"They Stopped Their Ears"

But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. (Acts 8:54-57).

The story is about St. Stephen, who had just finished an eloquent defense of the Christian faith with some harsh words for his audience—and a vision of the glorified Jesus. Apparently it was too much for the crowd, and they reacted just like…

Well, just like us.

This seems to be the procedure in 21^st-century America. If you don’t like someone’s point of view, stop your ears. Express your opinion more loudly. In extreme cases, respond with violence.

It’s reprehensible. It’s no way to create a better world. And if you’re like me, you want to blame the people on the “other side” of the political or religious spectrum for this state of affairs.

I don’t think it’s just “them.”

I have several old friends who fall into the “them” camp. When I prepare to see them again, my mind dredges up every theological argument I can find to bolster my position, whatever the issue.

But why? Maybe my friends have changed, and we can talk civilly about issues that once inflamed us. Maybe the issues won’t come up. Maybe they’re just visiting because they want to see their old friends. Why can’t I just accept them as they are?

Hospitality, that bedrock Benedictine value, demands that I do. How can I receive someone as Christ if I’m expending all my energy thwarting imaginary arguments?

May God grant us the ability to keep our ears open, our voices quiet and our hearts attuned to the other—for it is through the other that God so often comes to us.

Speaking Evangelical

I wonder whether one of the evangelical movement’s greatest strengths is also its greatest weakness.

A recent visit by our new bishop brought this to mind. His sermon touched on the fundamentals of faith: the need for repentance, the love of God, the importance of prayer and Bible study. He expressed himself in very simple, unadorned, forthright language.

That’s the strength. Evangelical language has a way of cutting through the clutter. There is a back-to-basics feel about it that those of us who “think too much” can probably use from time to time. And have used: when asked to sum up his towering theology in one sentence, Karl Barth is reputed to have said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

However…

As my sister-in-law says, “Words mean things.” Language clearly shapes our outlook. When you use simple language exclusively, it’s easy to start thinking that the whole world is simple.

Of course, it’s not. And that’s the limitation I’m seeing in evangelical language: it doesn’t seem to have the depth or complexity to address life’s gray matters and thornier issues. Like whether there’s a middle ground between biblical literalism and total disregard of the scriptures. Like how God can love everyone unconditionally and yet (seemingly) require a response before extending his mercy. Those issues call for more nuance, more subtlety, more complexity in one’s vocabulary.

Maybe that goes back to yet another simple aphorism: if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Lord help us to fill out our toolbox.

If You Want Peace, Work for...

“If you want peace, work for justice,” says the bumper sticker. The religion section in last Saturday’s Times Union suggested another route—and it is dangerous.

Two articles in particular delivered the message:

• A column by Laurene C. O’Brien calling us not to demonize child molesters. While stressing the critical need to protect children, she writes, “If we give in to basic vengeful feelings and allow such offenders to become easy targets and modern-day lepers, we risk unleashing hatred and disgust. Such unchecked attitudes have the power to debase us all.”
• A profile of Virginia Miller and her involvement in Dances of Universal Peace, a group that expresses “the unity found behind all religions” through sacred movement in song. “It is an interfaith event,” she says, “and helps us gain knowledge of other religions as well as of our own religion.”
  

There’s no question that peace without justice is a chimera. Yet maybe the first step toward peace isn’t justice so much as compassion. Or simple openness: if I can let down my guard, even for a minute, and honestly look at the “other side” as a human being—with, surprise, many of the same dreams and cares I have—how can compassion not creep in? And if I start feeling compassion for this person, why would I want to wage war against her?

It sounds all so lovely and sunny and beautiful, but actually it’s fraught with danger. If I let my guard down, I can get wounded, perhaps mortally. (Ask any resident of Baghdad.) If I honestly look at the “other side,” it could disrupt—even overhaul—the whole infrastructure of my belief.

Even worse, I may start to have compassion for some very unpopular people. Jesus came under heavy fire for hanging out with “tax collectors and sinners.” Urging compassion for child molesters, or suspected terrorists, or avowed racists can do the same.

Maybe the key word in that bumper sticker is work. More than anything else, opening oneself to others is a discipline that requires constant practice. And it starts with opening oneself to God, who has the power to transform us into instruments of compassion—even as he can turn our lives upside down.

But if the end is peace—not the absence of war, but true shalom­—might the work be worth it?

The Forces That Move Us

A woman in Baghdad just can’t leave home. Abstinence-only programs are failing. People still worship, centuries after the Age of Reason.

What’s happening here?

A story in Tuesday’s newspapers recounts the life—and ultimately, the flight—of an Iraqi journalist. She tells of getting married a year ago, having a daughter, decorating a home of her own on a suburban Baghdad street. Slowly but surely, Iraq’s pervasive violence crept closer to her neighborhood. She and her husband moved temporarily to her in-laws’ home for safety reasons. And then,

Two days later, a car bomb exploded on our street. It blew out every window in our home. A chunk of the bomber’s car landed in our garage. And still we returned to our home.

And still we returned to our home.

South Africa, according to a monk at Mariya uMama weThemba, is deeply ambivalent about the issue of sex. On the one hand, the country’s AIDS rate is the highest in the world. On the other, pregnancy for young women is often celebrated as a sign of fertility—a trait our forebears have honored for millennia.

Home. Sex. Child bearing. In our highly mobile, “reasonable” Western world, I think we underestimate just how overwhelming—how tidal—these drives are. We also forget that they’re essentially good. The pull toward home perpetuates community. The hunger for sex binds us together while keeping the species alive. Child bearing (and rearing) preserves our sense of family.

The other side of being human, of course, is that we don’t always follow those drives indiscriminately. Ideally, we channel them toward the greater good. But their sheer force means that those who try to thwart them simplistically—think abstinence-only policies—may well doom their efforts to failure.

Then there’s the hunger for God. Two centuries after the Enlightenment, you might think reason would have driven religion to extinction. And yet billions of us will not, cannot, endure life without worship.

As you may have noticed, all the aforementioned drives hover around one even more fundamental imperative: connection—to home, family, neighbor. It is the connection at the very heart of God: the whole idea of the Trinity (and, perhaps, its complement in Hinduism) speaks directly to connection, to community. And as it does, it reflects the connection that, from Genesis to Revelation to 2006, God so ardently desires with all of us.