"There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." -Galatians 3:28
"We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons... We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbors. We never beat our chests... We cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence. We didn't belittle it. It didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election." -Will McAvoy, The Newsroom
Like plenty of Americans, I spent a fair amount of last week watching the impeachment hearings in Washington D.C. I tried to remain productive while the headphones in my ears caught the testimony of lifelong public servants and their responses to questioning from elected officials trying to get to the heart of a phone call and foreign aid irregularities. I've got to tell you, I came away disappointed.
In fairness, I had numerous disappointments. But chief among them was the knowledge that everything was built for political points, 10-second talking points meant to be splashed across Facebook and Twitter to activate the bases. One side spoke to theirs, the other to theirs. And all the while, while we should have been having an honest conversation about power and truth, we were subjected to tribalism playing out on a national stage.
We're increasingly people of labels. We cultivate a set of labels by which we want others to identify us. Conservative. Liberal. Republican. Democrat. Gay. Straight. Millenial. Boomer. Man. Woman. Christian. Atheist. Alabama fan. Auburn fan. The list goes on and on.
We want people to see what we're about and deduce something about us. But we're also doing a tragic job of tossing labels onto others, and that exercise is rarely as gracious. Snowflake. Bigot. SJW. Racist. Alt-Right. Libtard. Elitist. Socialist. Alabama fan. Auburn fan. You know the names.
And we ascribe a set of assumptions to go along with these labels. If you're this, then you must inherently be that. I assume this is why, when I was young, we didn't ask people who they voted for in elections. If we knew who people voted for, we might be inclined to appreciate them less. Oh, weren't those the days.
But even more terrifyingly, we've begun to identify people by these labels rather than their uniqueness and individuality. "I could never love someone who..." I assume that none of us would prefer to be identified by stereotypes, and yet we're quite adept at doing it to others.
Black and white is a terrible way to go through life. Us and Them isn't any better. Picking a camp and filling it with people who fit into very specific and rigid expectations leaves us awfully lonely and never forces us to ask questions that might make our own lives and perspectives richer. We unfollow people who think differently than us and close our eyes to opinions different than ours. We gather our news from sources likely to support our conclusions and demonize other outlets.
More troubling, we're more likely to pull out our phones and capture an incident than step in to help. We see our neighbors as a profile picture and archetype rather than a complex human being. I'm finding myself rooted in the idea that solution isn't another Facebook comment thread war or sharing another video to convince our neighbors and family of our position. No, in fact, just stop.
We have to remember how to be WE. We have to get to know people, not just as targets of debate or echo chamber supporters, but as people. We need to know one another's stories and passions. We need to remember one another's humanity and wonder. We've got to get over the idea that cooperation and compromise are evils, that shared ground is to us what "hot lava" was to children on the playground.
In the past couple of years, there is a picture from scripture that has become increasingly important to me: the Last Supper. Jesus had spent 3 years gathering disciples, healing the sick, restoring the broken, pushing against powers that were hurting people, preaching, and more. And at the end, he gathered his 12 closest disciples around a dinner table to eat together and paint them a picture of love at its core. He took the bread and the wine and let them tell a story of sacrifice and covenant. Jesus was going to be killed so that a covenant of love could be sealed, and he sat around a dinner table, surrounded by friends, to spend his last few moments.
What's become most remarkable to me is imagining who was seated with Jesus around the table. There were teenagers and doctors. There were not-good-enoughs and there was the one who was going to betray him. But it is two, Peter and Matthew, whose presence has most transformed me. Peter, also known as Simon, was a Zealot, meaning that he was actively working to tear down Roman occupation in Israel when he was called by Jesus. Matthew was a tax collector when Jesus found him, meaning that he was actively profiting from the Roman occupation of the Jewish people. Their political ends were diametrically opposed, and yet here they were seated around a table with Jesus, breaking bread and enjoying the feast together.
Their labels may have been incompatible, but their calling and experience of God's grace weren't. Jesus didn't have litmus test questions when he met his followers. He just offered invitations. And he modeled a community where ALL were invited. People with vastly different ideologies spent 3 years together learning to live together. We'd do well to learn.
With that in mind, I have great news: you're not perfect. Some of your opinions are wrong and some of the words you choose to use hurt people. You make poor choices and selfish decisions. I've got some more great news: neither is anyone else, either. Most of us are trying our best each day to leave the world a little better place. Most of us are giving it our all and falling like failures most days. A little grace for one another would go a long way.
May we learn to live out the kind of community Jesus modeled at the Last Supper. May we learn to drop the labels and see people with the grace we'd hope to receive from them. May we extend olive branches when they feel sure to be unreturned and stop demonizing one another on the internet. We can do better. WE can do better. We've got to rediscover the wonder of We-ness. May we find success in becoming the community Jesus imagined.
forever unfinished...
