The Sin of the World

Photo by Jmarchn  Wikimedia Commons

This Lenten season I find I am challenged to look at sin, not just my own, but the Sin of the World. It is awful and I desperately want to turn my gaze away from it. It is a knowledge and awareness that disturbs my peace.  In modern literature, few people crystalize this awareness better than author Stephen King, in the agony of condemned prisoner John Coffey:

"Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world...every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head...all the time." 

To see “Sin of the World” is to see its oppression, its racism, its misogyny, its hatred, its cruelty. Distilled to a single word: its dehumanization. It is like the Medusa. Once you see it, truly see it, it changes you irrevocably. The full weight of it is a burden that is too much for any one person to bear. Even the Son of God, who “takes away the Sin of the World” (John 1:29), needed others to help him carry the weight of it in the Garden (Mark 14:34) and while carrying the cross on the Via-Dolarosa (Matthew 27:32).

I submit that the Sin of the World is the desecration of God's Image (Imago Dei) in other human beings. To desecrate what is human is to desecrate the Image of God. At the Crucifixion, that desecration was on full display. Most of us have been taught that Jesus dealt with the Sin of the World by dying on the cross, in our place. We have had that idea in our heads for a long time, yet it seems to have changed very few of us. We ignore the Gospel narrative that Jesus confronted the Sin of the World by challenging its dehumanization. He did so by re-humanizing those he encountered.

The man with leprosy. Peter’s mother-in-law. The demon-possessed men. Matthew. The sick women who spent all she had, whom Jesus not only saw, but called “daughter”. The man with a shriveled hand. The crowds he had compassion on to heal and feed.  Zaccheus. The woman at the well. The “sinners” and tax collectors with whom he ate. Finally, as Jesus was dying on the cross, he saw his mother Mary, a widow who was about to lose her son. Looking at John, Jesus said “here is your Son” and to John he said “here is your Mother”. In that poignant scene, Jesus saw not only those closest to him, but he saw their distress and accounted for it. He could not alleviate the grief of his mother, but he saw to it that she was cared for.

In each case, Jesus truly saw people. He took notice of their existence and their plight. Jesus rehumanized them. He showed us “a new self, renewed in knowledge of the Image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10). He healed our blindness. He restored our ability to see God’s image in others.

Jesus was God’s “Yes” to Cain’s question:

"And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” Cain answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” "—Genesis 4:9

Cain’s nonchalant answer reflected his indifference to his brother's murder. Whatever happened to Abel, it was no concern of Cain’s. Indifference and dehumanization go hand-in-hand, because if we don’t reckon someone as human, we don’t care if they live or die:

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." —Eli Wiesel

The Scripture says that the blood of even one human being does not lay silent:

"Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!"—Genesis 4:10

If that is so, then the blood-soaked soil of the Earth, watered by countless murders, wars, and genocides, must scream to the ends of the universe. If any of us, who claim to know God, cannot sense God's grief at the sound of that cry, that scream, then can we really say we know God at all? Has not indifference to human suffering made us indifferent to God?

Dehumanization is desecration of that which is holy, God’s image in human beings. Once we have trampled that sacred representation of God’s image, our religious proclivities will demand a new object of worship. In America that object is wealth. My father used to say “money is god” here in the States and he was right. The wealthiest people in America are highly visible. The wealthy are revered by the media, the political establishment, and religion. It is no accident that the US spawned the "Prosperity Gospel". In such a system, wealth is the most visible sign of success and holiness, whereas poverty signifies failure and sinfulness. Poverty renders the poor invisible:

"If anyone wants to make himself invisible, there is no surer way than to become poor." —Simone Weil

The only answer to the Sin of the World is to have our sight restored:

"As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” " —Mark 10:46-51

It would seem an odd question, to ask a blind man what he wanted after he had cried out for mercy. What mercy could he have possibly wanted other than to see? Perhaps it was the mercy of being seen. His blindness, his inability to navigate the world, had reduced him to begging, but also made him poor and hence, in this world, invisible. He not only couldn't see, he was not seen. It is not hard to imagine that countless people stepped over or around him as they scurried about their daily business.

It might be that our redemption from the Sin of the World, the redemption that enables us to see, is the redemption that enables us to be seen. Human vision is not a one-way street when it comes to other human beings. "Human beings strike echoes in each other." (James Baldwin). When we look each other in the eye and recognize each other as human, it creates a resonance:

"When we receive and empathize with the face of the other (especially the suffering face), it leads to transformation of our whole being. It creates a moral demand on our heart that is far more compelling than the Ten Commandments." —Fr Richard Rohr

I surmise that we shrink back from the cure of our blindness because it keeps us in a state of faux innocence:

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster" —James Baldwin

That may see harsh, but indifference is a form of nihilism. To remain in darkness is to remain in

"the blindness of a world that wants to end itself" — Thomas Merton

To be cured of our blindness means we accept God's "Yes" to Cain's question. We become responsible for our brothers' and our sisters' well-being. It means our prayers become a cry to Jesus, "Rabbi, I want to see!" It means we enact (live out) our faith by turning our gaze towards our fellow human beings in their distress and suffering. It means we look each other in the eye. This takes conscious effort, an effort that in Lent could be considered a penance. Perhaps the best answer to the question, "what are you giving up for Lent?" could be "I am giving up looking to myself, my image in the mirror, and I will look to others in their suffering, in the hope that we will see each other, and see in each other, the face of Christ and God's Image."

A Journey of Faith into Politics

My first vague awareness of politics was November of 1963. I was sent home early from school. All I knew was that something bad had happened. When I got home, the news of the JFK assassination was playing on all the major networks. While I didn't understand the gravity of the event, the solemnity lingered.

I don't remember growing up in a particularly political household but it was a union household. I remember going to union picnics. I remember going to the plant where my dad worked when there was a strike. I didn't know why he was on strike. As I got older, I learned the issue was health care. I remember that my dad was frequently laid off. My other distinct memory of those times were the green painted walls of the Michigan Employment Security Commission. No mailed checks or electronic deposits back then. You went and you waited. All day. My mother worked, so I had to go. I don't recall how I passed the time. I might have brought a book. Or stared at the drab green walls. As a child, I did not understand the intersectional relationship of unions, economic justice, and politics.

I lived in Detroit in 1967 when the city exploded in violence and flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning wood. National Guard personnel carriers drove down my street while helicopters flew overhead. When the riots were over, for-sale signs sprouted up and down our street. We moved to an adjacent suburb. Meanwhile, images of Vietnam flashed across the evening news. I had a growing awareness of politics and how it might affect me directly. In 1968 I had a hope, an idealism that men like MLK and RFK would lead to a better, more hopeful future. Their assassinations were a gut punch to me. I was totally undone.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household either. My maternal grandparents made sure I was raised Catholic. I grew up going to Mass, Catechism, and Confession. I learned the creeds, the Commandments, and the Stations of the Cross. I was confirmed when I was 10 years old. As I grew into my teen years, I drifted away from the Catholic Church. Just before I turned 20, I had an Evangelical conversion experience. I met my wife in church and for the next 30 years we attended various Evangelical churches together. For most of those years, I focused on trying to balance work, family life, and church. The church we married in went though periods of turmoil with two pastors leaving in quick succession. That sent us on our spiritual road trip through a number of churches. Each change was made in the hope of finding a church where there was true grace and acceptance. Each expectation was met by disappointment.

The last church we attended was the smaller plant of a larger church. We were attracted because of the small church's outreach into the community and its acceptance of people who did not traditionally attend the denomination: homeless, alcoholics, addicts, single moms, and people of color. We threw ourselves into the work. For a time all was good, but trouble was brewing. A number of people were uncomfortable with the new direction the church was taking and with the associate minister who was leading the charge. Ultimately he was driven out. The church went back to its old ways. In the end, we left.

This led me to deconstruct my faith. I did not lose my faith, but I had to understand how faith, if it was valid at all, would lead me to live in the world. Specifically, what did the words of Jesus mean for me today and how was I to follow his teachings? While groping in the darkness I chanced to start reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer. Mother Teresa. and Dorothy Day. Each of these people brought me back to the Gospels, the "red letters", the words of Jesus. This was my pivot into a different understanding of faith, a faith lived out. Along the way I found and joined a team of believers who formed a non-profit providing semi-independent housing to young people transitioning out of foster care. I became a mentor, tutor, and driving instructor to young men in the program.

I began to understand that the lot of the poor was not because they were not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." I learned that some people don't even have "boot straps" to pull themselves up by. I learned what generational poverty does to people and how hard it is to break out of the cycle.  I also learned that poverty is entrenched by systemic factors: red-lining, inadequate schooling, poisoned water, a dearth of financial services, and lack of transportation. On top of all this, predatory capitalism swoops in like a vulture into poor neighborhoods and entraps people.  Payday loans, exorbitant auto financing, and overpriced insurance to extract the last drop of life out of people for profit. I learned that a lot of this was the product of public policy and that could only be changed through the political process.

Engaging politics would force me to take sides. Up to this point, I could remain publicly apolitical. Church life did not encourage open political advocacy, except to always vote for the "pro-life" candidate. Nearly all the sermons had to do with personal piety and "getting right with God", but only personally and spiritually. Rarely, if ever, did I hear systemic injustices addressed. At most, I might be encouraged to give and participate in a charity, to, in MLK's words, "fling a coin at a beggar" but not critically examine the system that produced beggars. Moreover I was living a relatively comfortable life, so why take sides? Then 2016 happened.

A man was nominated by his party and ultimately elected as President who was an anathema to my growing awareness of systemic injustice. He based his campaign on oppressing the marginalized even more than they were oppressed already. I was stunned. How could the political process allow a man like this to become President? Then it occurred to me: I wasn't participating in the process! I had allowed my relatively comfortable life to lull me into apathy. I barely knew what congressional district I lived in, much less my state house and senate districts.

In early 2017 we knew we needed to do something, but were unsure what was to be done. We walked in our first MLK Day march, our first political rally ever, in the bitter January cold. We met some nice, like-minded people in the church we gathered in to warm up, but were unsure what good our action did. We didn't see any press. Besides ourselves, who knew what statement we were making?

Meanwhile we learned about a new organization that was forming in response to the new political reality: Indivisible. We read their brochure. A chapter formed in a nearby town and we joined it. We were encouraged to see that, contrary to what we believed, this very red district had other like-minded people. We learned how politics leads to policy, how to take meaningful action, and how action changes political realities.

In 2017, the GOP controlled congress was trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. Our congressman, who we later learned had cashed in on foreclosures in private life, opposed the ACA, despite the wishes of his constituents. We started calling and writing letters, the first time we ever tried to communicate with our representative. Indivisible and other organizations made themselves heard at his office. Ultimately he decided to retire. In time, a number of candidates threw their hat in the ring to run for the newly vacated seat. We attended our Congressional district's candidate forum. We threw our support behind a promising candidate who helped save the industry I worked in. I signed up to run as a Democratic Precinct Delegate. In the primary election, I won my first elected office! Shortly after that, I attended my first state-wide political convention. We hosted canvassing drives out of our home and knocked on doors. Our congressional candidate won! Not all the candidates down-ballot won, but we moved the needle. We began to see the effect of involvement.

My faith journey took me into politics because I came to understand the primacy of Jesus teaching:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 Matthew 25:35-40

In this passage, Jesus taught that any good I would do for another human being, I have done for Him. I also learned that any good I could accomplish on an individual basis was limited. To do any real good for many people, a change in policy and governance was required. I must advocate for people who will advocate for others. A failure to do so leaves people at the mercy of evil men: 

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” 

Plato

So I have become a card-carrying member of the Democratic party. I admit that I am a contingent Democrat. I am not a natural-born politician or loyalist. Nevertheless, as long as Democrats remain an advocate for working people, the sick, the poor, the aged, people of color, LGBTQ, and refugees, I will remain a member. Some who know me from conservative church circles will see this as a denial of my faith. I see it as a living out of my faith. I used to be blind, color-blind that is, and now I see....the "red letters" of Jesus' words.

A Gospel of Which I am not Ashamed

Periodically, I am challenged to "like", "honk" or otherwise acknowledge that I "am not ashamed of the Gospel" (St. Paul's quote). As I thought about it, I realized I might just be ashamed of the Gospel. So what exactly is the "Good News" I should not be ashamed of? Was it the Evangelical "Roman Road"? Getting people to "accept Jesus"? Or were these classical definitions in fact not the good news at all? Perhaps these definitions represented religious ideology.  Was faith was reduced to a past sacrament or agreeing to a list of assertions? The definition of the "Gospel" was critically important to answering this question. Whether or not it was "good news" depends upon how it would be received by its' hearers.

Is it good news only to those with wealth, status, or those of a certain ethnicity? Is it more about being right rather than compassionate?  Is it about hate rather than love? Is it concerned about being "left behind", but not about those being left behind by inequality and injustice? Is is about the Kingdom of God in the here and now and not just in heaven?

In Evangelli Gaudium, Pope Francis described a Gospel which is indeed "good news." It is a message that can be claimed by all Christians. Moreover, it is accessible to everyone. It expresses the full scope of the Gospel to meet all human needs, emotional, physical,  and spiritual. It is the Gospel that I have been looking for and longing to hear expressed so clearly.

Evangelli Gaudium is a scathing criticism of the current economic order where the preeminence of finance, profit, and trade are assumed. Destructive side effects are accepted without question. It is a system of economic Darwinism that knows only the survival of the fittest and destruction of the weak as the cost of doing business. A human person is only a consumer or producer, an object to be discarded when they are of no further value. It is a system that American believers bought in too easily; it was a system that I had accepted too readily.

The Gospel, the "Good News" that Jesus' disciples were instructed to share was the nearness of the Kingdom! The proclamation to the people was that the "Kingdom of God is Near". It was embodied. First by Jesus himself. Then by his disciples. The message was not a definition of the Kingdom; it was the presence of the Kingdom! Embodied first in Jesus, then by His disciples, and ultimately those of us who have chosen to be His followers.

A Gospel of which I am not ashamed, thereby one I can be "proud" of, is one that is embodied. It is made near by my presence as I follow Christ. It must be radically inclusive, radically accepting, and radically gracious. Since I cannot be perfect, it must be radically honest, quick to accept the blame for failure, and even quicker to apologize and ask for forgiveness. Since others cannot be perfect, it must readily accept that imperfection, whether accompanied by an apology or not. It must forgive because people do not realize what they are doing. It must manifest love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. It must be radically generous. That is the Gospel of which I am not ashamed.