Drawing Lines in the Sand

Attempting to make sense of the lectionary readings this Easter season, particularly the biblical texts from 1 John, has been difficult for me this year. Perhaps I, like some of you, have become jaded and cynical, perhaps even a little depressed, in response to the ongoing news of racially-charged protests in Baltimore and ongoing violence in a nation that seems to be unwilling to address issues of race and privilege. Sadly, the Christian message of love, it appears, has been drowned out by a sea of competing voices; angry and self-righteous voices that encourage us to retreat to our private enclaves where we draw lines in the sand to distance ourselves from other members of the body of Christ and to put up barriers around our hearts in order to stigmatize, accuse, and other.

Perhaps the lectionary readings are telling us precisely what we need to hear this Easter season, especially given the apparent fact that we seem to have forgotten, or to have minimized the reality of God’s active, universal, steadfast, and self-giving love. Particularly now, during a time in the life of the church and in our own lives, when we experience in a very personal and meaningful way a love incarnated for you, and for me, in God’s sending the Son so that all people who might believe in him shall not perish, but may have everlasting life (John 3:16).  A divine act of love that obliterates the lines we humans draw in the sand. A divine act of love to reconcile ALL people to God and to reconcile the WORLD to God.

Given our tendency to reduce God’s saving grace to our own lived experience, to THOSE we think deserve it, perhaps it’s helpful for us to hear the story of Peter and Cornelius, a fascinating account of God’s Spirit at work obliterating divisions among God’s people, once again. A fascinating tale recounted in Acts 10-11:18 that demonstrates how the Holy Spirit erases the lines in the sand flawed and fallible creatures draw every day. The real or imagined lines in the sand that we draw to distance ourselves from others; particularly “THOSE PEOPLE” – the ones we keep at arm’s length, cast judgment upon, and deem unworthy of love. Self-righteous and judgmental actions and attitudes that distance and divide God’s beloved children. Human actions that seek to set criteria for who is, and who is not, deserving of God’s love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

Admit it. It’s easy to fall into the trap of drawing lines in the sand, insulating ourselves from the radical nature of God’s self-giving love and grace. We do it a lot. We like the familiar. Differences make us uncomfortable and push us outside our comfort zones and into places we’d rather not to go. After all, we tend to associate with people who think like us and to hang out with people who share similar interests. It’s comfortable to be with people who know where we are coming from. So we draw lines in the sand. Lines designed to other and to keep the foreign, the unfamiliar, the unknown, and different at arm’s length. Sadly, recent events make it hard to ignore the fact that far too many of us want to live in a world that is cut and dry; a world of black and white that refuses to acknowledge the shadows of gray we encounter every day. Yet, instead of building bridges of understanding, it’s far easier for too many of us to insulate ourselves, to circle the wagons and to band together with like-minded souls, and to draw lines in the sand. To erect impregnable barriers crafted to keep the modern-day Gentiles –THEM, THEY, and THOSE PEOPLE — at arm’s length. Sadly, we do it all the time when we judge people and cultures that we do not understand or when we cast aspersions at people whose circumstances don’t mesh with our own life experiences; of our rigid beliefs of the way things should be. Sadly, instead of being open to the infinite possibilities of God, we often find it easier to close our minds and our hearts to God’s activity in our lives, our church, and our world.

The account of the Spirit’s activity in the Book of Acts, a recounting of the growth of the Christian church following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), is nothing short of remarkable. For God continually works to destroy the boundaries we build to separate and to other, even going so far as to pour forth the Holy Spirit upon the members of the centurion Cornelius’ household, unbaptized Gentiles all (Acts 10:3-8); a divine initiative of incomprehensible inclusion that astounds Peter and the witnesses who accompanied him from Joppa. The outpouring of God’s Spirit on a people others had distanced. Yet, Peter, recognizing that God was at work erasing the lines in the sand that we humans create to push people to the margins, noted, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people?” (10:47). A bold proclamation that acknowledges the reality of what God in Christ has done and is doing for all people, not just the ones we happen to like or to include in our social circles. God’s saving action refuses to be contained, boxed in, or limited by human understanding. God is a God for all people. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Cornelius and the other Gentile members of his household (10:2) marks the emergence of an inclusive faith community and demonstrates once and for all that God’s love refuses to be contained, restricted, or limited by racial, ethnic, cultural, or religious divides.

It’s no wonder that Peter and the other witnesses who made the trip to Caesarea Maritima, the seat of Roman power in Palestine, are amazed and astounded. After all, the Holy Spirit had just been poured out upon Gentiles, hated and despised outsiders, before their very eyes (Acts 10:45). Remarkably, people pushed to the religious margins by the religious leaders of the day received God’s Spirit — empowering, equipping, and strengthening in faith people labeled as impure, idolatrous, and immoral. God’s Spirit at work in the world erasing lines in the sand drawn to separate “US” and “THEM.” Dismantling the barriers erected by the powers that be in a failed attempt to prevent the contagion of impurity from infecting the people of Israel, God’s chosen ones. Demonstrating to believers of every age that in the new reality of Easter God’s saving action refuses to be confined, limited, or reserved for the exclusive few.

Jesus, the ultimate outsider who was scorned, humiliated, abandoned by his closest followers, and crucified upon a cursed tree of shame, obliterated the barriers we so painstakingly work to create. By his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus destroyed the boundaries that separate God’s people once and for all. Not surprisingly, God shows no partiality. The resurrection turns human reality on its head. Human walls designed to separate and keep people away are being dismantled for Jesus’ death and resurrection makes a universal claim on God’s part.

And, lest we forget, the Spirit’s power is also at work in our lives too. Working faith in us, flawed and fallible beings though we may be, and strengthening us in the means of grace. Calling, gathering, equipping, and sending us, modern-day disciples, out into the world to erase those lines in the sand. Yes, God Spirit is at work right now inviting all of us to participate in God’s saving and redemptive mission of love for a divided, broken, and hurting world hungering for the good news of what God has done and is doing through Jesus Christ.

Building Walls of Courage

Although I like to consider myself to be an optimist, a tough-minded and hopeful soul who strives to find the silver lining in even the darkest of life’s storms, I found myself seeing the proverbial glass of water as half-empty lately. Let’s face it, clinging to hope in the midst of life’s difficulties is no easy task; especially in the wake of constant news footage of unending racial strife and looting in Baltimore, murderous rampages, the stoning to death of young women in Africa, senseless shootings in Texas, and the tragic loss of thousands of lives in Nepal. Yet, even as I found myself gradually becoming enveloped by the dark clouds of the world’s pain, suffering, and brokenness, I discovered a glimmer of hope in the most unexpected of places — an antidote to the “sky is falling” mentality that was doing its best to get a hold of me. Hope that came my way in a long forgotten quote that I unexpectedly found earlier today buried in a pile of notes. Words of wisdom once spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr. during a turbulent era of racial inequality, violence at home, a war in Vietnam; a time of unending strife and fear. A dark period in history when people of goodwill began to lose hope, to fear that the forces of darkness and evil might prevail. In the face of darkness, Reverend King advised, “We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”

Building dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear is no easy task. The process begins, it seems, by letting go of the things we cannot change – the ghosts from our past that haunt us, the fact that people will act in cruel and dehumanizing ways, and the unexplainable loss of life that inevitably follows earthquakes, tornadoes, typhoons; the forces of chaos and disorder at work in a fragile world. Instead, of surrendering to defeatism or apathy; however, we have a choice. We can surrender or we can take charge of our attitudes. No matter what happens to us, we ultimately have the capacity to choose how we will respond in any situation. And, while it might be easier to play the blame game and to hunt for scapegoats to castigate, ultimately we are in charge of our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. Perhaps that what was Martin Luther King, Jr. was hinting at. We can choose to build dikes of courage in the face of life’s storms or we can choose to surrender control to the forces of darkness and fear. Either way, the choice is ours to make.

Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning and a Holocaust survivor, believed that the power to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances was “the last of human freedoms.” In fact, everything may be taken away from us at a moment’s notice, but our attitudes belong to us. We own them.

Though the clouds of darkness continue to break into my reality, I choose to build walls of courage, feeble though they may be this week, to hold back the flood of fear that is sweeping through our communities, nation, and world. I, like the Norwegian pastor Eivind Josef Berggrav who spoke to a frightened nation less than eighteen hours following the Nazi occupation of Norway in November 1941, choose to believe that “God is God even when the forces of evil are preponderant, whether in physical pain, in spiritual distress, or in the darkness of despair or destruction. By this faith in God, the soul can be kept healthy despite all, and can retain its independence under all circumstances.”

Understanding the reality that attitude is a choice requires courage; a willingness to build walls of courage even in the midst of the torrential floods of fear. Paul Tillich, a German theologian and philosopher, would agree. In his book Courage to Be (1952) Tillich writes, “It takes courage to see in the reality around us and in us something ultimately positive and meaningful and to live with it, even love it. Loving life is perhaps the highest form of the courage to be.”