Category: Social Justice

Truth and Reconciliation in the United States

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On Tuesday of this week a new sex abuse lawsuit was filed against the Roman Catholic Church in Montana. While sadly the need for such lawsuits is nothing new, this one is different for being one of the first involving abuse by nuns toward Native American children. Some 45 Native Americans are accusing the nuns (and priests as well) of raping and molesting them during their time in residential schools from the 1940s-70s. Although the time limit to pursue criminal charges has long since passes, their attorney commented that the Native American plaintiffs “want accountability. The perpetrators have never been criminally prosecuted; they’ve never been punished,” but that, “It’s unfortunate that the only accountability that remains for the victims is through the civil system.”

These are the Native American children who had no choice but to attend these schools and are just now finding their voice to start healing from their experiences there. For those unfamiliar with the Residential or Boarding school system required of Native Americans (because it is definitely not something taught in most history classes), these were government-funded, generally church-run schools that “were set up to eliminate parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual development of Aboriginal children.” If you’ve seen the film Rabbit Proof Fence you might have some clue about what these schools were like, but they existed in the US and Canada as well (and some are still functioning in the US). Native American children would be placed in these schools – often by force against their parent’s wishes – to have their culture “civilized” out of them as a means of assimilating them to white culture. Often parents would not know where their children were taken, and frequently never saw their children again. Children in these schools were forbidden to speak their own language or practice their own culture. Many of the schools used the children as forced labor for government projects. As stories of these schools have emerged, tales of molestation, rape, abuse, disappearances, murders, and medical experimentation and sterilization are common themes.

The horror of these schools is a reality as are the racist assumptions that lead to their formation. The children who were forced into these schools now have emotional scars that need serious healing. As in any case of abuse, to find that healing and to properly mourn what they lost through what was inflicted upon them, the victims need to tell the truth of their experiences. And in the US, the only legal way to do so is to bring a lawsuit against those that harmed them. Sadly though that opens up the victims to further abuses and pain. Those bringing this particular lawsuit are being vilified for their audacity to accuse elderly nuns of abuse. They are being accused of being greedy for money and that they are only doing this out of a hatred for the Catholic Church. As a numbers of responses have said, how dare the Native Americans mar the good name of these nuns and the Church without proof (as if the testimony of 45 Native Americans doesn’t count as proof). If this is even allowed to come to trial (which is doubtful since the allegations are so old), they will face further struggles as their story is suppressed by the loopholes of the legal system.

In reading about this recent lawsuit all I could think is that this is exactly why we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States. Desmond Tutu’s book No Future Without Forgiveness, describes how it was precisely for this reason of allowing the truth to be told with the least amount of pain for the victims that South Africa set up their commission as they did. They knew that to bring all the acts of injustice to trial would not only bankrupt the nation, but that it would hide the truth as perpetrators did everything in their power to not be found guilty and punished. It would not bring healing to their nation to have the victims constantly be told that they were lying about their pain and abuse. So the Truth and Reconciliation Commission choose to promise amnesty in exchange for confessions of truth. Only by telling the truth – all of the murders, abuses, and sins – could a person be exempt from being possibly punished by the government for their crimes. While this system angered those hungry for revenge, it served the purpose of telling the truth necessary for healing. (And it’s not like perpetrators were never punished – confessing to such crimes often led to ostracism from friends, broken marriages, and even suicides as they came face to face with their depravity). But as the name states – the purpose is reconciliation not revenge.

Canada has created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for precisely the purpose of telling the truth about the Native American residential schools. The Commission believes they have a mandate to find out the truth of what happened in those schools so as to help with the reconciliation process of all involved. The system is far from perfect, but it is a step towards allowing true healing to be possible for the survivors. Instead of making the victims out to be the bad guys as they search for healing in a system that often refuses to acknowledge their continued mistreatment, a Commission like this in the US would at least start a dialogue that is long overdue. This most recent lawsuit and the responses it has provoked serve as poignant reminders that there is a lot of truth our nation still needs to face. Pretending such things don’t exist by writing them out of our textbooks or washing our hands of any responsibility only leads to more pain – for everyone. The truth will set us free, but only if we are courageous enough to let go of our defensiveness and let it be heard.

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Embodied Theology

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Earlier this summer I attended a church service where the pastor, a man struggling with what appears to be his final bout with cancer, preached about the hope that Jesus promises to those who trust in him. After describing the returning Jesus brandishing a sword and dripping with the blood of all our vanquished enemies, he invited the audience to share what they saw as the hope that this Jesus promises. The responses ranged from no cancer, to no pain, to no worries about paying the bills, to the promise of an upgraded body – all of course in heaven someday after we die. The congregation was encouraged to find contentment in the present from the possibility of realizing these promises someday. Our souls are what matter; the body just has to endure until our souls reach heaven. No mention of help with how to pay this month’s rent or what it means for a cancer-ridden body to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, just the spiritual promise that someday all will be well.

That sort of denial of the created world in favor of escaping it all someday was difficult to hear, but it wasn’t surprising. As much as a few more moderate evangelicals attempt to deny that such “pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die” theology is still around, it still shapes the faith experience of the typical evangelical church most Sundays. What has surprised me recently is hearing similar dualism preached in churches that would never self-identity as being anywhere near such evangelicals theologically. But despite having disparate views on the Bible, justification, and inclusiveness, the outcome of such dualism in those churches is the same – a disparaging of the body and elevation of the soul. Be the roots a shallow neo-Gnosticism or popular Buddhism or simply a theology that starts with the Fall instead of creation, what get preached is that we are not our bodies.

It’s a way of viewing the world that makes that bumper sticker, “We are spiritual beings having a physical experience,” so popular. What gets valued is not the actions of faith – caring for others, studying the word, serving the poor, tending to creation, feeding the hungry – but finding spiritual contentment deep down in one’s soul. While evangelicals admit that life now is messed-up and so look forward to escaping it all someday, progressive dualists want to escape it now through meditating, unplugging, and letting-go of any obligation to help build a better world.

And therein lies the problem. When faith is all about a dualistic escapism, it sadly allows no room for mercy. Evangelicals often mock calls to work to save the environment or end extreme poverty because this world is not our home and is all going to burn anyway. Progressive dualists similarly mock calls to work for justice as imposing unnecessary shoulds upon them that get in the way of them being present with their souls. Both forms of denying our embodiment in this world provide convenient excuses for ignoring the needs of others as individuals are allowed to focus solely on their own personal spiritual needs. It’s easier to opt out of loving one’s neighbor when one’s theology is built around such a hierarchical view of creation that not only divides our body and souls, but privileges the one over the other. And with such views held by those in power, the bodies of the marginalized (women, the poor, the racially other, the queer, the old, the disabled) continue to be oppressed and ignored by those whose theologies assume they aren’t worth being bothered about.

These are theologies that I can’t reconcile with the way of Christ. With the story of a God who, challenging the dualist religious assumptions of the time, became flesh and dwelled among us. Who broke bread, healed bodies, and suffered on the cross. Who says he despises our religious gatherings if all we do is pray and worship and neglect caring for the bodies of the hungry and the oppressed. I have to affirm creation in its wholeness – undivided body and soul included. My theology is embodied because spirituality encompasses all creation, not just the parts I happen to prefer. I think Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel phased it best as she described what it means to live out this embodied theology –

Disembodiment is lovelessness. Insecurity, coldness, power and weariness are hidden behind abstraction. A theology of embodiment mistrusts all self-made fantasies of the beyond which are engaged in at the expense of the healing of people here and the realization of the kingdom of God on this earth. It is committed to a this-worldly expectation which here already looks for full, complete life, for wide spaces for women and men, and from this work derives the hope that nothing can separate us from the life and love of God.

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Embracing Creation Theology

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Next week, on April 15, is the annual National Day of Silence, a day where students across America pledge to be silent for a day in order to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools. Sadly, but also obviously, it is a day not without controversy. I recall a parent of one of the kids in the youth group we led years ago complaining to me about the day and that her (high school) student had to be exposed to such an agenda. Basically she was offended that her son was forcefully made aware of the harassment of people she didn’t like.

I was reminded of that encounter this week as I was reading Rowan Williams’ essay “On Being Creatures.” The essay argues that only a belief that God created the world ex nihilo allows us to embrace our full dependence on God as the source of our identity and therefore stop competitively asserting ourselves over and against other people and the environment in futile attempts to define and create our own identity. For Williams, it is only in rooting ourselves in God that we can be fully human and live responsibly in the world. What most intrigued me though were his conclusions regarding the practical implications of what it would mean for us to trust so fully in God. He writes –

Both the rhetoric and the practice of our defence policies often seem to offend against the acknowledgment of creatureliness – in two respects, at least. First, there is the offence against any notion of ‘creaturely solidarity’ implied by the threat not only to obliterate large numbers of the human race … but to unleash what is acknowledged to be an uncontrollable and incalculable process of devastation in our material environment, an uncontainable injury to the ecology of the planet. Second, there is the extent to which our deterrent policies have become bound to a particular kind of technological confidence: somewhere in the not-so-distant future, it might be possible to construct a defensive or aggressive military system which will provide a final security against attack, a final defence against the pressure of the ‘other’. If I may repeat some words written in 1987 about the problems posed by the Strategic Defence Initiative, the Christian is bound to ask, ‘How far is the search for impregnability a withdrawal from the risks of conflict and change? A longing to block out the possibility of political repentance, drastic social criticism and reconstruction?’

Not embracing our identity as dependent creations of a loving God puts us at odds with the rest of creation. When we assume that our identity is shaped by something other than God, like our own efforts and resourcefulness, we live in competition and not solidarity with others. Others become not fellow image-bearers similarly in dependent relationships with God, but entities competing with us for power and limited resources. Instead of loving others, we set up defenses (or offenses) against the pressure of the other – even to the point that we arrange our world so that we don’t even have to acknowledge that the other exists.

We don’t want to know about starving children, or trafficked women, or ravaged countries if hearing about such things might upset us and demand something of us. We’d rather pretend that people we dislike don’t exist than have to encounter them and see them as human. So people try to ban days like the National Day of Silence. They pass laws prohibiting the construction of mosques in their community. They, as like with what happened to a pastor friend in Wheaton, spray-paint “Go home N***” on a black family’s garage door when that family moves into a white neighborhood. Instead of trusting in God and embracing a ‘creaturely solidarity’ because of that trust, defenses against having to respond to the other are continually built up. And as Williams so rightly points out, when we refuse to even engage the other by building up ultimate defenses against them, we shut down any possibility of being convicted of our sins. If we don’t have to engage the other, then how our actions affect them are above critique. If we’d rather pretend that LGBT people do not exist then we won’t listen to (or even allow) any dialogue regarding how they are treated. But we can never fight against injustice if we refuse to admit that injustice even exists. Liberation and reconciliation will never happen in this world if we refuse to even acknowledge voices different than our own.

But this isn’t what creation is supposed to be. We do not live ultimately in a competitive world, but we live in a world where everything is a gift from God. It is only when we can acknowledge God as creator and therefore trust in God that we can stop asserting ourselves over others and refusing to responsibly and lovingly see them as part of the community of the imago-dei. I appreciated Williams’ essay for reminding me of this practical importance of our beliefs. Our theology of creation matters. Not for some silly science vs. faith debate, but because it defines our very identity and how we live communally as the body of Christ in this world.

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Cynicism and Social Change

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I’ve been having a hard time not being cynical lately. Maybe it’s the winter months and the never-ending rounds of colds they bring, but naïve idealism has been elusive of late. It’s been hard recently to see people as anything other than selfish jerks who can’t be bothered to care for anything or anyone but themselves. I know a balanced view would be healthier, but at least this cynicism has sparked some interesting conversations regarding how that inherent selfishness of people sometimes leads to a better world.

To take the most impersonal of examples – my husband Mike is working towards his PhD in church history and is currently taking a class on the Civil Rights movement the content of which he’s discussed with me. As a good little American public school student, I never once actually had a history class that managed to make it to that particular era. So while I know the cultural legends about the period (the bus boycott, Brown v. Board, “I Have a Dream” and all that), I understand little about the political undercurrents of the whole thing. The idealistic side of me can’t wrap my mind around extreme racism and wants to cheer for how the nation was able to see its own sin and repent of its evils. At least that’s the fairy tale version that we tell as an inspirational bedtime story.

But in truth selfishness played a big role in the whole thing. If not for the Cold War and the fact that most powerful Americans hated the commies more than they did people of color, most of the cultural revolution would never have occurred. America was playing the role of the defender of freedom in the post-WW2 world. We stood for truth, justice, and the American Way. We spread the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights to every corner of the globe in order that our way (and not the communist way) would win out in the end. But those pesky commies made sure to point out that in America not all people were truly free. They used segregation and racism against us to undermine the truth of our ideals. Since we couldn’t let the communists be right, we as a nation had to do something about that. Time to do something to ensure a minimum of rights for everyone regardless of the color of their skin. Sure, there were activists and idealists, but the government run system ultimately changed not because people had a change of heart but because there was a greater “evil” to be fought.

Same thing with women’s rights. Since 9/11 there has been a fascinating openness in conservative circles to speak up for certain sorts of women’s rights. Granted, feminism and equality are still bad words and submission and the stained-glass ceiling are still alive and well, but even the most complementation of folks are speaking out about the need to end female genital mutilation and sex trafficking, and about how educating women can be a good thing. I want to idealistically believe that people are waking up to the sin of sexism, but the cynical part of me believes that it is only that the majority of Americans believe we are at war with Islam and want to separate themselves as far as possible from the perceived evils of an “oppressive religion.” It’s not about women, it’s about us.

Or take Egypt. We can all tweet away that “Egypt is free” and get teary-eyed at democracy for all, but I have to wonder what would happen if it all got too close to home. When Haiti had the first successful slave revolt in 1825, the United States refused to acknowledge them as an independent nation. Why? Because recognizing a free Haiti would undermine our own economy which was built on the backs of slaves. So what if it wasn’t Egypt or Yemen that was in revolution, but China? Would we be cheering on the spread of global democracy if the potential cost of that revolution was the worldwide economy and our lives of luxury?

Do we only care about others when there is something in it for us? Will we only put our necks out for the oppressed when our own safety is on the line? I don’t know. Sometimes though it’s hard not to be cynical. I can see why the temptation to turn to the extremes of militant activism or Hauerwasian withdraw holds so much appeal for many. Faith in “thy kingdom come” is hard to sustain.

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Groupon’s Controversial Social Critique

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As posted at the God’s Politics blog –

I admit, I only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Yes, it’s crass and consumerist, but seeing how marketers decide to spend millions of dollars in an attempt to manipulate me each year holds some sort of strange appeal (twisted as it may be). One could say that it’s entertainment at its finest.

The buzz after the big game usually revolves around the commercials — the best and worst of the night, so to speak. This year all of us Gen Xers were amused and reminded of our own childhoods by Volkswagen’s “force” using kid. And the nation was stirred to sentimental working class patriotism by Chrysler’s homage to Detroit (as they sold a luxury car no working-class family could ever afford). But the award for “Most Controversial” went to Groupon’s satirical public service announcements turned coupon selling spot.

Three ads were aired which turned the celebrity charity spokesperson shtick on its head, but it is the Tibet one that has our country all in a dither. The commercial starts out portraying the people of Tibet and alludes to the cultural oppression they are facing, it then switches to a celebrity spokesperson explaining how he was able to save money at a Tibetan restaurant by purchasing a Groupon coupon. As the Groupon blog explains:

The gist of the concept is this: When groups of people act together to do something, it’s usually to help a cause. With Groupon, people act together to help themselves by getting great deals. So what if we did a parody of a celebrity-narrated, PSA-style commercial that you think is about some noble cause (such as “Save the Whales”), but then it’s revealed to actually be a passionate call to action to help yourself (as in “Save the Money”)?

Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world.

But apparently most of America didn’t quite understand the joke. The Groupon blog is full of comments from offended viewers, and Twitter and Facebook are full of posts asking people to boycott Groupon for the offensive commercials. The general response is “I’m offended that Groupon used the suffering of the people of Tibet as a way to sell coupons.”

But as I see it, most people are simply missing the point. Granted, the Super Bowl is a time when people expect to be entertained by ads, not forced to interpret social commentary. But the erudite and self-deprecatory style of mockumentary director Christopher Guest is exactly what they were given with the ad. Groupon took the basic style of American celebrity charity and showed it as the selfish act that it generally is. Charity in America is unfortunately often not an act of selfless compassion, but instead is a way for people to feel good about themselves or gain something in the act. We don’t just give money to charities; we hold expensive galas and silent auctions that reward us for our act. Politicians and celebrities earn brownie points for telling the world how much they give. Charity, for many Americans, always is an act of self-aggrandizement at the expense of suffering people.

And Groupon called us (and themselves) out on that blatant hypocrisy. In my book, it was a brilliantly done harsh critique of American culture. And America missed the point. People who would generally care less about Tibet, or who would have been offended if a political/leftist/socialist “Free Tibet” ad had been aired, are now acting all offended on behalf of Tibet. Groupon showed us that the people we should be offended at are ourselves, but that was not a criticism people were ready to hear as they stared at the screen mumbling, “Here we are now, entertain us.”

I get that Groupon, like any other business, is out to make a profit. I don’t ascribe anything near to pure motives to them in this whole controversy. They are making donations to the very causes they portrayed in their satirical ads, and at the same time are making money from those ads by selling coupons. I don’t know if their whole purpose was the controversy. As with the commercial itself, the motives involved seemed to be a multi-layered mix of commercialism, commentary, and controversy.

I can’t tell people what they should or should not be offended by, but I do think it is worth pausing a moment to consider the message of the Groupon ads. Why do we give to charity? Do we support causes for the sake of the cause or for our own sake? What are we more passionate about — helping others or helping ourselves?

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My Struggle Today

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My daughter came home from school recently with a worksheet that described life before and after Martin Luther King Jr. One side of the sheet had statements like “Before Dr. King African-American children couldn’t go to the same school as white children. Was that fair?” while the other side said “Now African-American and white children can go to school together. Is this fair?” The point was obviously an at home discussion about prejudice, but what it sparked with our daughter was a discussion about the concept of race itself.

Emma is just in kindergarten and in both preschool and kindergarten she has been one of maybe three or four white children in classes of 20-25 kids. Just going to our neighborhood grocery store or park is like attending a world cultures assembly. Needless to say, she is just used to everyone around her looking different. When she describes her friends at school, she never mentions skin color and instead differentiates her friends by the sort of hair they have. She knows and celebrates that different cultures have different holidays and types of food, but until now she has had little need to understand the construct of race.

So in discussing the world before and after Martin Luther King Jr. we had a hard time introducing her to the concept. At first we tried to explain that segregation meant that she wouldn’t have been able to be in the same school as her two closest friends (who happen to be African-American). She then wanted to know who had done something wrong to prevent them from all going to the same school. We tried to explain about skin color and race then, but she really wasn’t getting it. As far as she knows it is perfectly normal for everyone around her to have different colors of skin (and to speak with all sorts of accents), trying to explain that that didn’t used to be the case was beyond her 5 year old mind.

While I completely understand the need to teach the sins of the past so that they will not be repeated (and restitution can be made), I had to wonder if this lesson on race could do her more harm than good. If my daughter sees no reason why people would ever be different because of skin color, I don’t want to be the one explaining to her the alternative (and I completely realize here that this may be a dilemma only those in positions of cultural power wrestle with which adds a whole different dimension). As I faced this dilemma, I was reminded of the time I read her the (controversial) book And Tango Makes Three about a baby penguin that was adopted by two penguin daddies. The book that had adults all up in arms for presenting the existence of same-sex relationships to children was for her no big deal. To her a book solely about a penguin getting two daddies was boring – what others saw as extreme she accepted as normal. In that instance, I decided very quickly that I wasn’t going to try to convince her that her definition of normal wasn’t universal.

But I’m uncertain in this situation how to best guide her through these issues. I know I need to teach her truth and expose her to reality, but I don’t want to corrupt her heart by being the one to teach her about racism, bigotry, or sexism simply because I am speaking against them. I assume the evils of the world will make themselves known to her eventually, but I’d rather her think being kind and loving to all people regardless of differences is the normal way to be for as long as possible. But I am still left with days like today and school worksheets asking me to teach her about a great man by destroying what she thinks is normal. And I don’t know what to do.

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Mary’s Grammar

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as posted at The Christian Century blog –

The final exam in my theology class surprised me. Instead of complex essay questions, there was one simple question: defend the grammar of the Magnificat.

How can Mary sing that the Lord has done great things for her? It’s a little crazy: how can this young, lower-class girl who finds herself knocked up sing that God has already–in the past tense–ended injustice and oppression? All she has to do is look around her to find evidence to the contrary.

I answered the question, working in the requisite readings. But days later the question is still haunting me.

What intrigues me is the gap between what the song proclaims and how the song is commonly used. As the exam question implied, we tend to get confused about the song’s verb tense. It isn’t simply past tense, announcing the fulfillment of the eschatological vision in which rulers are brought down and the lowly are lifted up. Nor is it simply a future hope for a time when all will be made right.

Instead it’s both; it’s the already and not yet. This can be hard to understand, in part because English lacks the aorist tense. The Magnificat testifies to God’s work to reconcile all creation, work that has already begun and will continue forever. Like Mary, we are invited to be intimately involved in this work.

Mary wasn’t crazy. She was carrying the hope of the world inside her; she knew that God had entered the world in a dramatic way. This changed everything–but to accomplish the change, the hope had to be proclaimed with assurance. We don’t just place our hope in a past event or a future reward; we live into it.

When God sent Jesus to the world to reconcile all things, his incarnation and work on the cross did the job. Salvation dealt with the world’s injustices and oppressions. But as humans we could not be transformed all at once–that desire is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. God works gradually in our lives and world, helping us grow up into the hope that is already there.

Like Mary, we magnify the Lord for already overcoming injustice and oppression–and we also work to end such evils. Mary trusted so profoundly in the reality of the baby she carried that she asserted God’s fulfillment of hope in the past, present and future. Her faith challenges me to join her in magnifying God by making this hope a reality.

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Fourth Sunday of Advent 2010

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I was listening to Christmas carols the other day and one of them was asking Jesus for forgiveness for letting him be born in a manger and for being crucified. The song’s excuse was, “we didn’t know who you were.” The implication there is if we had known it was God we were doing those things to we wouldn’t have done them. I had to laugh out loud at how utterly the message of that song ignores not just the revolutionary message of Jesus, but also the unexpected subversive nature of his birth.

Jesus was not born to the elite or the powerful. He was born to an oppressed people suffering under the taxation of empire. His family was lower class. He was born in the muck and mire of a stable and laid to sleep in a feeding trough. A hero might have humble origins, but not this humble. God showed up unexpectedly (for some at least) amongst the poor. While the words Mary uttered rejoicing in the social reversal that the birth of her son inaugurates, there are still those who struggle with God showing preference to the poor.

And so they write songs saying that if they would have know it was God being born in that manger then they wouldn’t have let it happen. That sort of thing is okay for some backwater girl with a suspicious pregnancy, but apparently not for God.

Maybe we need to get past the sweet baby Jesus and listen to the words of the adult Jesus telling us that whatever we do to the least of these we do to him. It is true – a manger isn’t good enough for God. But therefore then it isn’t good enough for any of God’s children. The poor shouldn’t be left to suffer or merely survive on the leftovers and stable corners the world generally allows them to have. If we are angry about Jesus having to be born in the dingy conditions of a stable – unwanted and rejected by society, then we have better be just as upset by the fact that babies all over the world are born in similar (or worse) conditions every day. Some 20,000 women get sick from childbirth everyday – mostly from unsanitary birthing conditions and lack of access to clean water and medicine. They too are Jesus. How we treat them is how we treat Jesus.

It was unexpected when God showed up amongst the poor in that stable in Bethlehem. But what is really unexpected for most Christians today is that God continually shows up amongst the poorest of the poor all over the world today. Responding to the advent of our Lord shouldn’t end with playing with plastic nativity sets as if the unsettling reality of the event has been thoroughly domesticated. Hearing about the unexpected breaking in of God into humble conditions should not numb our souls but instead open our eyes to seeing all the places God shows up – even the unsettling and the horrifying – for God is already there.

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Sermon for Christ the King

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My sermon for Christ the King Sunday yesterday.

Lectionary Readings – Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 1:68-79

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 68-79

God has raised up for us a might savior in the house of his servant David. On this Christ the King Sunday we are reminded that the gospels announced the kingship and reign of Christ through this connection to David. For even amidst all his foibles and flaws David defined for Israel what it means to have a leader who serves the people not just in the name of God but in the way of God. We understand David through the ideal image of the king God called him to be, and we have access to what it means for Christ to be our king through the narratives told about David.

And amidst those stories of kingship that reveal to us what it means to be a king we find a somewhat surprising thread running throughout – that to be a king is to be a healer. Yes, some kings rule or conquer, but in the biblical text a king after God’s own heart is a king who heals.

Now if you are an extreme sci-fi/fantasy geek like me this idea that kings are by nature healers will come as no surprise to you. Just read some of the medieval legends or the Arthurian tales and you will repeatedly encounter the theme that the health of the people and the land depends on the king. If the king is wounded or not serving the land as needed, his country becomes a wasteland that can only be healed by the king choosing the right path.

I think the story of king as healer is probably most well known as it is presented in the Lord of the Rings through the tale of Elessar. It’s a story that I found so meaningful that I actually gave my son the middle name Elessar (I did mention that I am a huge fantasy geek, right?). If you don’t remember the story, in Middle Earth during the period the books describe there was no king of men and the land around Gondor had become a wasteland. Aragorn was the rightful heir to that throne and the tale is in part about the return of the king to heal the land. Interestingly, all throughout the stories we see Aragorn healing others. He has knowledge of herbs for healing, and constantly presses people to restore the use of the lost healing herb (the aptly named) Kingsfoil. It is in fact his use of this herb in the houses of healing that allows the old and the wise people of the land to recognize that the king has in fact returned. It is simply part of his nature to heal. To that end the elves in the world gave him the name Elessar, which is also the name he uses once he becomes King. The term elessar actually refers to a green jewel (in a ring of course) that contained the light of the sun. Anyone who looked through the stone would see things that were withered or burned healed again, and anyone who wore it would bring healing to whatever they touched. The person who had the right to wear the stone is also referred to as the elessar – in other words, a healer. But the idea behind this type of healer is not just one who can heal physical wounds, but one who can look at any person or situation and see the good underneath. The healing occurs by the elessar being able to see things as they should be (not as they are) and bring forth that inherent good in people and in the world. I personally loved that concept and so gave my son that name, praying that he could be (to use another Lord of the Rings quote) one of those people who see that “there’s good in this world and it’s worth fighting for.”

But this concept of the king as the one who heals the world has its roots in the biblical conception of King. The world is not as it should be and it is to the king that one should look to make things right. In the tales of David we often hear of him presented as one who has the ability to heal troubled situations and calm tormented hearts. As a young man he was the one called into play the lyre for King Saul whenever Saul was troubled – David’s presence and song would bring healing.

It was this memory of a good king being one who can heal that prompted people when they encountered Jesus to refer to his position as an heir of David when they came to him for healing. For instance, once when Jesus was leaving Jericho two blind men shouted out to him “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David” and Jesus healed them. Or when the Canaanite woman approached Jesus to beg him to deliver her daughter from a demon she too asked “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.” The people knew that to be a king in the royal line of David was to be a healer.

The passage in Jeremiah today states, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Jesus was the ideal king that David served as prototype for. I think though we can often get bogged down in trying to understand our idea of a king as one who rules and dominates alongside our other conceptions of Jesus as one who brings love and justice. For me though it is in remembering that to be a king is to be a healer that helps reconcile the two. For what our hurting world needs now is not fear and dominion, but healing. When people in Haiti are still living in tent cities amidst the rubble of the earthquake, being flooded by recent storms, starving because they have no food, and falling ill to cholera – there is serious healing that needs to be done.

To celebrate the reign of Christ means to embrace the mission of Christ our King to heal the world. It means not being afraid to put an end to injustice no matter how uncomfortable or counter-cultural it may feel. It means letting Christ reign in our hearts in ways that push us out beyond ourselves into the place where we are full of compassion for others. It means ensuring that the world around us is not a wasteland plagued with the horrors of sex trafficking, or child labor, or abusive sweatshops, or environmental degradation. It means joining in on this work of healing – of recognizing that there is some good in this world and it is worth fighting for.

It means being like the people at International Justice Mission who not only rescue women and children out of slavery and bonded labor, but who work to help them build new lives. They heal the whole person. It means being like the groups that instead of seeing immigration as a divisive wedge, see it as an opportunity to help people by eliminating the need for people to flee to another country so that they can help their family survive. So they start fair trade companies that treat people with dignity and respect and allow them to live with their families farming their own lands. They heal the root causes not just the symptoms. It means responding to places in this world where fear and extremism have taken hold, not with more fear and extremism, but with offers of healing. With microloans that help people provide for their families and schools for children so that people will no longer have to turn to just the extremist for the basic necessities of life. We can choose to heal a culture instead of destroy it. We can join in with the work of the king who executes justice in the land through these healing acts.

Christ the King is a healer. To be part of his kingdom where all things are being reconciled through him is an invitation to join in on this work of healing the world. So as we acknowledge the reign of Christ today, I encourage you to reflect on what it means to serve not a king who dominates or conquers, but a king whose heart yearns for the healing of the land and who desires us as faithful subjects of his kingdom to join in on that mission. For in acknowledging the reign of Christ our healer we can help justice flow out to all.

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Harry Potter and Social Justice

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Seeking justice for the oppressed. Working to end the connection of child slavery to chocolate. Helping heal a devastated Haiti. Mobilizing young people to respond to a story of redemption by imaginatively working to build a better world. I think many of us Christians would hope that those words were describing the work of the body of Christ intent on following the path of Jesus Christ in this world. In this case, they are actually descriptions of the Harry Potter Alliance. That’s right – the Harry Potter Alliance.

Since 2005 the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) has existed as a non-profit organization intent on using the weapon of love (and a common affinity for Harry Potter) to combat the dark arts of our world. As their mission statement states, they use “parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward issues of literacy, equality, and human rights. Our mission is to empower our members to act like the heroes that they love by acting for a better world.” And it’s working. With over 100,000 members and nearly 60 chapters worldwide, this real world gathering of Dumbledore’s Army is making a difference.

Like in the case of chocolate’s connections to child slavery and unfair wages. In the Harry Potter books Hermione Granger discovers that the food served at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is made by house elves (unpaid servants) and so she organizes a campaign for their fair treatment. The HPA responded similarly by asking Time Warner, the parent company that markets all Harry Potter merchandise, to switch the chocolate used in that merchandise to Fair Trade Chocolate. They want no chocolate made in the name of the boy who used love to save the world to support systems of injustice like child slavery.

Then between November 2010 and July 2011 (the time between the release of parts 1 and 2 of the final movie, the group is launching the Deathly Hallows Campaign. During that time in the films Harry will be seeking to destroy horcruxes (objects of dark magic representing evil and death) and so as a group the HPA is campaigning to put an end to 7 real world horcruxes (injustices). The destruction of the “Starvation Wages Horcrux” which is the injustice related to the production of chocolate is their first mission.

I personally find this endeavor fascinating. I applaud the mobilization of young people to acts of justice. The political climate in America these days is eerily similar to the totalitarian government J.K. Rowling presents in some of her books. Harry knows there is evil out there in the world and does whatever he can to raise awareness about it and do what he can to fight it. Yet the government power structures, the media, and even teachers mock him for his passion and punish him for trying to build a better world. They say he is the real problem – stirring up fear and trouble when if he would just accept the status quo all would be well. Harry, thankfully, never listened to such lies, so I am encouraged that the HPA is following in Harry’s footsteps by not being frightened away from seeking justice by similar groups in our world.

At the same time, it would be dishonest if I didn’t mention that as a Christian I didn’t know how to respond to this group at first. Not that I in any way oppose their purpose or am one of those people who think Harry Potter is satanic or something. But Harry Potter is a story of redemption, skirting close to even being a Christian allegory (I won’t include spoilers here, but I posted about it here — On Sacrifice, Repentance, and King’s Cross Station). I seek social justice because I believe in the sacrificial act of love Jesus displayed on the cross. God loves the world enough to redeem us through that love and I cannot help by responding by joining in on that never-ending project of reconciliation. This response to sacrificial love by seeking a better world is exactly what the HPA is doing.

When I first encountered them, I momentarily wondered why they just weren’t Christians since they seem to be responding to a re-telling of the Christian story. But then I realize that I was acting just like Voldemort (or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when he dismissed the muggle children celebrating Halloween as being caught up in the “trappings of a world in which they do not believe.” I had sadly slipped into the totalizing stance of thinking that everyone should think like me. But I believe in the good of redemption and reconciliation in whatever form it takes. Justice is justice and good is good wherever it may be found. The more people that can use love to seek a better world the better. Call ourselves the DA (Dumbledore’s Army) or the citizens of the Kingdom; we are working for the same goal.

I love the Harry Potter books. They are fantastic storytelling and one of our few modern myths. I can think of no better legacy for this story than this mobilization for justice. In truth we have no weapon but love and as we all know – in the end, love wins.

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