New Testament Reading—John 17: 10-19
In his book A Language Older than Words, author Derrick Jensen tells of two trips he has made that I believe shine a light on our scripture for today. Our scripture is about being in the world but not of the world, being out and about in the culture of our society but not being overwhelmed and consumed by that culture. One way to get a sense of at least part of our country’s culture is to drive across it and listen to the different radio stations. Jensen did this, and during part of the drive, he listened to a talk show on disciplining children.
Jensen relates that “caller after caller described the necessity of, in the words of the host, ‘wearing out the belt.’” One caller was proud of conditioning his seven-year old daughter to the point where she no longer had to be “whipped” because simply mentioning the belt was enough. His five-year-old daughter was even better because she had learned from watching what happened to her older sister. She had only been whipped a few times.
On the radio show, the host told with laughter of a news report about a woman who wanted to press charges after she had arrived to retrieve her three-year old son from day care only to find him crying with “his mouth taped shut.” The host agreed with the district attorney who declined to press charges.
During the show, Jensen only heard “one caller speak out against the violence.” The caller explained that he felt his Christian beliefs compelled him to intervene whenever he saw a child struck. Jesus’ teachings were against this, he asserted. The talk show host was a self-professed Christian as well, but for the first time in the show, he disagreed with a caller. In response, he asked, “What business is it of yours?”
This comment made Jensen think of an experience he had had years ago with a child’s mother. In response to her four year old slapping an infant, the mother shook her child and shouted over and over again that she was a bad girl. The mother and daughter were in a public setting with other parents and children present. While “some of the other children seemed terrified,” most of the “adults seemed oblivious.”
As it happened, Jensen and a friend left the area at the same time as the mother and her child. As they walked over the course of several blocks, the woman continued to berate her child. At one point, a woman in a parking lot saw the two and laughed, shouting, “You tell her.” Over and over again, the child was told how bad she was. Eventually, Jensen confronted the mother. She defended herself by explaining that her child had struck an infant. To which Jensen responded, “Don’t you realize that every time you say these things, you’re doing the same to her?” The mother was taken aback and yelled, “This is none of your business!”
Perhaps, this story captures one of the central questions we face as Christians: What do we do with the business of the world? Do we join it? Do we become just another voice on the talk show that sounds like all the rest? Or, maybe, we become desensitized to it, not caring what gets said or done. Then, again maybe, we excuse ourselves saying there is nothing we can do. We have enough burdens and tasks of our own. Yet again, maybe, we go home, close the door, and make believe that it’s someone else’s problem. Or maybe, just maybe, we make the world’s business our business. Maybe, deep down we care too much for it not to be. Maybe, deep down we know that God’s will for every child and for every adult is that they receive the love and the respect and the decency they deserve.
If one stops to think about it, the question of whether to care, whether to make it our business, is what a lot of public policy debate boils down to. Do we care about the disabled child who lives down the street or on the other side of the city? Do we care about whether the government slashes spending and takes away the program that has been central to that child’s care? I know one of our members Clarice Fossen currently has a grandchild with cerebral palsy and the state is threatening to close down the residential care facility that has taken care of him for the past 27 years. Clarice’s daughter explained to me how the state wants to move her son and the rest of the residents to profit-seeking homes that will leave them without the care and assistance they require. Now, we can pay attention to this situation, educate ourselves about it, and weigh in on it when the time comes. Or, we can say that it’s none of our business. We can engage the world or we can let it continue as it is without a whimper. In John, Jesus prays before his arrest and crucifixion that God will enable his disciples to engage the world, make its business their business, despite all the hardships that entails.
Now, I mentioned Jensen took another trip that I think helps shine a light on our reading for today. It was a trip to New Zealand where he was invited to spend some time within an aboriginal community. Not long after he arrived he was uncomfortably interrogated by a community member who had no trust of whites, including whites who were aboriginal wannabes. Jensen was no aboriginal wannabe. As Jensen says, “Although there is much I admire about many indigenous cultures, and much I despise about my own tradition, it would serve neither me nor the world…to turn my back on the dominant culture and attempt to be something I’m not.”
Jensen nevertheless ultimately learned much from his aboriginal hosts and was inspired in his own life by them. One aboriginal who had a profound impact on him was a man named Bruce who belonged to the aboriginal Maori culture. Bruce ran “a nursery for endangered plants.” As he talked with Jensen, he showed him a plant for which the Maori name has been lost. “Only one of this plant” had existed in the world until Bruce took a seed from it and planted it in his nursery. Even though it normally takes twenty years for a vine to bloom, this one bloomed in seven.
In taking care of this plant, Bruce saw an indication of what it will take for humans to survive as a species. He said, “If we are to survive, each of us must become kaitiaki, which to me is the most important concept in my Maori culture. We must become caretakers, guardians, trustees, nurturers. In the old days each whanau, or family, used to look after a specific piece of terrain. One family might look after a river from a certain rock down to the next bend. And they were the kaitialki of the birds and fish and plants” in that area. Part of this cultural heritage was destroyed by Christian missionaries, but Bruce still clings to it with hope. He said, “To be kaitiaki is crucial to our existence. So while I am in agony for the whole planet, what I can do is become kaitiaki right here. This can spread, as people see this and say, ‘We can do that back at home.’ Perhaps then everyone can, as was true in our Maori culture, become caretakers of their own homes.”
Bruce realized that different people would have different roles to play in making the world a more humane and sustainable place. Among the Maori, he envisioned artists and educators who would help untangle the Maori people from the culture imposed on them by the Europeans. Bruce, however, saw a different role for himself. He said, “I’m sixty, so I only have ten or twenty years left. I don’t have time for a lot of words; I want to use those years for action.” For Bruce, to revitalize the Maori culture is to give life to a culture that would actively go against the culture of the world. The Maori culture is undoubtedly different from our own, but the notion of being caretakers in relation to our natural surroundings resonates with our own Christian culture. The notion of finding one’s own role or calling in the world resonates as well. Finally, the notion of revitalizing a historic culture full of richness resonates with the best of progressive Christianity and how it upholds our faith with a fresh relevance for today.
As some of you already know, I will be traveling to India during the month of June. I have been invited to lecture for two weeks at a progressive seminary in Bangalore. In the next Link, I will explain more about what I am doing and where I will be, but for now, I will just mention that one of the questions I will be raising in my lectures is whether progressive Christianity is making the difference in the world that it could and should be making. It seems to me that if we want our faith and our churches to be relevant today we need to continually wrestle with this question in a self-conscious way. I would further suggest that the best way to wrestle with this question is to think of what Christianity is or is not doing to build and mobilize social movements. It is at the level of social movements where change happens in the most substantial, enduring, and pervasive of ways. It is at the level of social movements where Christianity can make the biggest difference in the world.
This is not to discount what happens at the level of individuals and local organizations. Movements essentially involve local caretakers like Bruce linking together with other local caretakers who share common concerns about their communities and the world around them. Organized into networks of action, these local caretakers are the life-blood of any social movement. Ultimately, social movements are about expanding the breadth and depth of change. Christianity at its best from Jesus to today continually sets its aims for the impact of social movements so as to maximize the number of people whose lives are altered for the better, in other words, to maximize the advances we make toward actualizing the Kingdom of God.
To seek the building of Christian social movements might sound like a ridiculously daunting, if not impossible task, but in some ways I think it is quite simple. It begins with caring for the kid down the block. It begins with caring for just one of the plants in our community garden. It begins by making the world’s business our business. From there, it grows. It grows because once one starts to care one wants to do more and more. It grows because others see it’s possible. It grows because others see the truth and the love and the beauty that arises. It grows because it is God’s will for every child. Amen.