Back in January I wrote a post about the suicide death of the sister of a co-worker. That particular death struck hard at my heart and mind. I shared my anger about it. Why this death? A person I never met. I still hurts to think about it.
I’ve realized that my anger wasn’t/isn’t directed at the single loss of innocent life. It isn’t even about the feelings of loneliness and desolation that ended in this final act of desperation.
I wrote a second post about the I call the “Human Condition.” In that I argued that the question of theodicy, or why a all powerful and loving God can allow evil to remain in the world. I stated that what we call “evil” is simply the Human Condition that our species has always lived in. Deal with it.
Today I want wrap this topic up. I want to define the anger that I felt then, and continue to feel now. I will expose the ultimate object of my anger.
But, first a short digression about God’s actions, or inaction. The story that the Bible tells reveals the way in which God chose to deal with the Human Condition. It describes the condition in terms of sin and disobedience. Although, I think disobedience is simply a result of the Human Condition. Anyway, it seems that God wanted to identify for us what we were dealing with. An all powerful drive toward, well, self-destruction. Through war, greed, poverty, seeking power, and all sorts of mean, nasty things that humanity perpetrated on itself and the world, God pointed out our inability to do much, if anything, to change that.
Enter Messiah Jesus. The Gospel story tells us how God changed the trajectory of humanity. Through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Messiah God, somehow, destroyed what the Bible calls the Power of Sin and Death. These, according to the text, are the driving force behind the Human Condition. In doing this God also created a community. Some call it the Church or the Body of Christ or whatever. Jesus in the Gospels, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, described life in this community, or the Kingdom of God. This community has trusted in Messiah Jesus. It accepts and proclaims the resurrection of Jesus. It lives in selfless service to one another and the world at large.
Until it doesn’t.
And, it hasn’t since its birth. This community of faith continues to struggle within the Human Condition rather that to be a voice of hope. That it should offer an alternative to that litany of mean, nasty things I mentioned earlier. We, and I mean “We,” have more than dropped the ball. We intentionally kicked it into the woods and walked away. The mandate the Jesus gave us on the night that He was betrayed was, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. I have loved you in order that you also love one another,” (John 13:34, my paraphrase). The Church, at least the variety that I spent more than 30 years in, has looked at this verse and said, “Ok. I can love my sisters and brothers just fine, thank you. That doesn’t mean that I have to love those foul vermin on the outside, right?”
Wrong.
Jesus never limited His love to those inside the club. In fact, He reserved some of His most cutting condemnation on them. Yet, we still keep our eyes firmly on our collective navels and clutch our pearls so tightly that we nearly choke ourselves when someone on the ‘outside’ tries to knock on the door.
This, my dear readers, is the definition of Failure! I don’t care if we discuss the fundagelical world that I escaped, the Roman Church, the Episcopal Church, or any other incarnation of Orthodox or protestant ‘Members Only’ club out there. We have ALL failed! Period! End of discussion!
My heart is genuinely broken at the loss of my co-worker’s sister. The loss to her family is greater than I can imagine.
And, I am angry at the Systems that backed this beautiful, young person into a corner that she could not escape.
My true anger is directed at the Church. Where were we when this girl needed help? I know, we can all say that unless she asked, what were we supposed to do? (Shrug.) That’s not the point. My emotions run hot about this because the Church has been neutered. By it’s own doing! Our voice has been silenced because we have chosen to follow the and embrace THE VERY SYSTEMS THAT ARE KILLING PEOPLE!!! How can we claim to be a voice of hope in a hopeless world when we, ourselves, are hopeless? How are people to know that the Church is here for them unless we prove trustworthy? Unless we have shown by our love and praxis that they can come to us when they are in need?
I don’t know. I’m ranting. But, that’s what I’m good at. Sue me.
If we don’t embrace our calling as a Peculiar People who stand with the people of the world and against the Powers that Be, we are above all people to be pitied. For, then, we prove that we have truly lost our way.