Gabe Huck is a regular columnist for Celebration magazine. His column in the current issue is titled: “The Brutality of All War”. The sub-title is far more intriguing: “Ironies and contradictions beg us to be more introspective.” He asks: “Should the Gospel we profess and the liturgy we do raise in us some great unease with the political, economic, military and environmental conditions that are our responsibility as U.S. citizens and residents?”
In the already-published February issue he quotes Kathy Kelley writing about what Oscar Romero’s last preaching might mean for us now. She writes: “The war on the Islamic State will distract us from what the U.S. has done and is doing to create further despair in Iraq, and much also to enlist new recruits for the Islamic State. The Islamic State is the echo of the last war the U.S. waged in Iraq, the so-called “Shock and Awe” bombing and invasion. The emergency is not the Islamic State but war [itself].”
These thoughts weigh heavy on my heart in the aftermath of the Paris killings this past week, including the killing of the young men who carried out the attack on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. These young men and others like them represent some of our worst fears. They were filled with hate and rage toward the western world. In the name of Allah they raged against injustice and oppression, though their understanding of Allah is greatly distorted.
They are no different than the members of a Kansas congregation that arrived in Portland this week to picket the Gay Christian Network meeting at the Oregon Convention Center. This group is notorious for picketing funerals of AIDS victims and armed service personnel in the name of God, though their understanding of God is also distorted. This is the church whose official website is godhatesfags.com. It also hosts a number of other websites including godhateseveryone.com. While in town the group also intends to picket certain area churches in Portland and Salem. You might wonder why members of a supposedly “Christian” church would choose to picket other Christian churches. The answer boils down to a sad formula: hatred and fear, again mixed with rage. The targeted churches are either inclusive of LGBT folk, are perceived as homosexual themselves (Catholics clergy), or preach a Gospel of God’s love for everyone!
Misperceptions about God along with fear, hate and fury are a powerful mix. When you add in attitudes of arrogance, self-justification, entitlement or any number of other shadowy human traits, the mix can become even more convoluted and volatile.
Looking at the events in Paris alongside Westboro’s visit to our area this weekend we see two sides of an all-too-common human theme. On one side is the face of arrogant self-satisfaction that justifies dismissive attitudes and hateful discrimination. On the other side is deep suffering caused by those attitudes, as whole populations are ignored or oppressed. Persecution on one side; suffering on the other. The family of God is in agony.
As we celebrate Jesus’ baptism today, we zero in on a challenging dimension of the human experience. Somehow we must get a grip on the “ironies and contradictions” we encounter as we navigate the waters of life. And we can’t do that unless we become introspective enough to recognize the effects our actions and omissions have on others and on our world.
When Jesus presents himself to be baptized by John he is acknowledging his human nature, one he shares equally with everyone else flocking to the river Jordan. This is an act of humility. He recognizes that he, too, can and will be tempted to give priority to his physical needs and his ego rather than to humbly listening and following the promptings of his higher divine nature. After he emerges from the waters of baptism and hears the voice from heaven saying, “You are my beloved son,” he is immediately driven by the Spirit out into the desert to face those very temptations. He passes the test, whereas many of us get trapped out there in the desert believing we know what is “right” because we mistake what is “right” with what “feels good.” Or we equate what’s “right” with what seems to be in our own best interest in any given moment.
Anger can feel so very good when it is self-righteous. Fear can move us very quickly toward whatever protects our own self-interest regardless of the effect that might have on others. Humility, on the other hand, allows us to see the “ironies and contradictions” within ourselves. It creates space for patience and compassion, both for ourselves and others, and it allows us to see that what seems “right” can look very different depending on one’s attitudes and desires, let alone one’s needs.
Jesus is the mirror God has fashioned for us to see who we are and what this human journey is all about. Richard Rohr puts it this way: we are “simultaneously children of heaven and children of earth, divine and human coexisting in a well hidden disguise. We are a living paradox, just as Jesus was.”
The voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism rings true for all of us—we are all beloved daughters and sons. We are all God’s chosen ones, in whom God delights, as Isaiah says. And Peter underscores both the first reading and the Gospel by reminding us that “in God there is no partiality.” The corrective for self-righteousness, injustice, suffering and rage suggested by today’s readings lies in the cultivation of humility. On the bank of those waters of humility we listen for God’s voice that it may sustain us on our journey through life’s many deserts to follow.
Human and divine—this is who and what we are. And it is the human side of our nature that needs the corrective of the river Jordan in order to reach its profound evolutionary destiny.
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