We live in a hyper-ideologized age. The inner circles of both “us” and “them” are getting smaller and smaller. The world is increasingly polarized, partisan, fundamentalist. Or at least it seems so. There are forces—including algorithms—at work, teaching us to think in “us” versus “them” frames.
If someone is in an abusive relationship, are they to forgive their abuser? If someone is actively and repeatedly harming us, are we to forgive them? If this theological-ethical conundrum gives you pause, you are not alone.
The tendency to shy away from difficult interpretations not only renders Scripture less impactful but also dilutes the lived experiences of those who confront these realities daily and seek to make meaning of what is happening to them.
Saving ourselves is not about creating an escapist bubble of churchly naivety while the world crumbles around us…
The world is impossibly complex now, and will only continue to be so. We must learn to adapt to this complexity, to dance with it and to allow it to be what it is.
Those of us who weep with Mary also hear the assignment she was given–to turn to her community and remind them of the unconquerable truth of God’s love.
Palm Sunday confronts every community that confesses Christ. The king who enters Jerusalem does not resemble the rulers people had learned to recognize. He does not arrive with armies or weapons. Instead, he embodies a kingdom grounded in humility, service, and reconciliation.
If the words of Paul sound harsh, it is because they are–and I am glad that they are. To those who treat other people as bottomless vessels for pain, Paul delivers these rebukes: “This is not lawful. This does not please God. Christ is not in this.”
By dealing death on dark life, whiteness and white supremacy reveals itself dangerously asleep, and so liable to divine judgment. Black life, alternatively, is already “awake” with the illumination of a future reality in which the dead things are brought back to life.
If God reconciled us while we were still enemies, how should Christians view and speak about those they consider their enemies?
God’s love nullifies every hierarchy based on ancestry and ethnicity, since birth does not determine status in the eyes of God. With equal measure it rejects the idea that some are above accountability and some do not deserve justice.
Even with mounting evil and manipulative tactics to conceal evil, Lent reminds us that in order to fight death, our weapons must be truth and justice.