06.19.2020
Well!
Both usages are appropriate.
- This week brought some surprising news after three months of steadily distressing news about our nation’s physical and social health.
- And the news is about positive health — wellness — socially and physically.
New York now has one of the lowest infection rates in the country for Covid-19, after a harrowing ten weeks during which more than a thousand people died each day from the disease.
And the U.S. Supreme Court decided that LGBTQ people have the same right to employment free from discrimination as the rest of us, then followed up by finding the attempt to deport “dreamers” is illegal under the Constitution.
Most folks agree that the news from New York is definitely “good.”
Unfortunately, not everybody calls the Supreme Court decisions “good news.” Even more unfortunately, some folks who claim to be following Christ call the decision about LGBTQ rights to fair treatment in the workplace, “bad news.”
One modestly known “Christian leader” even took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to whine about how the decision restricts his right to worship the way he wants to.
The first question that comes to my mind is, what aspect of his worship treats (or wants to treat) people who are different than he is as somehow less than he is? Are they less human? Are they less religious? Are they less deserving? Are they less worthy? Are they less entitled? They must be less something because he evidently believes they don’t have the same rights to fair treatment that he does.
His own Bible says that God created everything and pronounced it “good.” And when God created humans he pronounced them/us “very good,” [feel free to check Genesis 1:27-31]. The Bible does not say, at any point, that God created some humans different than, or less than, or more than other humans.
By the time Jesus showed up in our world humans had created a number of different groups of other humans — to the point where some humans could actually own another human. Even among humans who were not owned, there were rulers and ruled, religious and pagan, wealthy and poor, natives and foreigners. The group Jesus was born into had done a very good job of sorting people into those who followed the Law (sort of) and those who did not follow the Law (everybody, actually).
It’s very interesting — and very telling — that Jesus spent almost all his time with those who were in those “other” categories: the sick, the poor, the slaves, the sinners (that’s short for “lawbreaker”). And he loved them exactly as he loved his disciples. He loved them exactly as he loved his family. He loved them exactly as he loves you and me, (and exactly as he loves that whining religious leader).
And he tells you and me to love all the people we come into contact with the same way (while maintaining an appropriate social distance, of course).
He told the disciples I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another, [John 13:3-35].
Maybe that whining religious leader should worship the way Christ tells us to. It’s harder, of course. But I’ve discovered there is no growth — and no joy — in doing “my” way.