ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
May 19, 2022
Where is your next step in faith? This is a question I started asking myself a few days ago as I was asking someone else, “Where is your growing edge in your spiritual life?” That’s a line I have used for nearly 20 years, but as the words slipped out of my mouth, I found them coming back on me. There are areas of interest, but am I giving quality time to grow in those areas? Am I studying what I need to be studying, listening to and reading the words of those whose message I need to hear? A few years back, I made the intentional decision to read and listen to more personal stories from people of color. I was pretty good with it for 12-14 months, and then my intentionality began to wane.
After the racist violence in Buffalo, I feel as if nothing has changed in our country in the last decade, except for the intensification of the hatred and the acceptance of this hatred in the mainstream. And because there has been very little change within me, am I a part of the problem? People have once again called the shooter evil, but that is a tool used by those who wish to distance themselves from the problem. I have heard people say, “He was just evil incarnate and there is nothing we can do about it.” I know I’ll have a few people disagree, but I do not believe individuals are evil. Individuals commit crimes, make sinful and destructive choices, but evil is the term associated with the systems (powers and principalities, as scripture calls them) that encourage and facilitate acts that rip apart the self, relationships, community and creation. Evil won’t go away with one or two people changing their ways. Evil is woven into the structures of society in ways we do not even recognize because, in-part, it has existed there long before we were even born. We’ve accepted its presence, even benefited at times. And then we no longer want to talk about this evil because, as some people say, it makes them feel bad. That’s all well and good if 18 year olds were not killing our black brothers and sisters because these young men were brainwashed by a systemic evil that preyed upon their insecurities. Evil loves to use fear, and it uses it well.
Where is your next step in faith? Is it to say, “Well, here’s another bad apple, but it’s not my problem”? Is it to say, “I’m not a racist, so I’m not at fault”? Is it to say, “I’m uncomfortable discussing these issues, so I’m going to make it more difficult for others to discuss them”? Or is it a step in faith to ask the really hard and uncomfortable questions about how an 18 year old, who was born with the image of God, could be filled with such unholy vitriol. It includes discernment, confession, repentance and the work of reconciliation. And maybe what I’ve written here is sort of that discernment and confession for me personally. Maybe it’s my next step in faith.
Forgive us, Merciful God, where we have ignored or even encouraged the evil intertwined in much of our daily lives. We don’t always see how it employs us to sever the goodness you bestowed upon your creation. Guide us into the fullness of life, a life that requires reconciliation and peace within us as individuals, in the relationships we have, and in the systems in which we live. Amen.
