Some days, I ask myself the question, what would I have done if I had lived during the time of chattel slavery? During the Holocaust? During the Civil Rights Movement? I like to think I would have been one of the brave ones, leading the charge for justice. But that is a lie. My own answer shames me as I realize the truth. I would not have done enough. I would have sat quietly for far too long, as I have now.

Why have I sat quietly? I don’t entirely know. Perhaps it is because my place of privilege allows me to ignore things that are not happening to “me and mine.” Perhaps it is because I am easily overwhelmed by the scope of what is happening. Perhaps it is because the truth is just too damn ugly and hard to face.

There have been people who have been speaking the ugly and hard truth for centuries – indigenous people, people of color, immigrants, the disenfranchised. I don’t belong to any of those groups. I’m a white, middle-class female married to a white, middle-class man. I have worked hard to get where I am in life, but I’ve had many advantages along my way. I’ve never had to worry about how to pay for my education. I’ve never had to worry about having a social safety net. I’ve never experienced oppression other than a little bit of misogyny. I’ve never dealt with persistent violence in my neighborhood. I’ve never had to flee my home because the danger of staying there is greater than the danger of crossing a border. I just do not know what it is like to experience any of those things because I had the random luck to be born in a particular social location, none of which was of my own making.

It would be much easier for me to keep listening to the progressive narratives that exist around me – that our country is making progress, that we are naturally becoming more just, that the American dream is alive and well – but that would be a lie. And I don’t want to live my life based on a lie anymore.

Every morning when I get up, I spend a few moments alone in the quiet, often reading the news before my toddler wakes up. In the early hours of this morning, I sat, reading the news, and yet another story of tragic loss came across my screen. A young father and his 23 month-old daughter drowned in the Rio Grande while desperately trying to seek asylum. But as I read, the softness and dilution of my own words hit me. This was not a “tragic loss.” A tragic loss is something that is often largely unavoidable – a freak accident, an aggressive illness that takes a life too soon. This was not a tragic loss. This was a travesty – this was a denial of justice – this was a symptom of systemic evil and sin.

St. Augustine defined sin as curvatus in se, which means that we are curved in upon ourselves, so that we do not see God and we do not see others – we only see ourselves. I continue to believe that this is the best definition of sin, and it certainly characterizes this moment in our collective life. The loudest narrative being proclaimed today as gospel truth in our country is the gospel of (white) America first. It’s the gospel of military might. It’s the gospel of wealth. It’s the gospel of walls. This gospel is a false gospel. We have exchanged the truth for a lie.

Evil is in our midst, and it’s metastasizing.

We know this is so when we barely blink an eye when the lives of those seeking to be free from violence are denied asylum in a country whose motto was once so proudly declared: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…”

We know this is so when we say, “well, that [read: detention, separation, death] is what they get for trying to enter illegally.”

We know this is so when there are children, in our country, in the “care” of the government, who are living without their parents and in conditions no person ever should.

We know this is so when there are many, who without missing a beat, defend this practice of dehumanizing children.

In my silence, I have lent credence to this evil, to this false gospel that has been lived out in various ways over the centuries. I do not wish to perpetuate this false gospel any longer. As a follower of Jesus and an ordained clergywoman in Christ’s holy Church, I am called to proclaim the true gospel – the good news that is for ALL people.

The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends borders. The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends nation-states. The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends cultures. The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends age, sex, gender, ethnicity, race, ability, and whatever other boundaries we try to create for ourselves.

The gospel of Jesus Christ tears down the dividing lines and abolishes the categories of “us” and “them.” The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims “we.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims good news to the poor, frees the prisoner, gives sight, and sets the oppressed free.

The gospel of Jesus Christ lifts up the lowly and elevates children and women.

The gospel of Jesus Christ scatters the proud and arrogant and dismantles empire, bringing down rulers from their seats of power.

The gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims, “whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ promises that those who are lost or forgotten are the guests of honor at his table.

The gospel of Jesus Christ declares that love of neighbor is inseparable from the love of God.

The gospel of Jesus Christ compels me to action. I can no longer stay silent. I can no longer stay still. I can no longer live based on a lie. I can no longer perpetuate a false gospel.

May God forgive me for my complicity and show me how to live differently.

– Cindy+

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Here is a link to get you started with more information of how you might choose to take action in this moment.

 

 

 

Most people don’t set out to be the bad guy. Most people don’t commit acts of evil for the sake of evil. Throughout my college and graduate school years, as I studied philosopher-theologians like St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, they helped me begin to understand that we, as human beings, are all motivated by our own perceived good. In other words, everyone acts to their own benefit; to their own good. Even those whose actions we would say are the most vile, like those of the Third Reich, or the Khmer Rouge, or ISIS, did not perpetrate evil for the sake of evil – it was, instead, for what they perceived to be good – for the sake of self-preservation, for the sake of power to further the (righteous) cause of the nation/party/ideology, and to eliminate perceived threats to their way of life. And yet, we can look at the actions of these three examples and say in clear and certain terms that the acts they committed were atrocities – immoral, unethical, repugnant, evil.

See, that’s the thing about sin. That’s the thing about our sin. It blinds us. It distorts our understanding of true Good and instead replaces it with our own self-perceived good. St. Augustine defined sin as incurvatus in se, which means we are so curved in on ourselves that we see ourselves before anything else – before God, and before others. Our first instinct is to feed our own desires. This can manifest itself in many ways. It can manifest in the ways we often think of when we hear the word “sin.” It can be evident in the ways we (read: I) act in gluttonous ways, gorging myself on food that just tastes too good, even when I know it is detrimental to my health. It can be evident in dysfunctional sexual relationships. It can be evident in excessive drinking, in gossiping, in lying. But sin can also be evident in our desire for self-preservation. Sin can be evident when I erect boundaries around myself and what I consider to be mine.

A couple of years ago I watched a movie called “Conspiracy,” which dramatized the Wannsee Conference of 1942, where Third Reich officials came together to strategize on how to deal with the “Jewish problem” as put forth by Hitler. What made the movie so chilling was the way in which the men who were gathered discussed and strategized in such a business-like way over this “problem.” As they shared in refreshments and conversation, they moved closer and closer to the “final solution,” which was the wholesale extermination of the Jewish population. For the officers present and participating in this meeting, they believed that they were working for the betterment of Germany – for the preservation of the German people. They so strongly believed that they were working for what they saw as the good of their people and their country that they were able to completely dehumanize a whole people group. “Better to eliminate the threat and protect our own,” they said. History has told us of the atrocities that followed.

“Better to eliminate the threat and protect our own” is something we see repeated over and over in our society today. We see it when we categorize people as “us” and “them.” We see it in “America first,” in our policies around border crossing, in the backlash American Muslims have experienced, and in the way we systemically continue to treat people of color. Most people don’t set out to be the bad guy. Most people don’t commit acts of evil for the sake of evil. Most people act for their own benefit or protection. This makes sense in a world mirred in sin. But, for people who profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, for those who call upon his name, repent of their sin, and entrust themselves to his transforming grace, there is no longer any excuse. If, for St. Augustine, sin is being curved in on one’s self, then salvation, freedom in Christ, is the process of becoming uncurved – of having our spine straightened out – so we no longer look first to our own desires and interests.

Now that I have a child, I understand better than I ever have about wanting to protect something with everything that I have. I understand better than ever the desire to build up a wall of protection around him so that nothing bad will happen to him. I understand better than ever the power of fear and what that could lead me to do in the name of protecting me and mine. But I also understand that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). As a Christian, I am called, through the power and grace of God, to grow in love – love of God and love of neighbor. As a Christian parent, I am also called to teach my son what this means, and that means showing him. That means welcoming the stranger, caring for the vulnerable, working for justice. It means putting aside my own self-interests, my own perceived goods, for the sake of the Good of God. It means offering compassion and mercy for those in need. It means foresaking worldly powers, refusing to worship worldly regimes, and recognizing that unjust laws are no laws at all.

Mister Rogers says it well: “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

The Christian story is one that shows us that God continually breaks down the boundaries that we erect. It shows us that the stranger, the outcast, the hurting, the least of these, are the ones who are brought from the edges into the center of God’s kingdom. The Christian story is one that shows us that love, not fear, is the most powerful force, and that Christ came not to be served or to claim power, but to serve and to give himself away for the sake of us, when we were still “other.” When we choose to follow Christ, the breaker of walls, we can no longer say, “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” I pray that what I perceive as good will come into alignment with what God deems as Good. May we all see with the eyes of God, love with the heart of Jesus, and move with the power of the Holy Spirit.

– Cindy+