Holy Fool

Being a seminarian means two things, when I am not with my family or working I am reading or writing; or at least thinking about the reading or writing I have yet to do.  Yesterday evening I took advantage of the ‘meeting/party room’ out our local McDonald‘s.  They have tables I can spread out my books on, a plug in for my laptop, and free wi-fi to do my online class posting/interaction on.

I was wrapping up for the evening and heading to the front counter to get a re-fill on my coffee before I left and I noticed something I hadn’t before.  In most businesses they hang pictures on the wall, usually a sea-scape, or a mountain valley, always something benign and restful.  Our particular McDonald’s here in Gardner however features watercolors of military aircraft.  Stealth Bombers, attack helicopters, and other military weapons of the air.

Now, to be honest we live in a unique society as Americans.  If there is anything more popular than Jesus in the bible-belt (of which Kansas is on the upper thread) it’s guns and beer.  We have a unique culture in which we encourage inebriation and open access to firearms; while we wonder why so many people die at the business end of firearms. Violence pervades our entertainment and beckons us to settle our own scores, make our own justice, protect our land, and strike before we’re bit. (that sound’s like Jesus’ teaching right?)

This cowboy justice is no more apparent than in our rush to war in Iraq, and ill-prepared for attack on Afghanistan.  But as the pictures in McDonald’s so acutely illustrated we are a hawkish and vengeful nation, using the guise of peace and deterrence (intimidation) as our sheep skin clothing to exert a hard power.

What perhaps most disturbed me, though it didn’t surprise me, was the obvious linking of a family friendly restaurant—which, next to Coke is one of our largest cultural exports—with the glorification of war machines. Never before has the pervasiveness of our waring ‘Roman’ culture come together so vividly for me than in the moment I saw the images on the wall.

It has become amazing to me how we as Christ’s followers continue to ignore some of the most basic tenets of Jesus’ teachings when it comes to non-violence.  In a world where we should be leading the way with an olive branch we, as American Christians, have decided to take back up Peter’s relinquished sword, to take God’s role back from him and join our government in making justice in our own images.  I am torn on whether to take my family, or myself, back to the Gardner, KS. McDonald’s.  I will have to wrestle with this.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us….’
    
    So God created human beings in his own image.
    In the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.”

(Genesis 1:26 ed. & 1:27, NLT)

Unless we are a hermit living on a remote mountain peak, or perhaps deep in the desert; chances are we have any number of relationships with other human beings.  Whether it be work, school, friendship, maybe a love interest.  We interact with other human beings every day.  During the course of those interactions we have all kinds of choices in how we are going to handle ourselves.  Do we make a joke?  Do we laugh at the other person’s attempt at a joke?  Do we greet someone with a wave, or a handshake; maybe even a hug or kiss?  Do we help them with their project? If the other person says something distasteful or hurtful do we retaliate with words or thoughts of unkindness?  If they are threatening do we strike out, hoping to wound them more than they wound us?  Do we harbor a jealous thought and try to undermine their success in the workplace or in society?

So, given all of these ways by which we engage in relationship, what does it mean to be created in the image of God, how does that shape our responses?  Even more, how should we relate to other human beings knowing that they too have upon them the stamp of God’s handiwork, the imago Dei?

When we consider the creation account of humanity we find that in our earliest essence we have been set aside as something special within God’s creation.  Rob Bell points out, “We have a spiritual dimension to us that animal’s don’t have. Some call this consciousness, others an awareness of ‘more’, others call it transcendence.”1 We are at a level that is higher than the animals of this earth.  We are more than physical beings.  Racism and oppression are often justified through a mythology of soullessness, if we let ourselves believe that a fellow human has no soul then we are no longer bound to treat them humanely or with justice.  This inability or unwillingness to see God’s image on all of humanity was evidenced in the holocaust, and Rwanda; Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.

You may protest though, “I have not committed an act of genocide, or racism, or slavery!”  And yet, there are many ways in which we refuse to allow ourselves to see the image of God upon our fellow humankind.  When we enter into judgment of another, so as to justify our own righteousness we have made the other person into an animal, a being of lesser worth.  Jesus once said, “if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!” (Matt. 5:22)  Regardless of what another person has done, they are still bearers of the image of God, in which they have been created.  If God has decreed from the dawn of creation that humanity is his sacred trust, beings of infinite worth and beauty, for which he suffered and died to give life, who are we to contradict or usurp his will so as to pronounce a sentence of death?  When we take the life of another human being in our own judgment, whether in actuality or metaphorically through slander or oppression, we are equally guilty of having denied the other person their right as the image bearer of God.

Rather than judgment, our default position to others should be one of love.  As Greg Boyd notes:

Love is the central command in Scripture and judgment the central prohibition.  Indeed, judgment is the “original sin” in Scripture.  This is why the forbidden tree in the center of the garden–the prohibition around which life in the garden revolved–was called the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”2

As Christian’s we are not to be known as the great judgers of humanity, rather as the great lovers of humanity.  We are to be as passionate about humanity as Jesus ever was. By looking for the image of God upon our fellow humans it can’t help but make us rethink our interactions.  There is nothing we can do that will cause God’s love to stop for us, and nothing that will cause him to remove from us his likeness.  Can we willingly judge another as less than human, or less worthy of life, or worse than ourselves, knowing that in their face we are seeing a reflection of God’s love for all mankind?

The way of the peacemaker, of the lover of humanity, is the most dangerous one of all.  Rather than using violence to protect our rights, we must not be afraid of loosing everything, including our right to live, to shine Christ’s light on the heart of our murderers and to reveal God’s mercy for all men.  Our calling is no less dangerous than that of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.  We must love recklessly those that would kill us; knowing that Justice, and salvation are God’s alone.

1 Bell, Rob. 2007. Sex God. Zondervan. Grand Rapids, MI. p 57

2 Boyd, Greg. 2004. Repenting of Religion. Baker Books. Grand Rapids, MI. p 9

(ht:Thom Stark)

NPR in Gaza, A Photographer's Journal from NPR on Vimeo.

Warning, this video is not for the faint of heart....

(HT: The Daily Dish)

Today there are countless Iranians protesting, and some dying for the right to have their voice counted in free and fair elections.  I am not of any illusionary belief that democracy is a God ordained institution, however it is by far the best thing humans have ever come up with for self-governance and it sure beats the theocratic fascism that Iran's conservative Muslim leaders are now fully revealed to be in favor of.

I have friends that have served bravely in the military and they are willing to die for their country and fellow citizens; even to die for another country and her citizens.  The earliest Christians and the underground church today are persecuted and martyred for their faith.  But is it really worth dying for?

The question of death and life and viewing some measure of worth as being associated with it is an interesting phenomena.  Is your earthly existence less valuable than your right to vote?  Is your hand being intact worth some tangible amount which once is met you agree to have it lobbed off?  Is there anyway a well fed white mid-westerner whose most dangerous experience was a brush with a 5th grader on the tetherball court after recess can identify with and say that they would indeed die for anything?

The things worth dying for are often identified as existing 'outside' of ourselves, they are bigger than our own footprint.  Will we die to save the life of another?  Will we throw ourselves on the grenade tossed before our friends?  Will we stand in front of the tanks and bullets thrown at us by extremist governments with terroristic visions of domination?

Do we have a faith in a God that sent a son that had something valuable to do, something worth being killed for?  Is the hope of reconciliation of God and his creation worth dying for?  I ask these questions because I don't think most Christians serve that God.  They have faith in the God of the Sunday morning concert, the God of the felt needs, the God of the 'feed me' consumption of targeted Christonomic Americanism.  That is surely not something worth dying for, because there is nothing 'outside' of ourselves to die for.  That is a Christian faith that is personalized, and internalized.  It is filtered, packaged, and made 'just for you' so that you can feel as though you are somehow being Christian by listening to it, reading it, or watching it.  That is the ingrown and inbred faith of 'Christian Yellowbooks' and only letting your kids play with other Christian kids.  It is a faith that is stained with red, white, and blue.  It is a farce, a false religion, a heretic gospel, and I won't die for it.

So what will I die for?  I will die for a Christ that is fully God and fully man, that was really born of a virgin, that was really a historical person, that really died on a cross, and really raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty!  I will die for nothing less.  I will die for a faith that causes me to embrace a radical and trinitarian love that is eternally focused on the well-being of others at the expense of my flesh.  I will die for a faith that transcends consumerism.  I will die for a faith in which all I am and all I do is but worthless unless it is bathed in the shadow of the cross.  I will die for a faith with teeth, that stands up for it's beliefs in the face of syncretism and pluralistic pandering to a culture bent on diluting everything to a pale grey.  And in paradox I will only die for a faith that is so radical in it's love for the other that we will be accused of being drunkards and harlots, sinners and tax collectors.  In short I will die for nothing less than the Kingdom of God come to earth through the incarnated hands of Jesus Christ.

Do you have something worth dying for?  If you don't then what are you living for?