed up by protestors that can’t tell the difference. I’m not saying that’s good by the way, I’m just saying it’s the completely predictable outcome of the kind of secrecy with which agents of ICE go about their business.
Please, do me this favor. If I have to cash in all of my relational capital with y’all for this, consider it done. If you’re rooting for all the stuff I keep trying to tell you the Bible calls evil, please, add in a news source you’d normally disregard. I know, it sounds like I’m asking you to abandon the truth. I’m not. I’m asking you to consider the possibility that a single source of news -- whether it’s a TV station, a newspaper, a friend -- a single source of news will never be capable of sharing the entire truth. It’s just not. Look for news sources that challenge your assumptions and know that the real truth lies somewhere in the middle. Look, y’all know where I stand on this stuff. I don’t need to tell you again, but I will ask you again. Please, dear God, please decide for yourself if the means your government is using align with your values. Are you comfortable with everything you see happening happening to you? You may think you are immune to the treatment other people are experiencing. On that point, I feel comfortable saying, you are not immune. When the current supply of scapegoats is exhausted, new scapegoats will be chosen. And when that supply is exhausted, a new round will be chosen. To crib a line from the old poem, when they come for you there will be no one left to speak for you.
I know some of you also wonder how I can justify talking about this stuff. Y’all, read your Bible. Somewhere around 15 percent of this congregation just finished reading all of it together. If my words aren’t compelling, ask them what it says. Ask them what it says about immigrants and the poor and the hungry and children and women and eunuchs and mundane evil and extraordinary evil. Ask them what it says we’re supposed to do. I am not a politician. I have no interest in being a part of that foul world. I’m not telling you what’s evil to make you vote right or change how you’re registered. I’m not trying to tell you how to be good Democrats or good Republicans or even how to run the country. What I’m telling you is how to live into what Jesus taught. What I’m telling you is what the story of God has to say about moments like ours. What I’m telling you is how fiery the Holy Spirit can become when injustice reigns. What I’m telling you is that Christianity demands changing the worse angels of our nature, both as individuals and as communities, to serve the interests of other people, focusing not on those wearing boots but on those under them.
My hope is that we can all see where evil tries to emerge and all of us together stomp it down before it gets the opportunity to wreck our world. I love you, my people, and I so desperately want you, all of you, to live fully into yourselves. St. Irenaeus of Lyons says “the glory of God is the human person fully alive.” The hard truth of our current situation is that no one, not a single soul, can be fully alive so long as some of us live in fear while others revel in that fear. Fear tamps down human souls while that glee in others’ suffering poisons souls. We were never promised an easy life as Christians. Paul’s letter underscores that. “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts.” It’s time we, all of us, act like it.
