He Kept Saying...

Lately it feels as though the news is one horrid story after another. But this week two exceptionally repulsive things happened. First, a candidate for governor in my state is driving a “deportation” bus around, campaigning on the promise to round up immigrants because they are “murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, and other criminals.” Second, the President of the United States, in an interview, called immigrants who are in the country illegally “animals.” And though the White House clarified that the comment was  about gang members and not all undocumented immigrants, it’s still wildly inappropriate. All people – gang members or no – are made in God's image, and no one should make these statements about another human beings.**

These are just two statements in a long line of incidents targeting minority groups in our country. Over and over and over again, stories emerge recounting how our neighbors and community members are targeted because of their class or gender or race – any category that makes them “the other.”

Despite how frequently we’re shown or told these stories, we are not listening. "We" – not only those of us in the majority, but especially those of us in the church, who call ourselves followers of Christ – are not listening. 

We hear our brothers and sisters crying out for their lives, and the lives of their families and friends, and we refuse to listen to their stories. 

I’m reading John right now, and I recently read about the time Jesus healed the man blind from birth in John 9. 

This man had been sitting by the gates begging for a long time -- everyone knows who he is. He’d likely been ostracized his whole life, and had grown up hearing people whisper about him, making assumptions about him, and then carrying on with their lives -- ignoring him. 

When the disciples asked Jesus, "Why is he blind? Who sinned?" he'd heard it before. He knew everyone thought he was blind from birth because he'd sinned. Imagine the shame and loneliness that could flourished every time someone asked that question. And then Jesus says, "He didn't do anything wrong. This isn't his fault." Imagine how that man must have felt, being acknowledged, and then healed. If it were me, I'd have felt like jumping for joy. 

But what struck me reading this passage this time is the response from the people. Scripture says, "He kept saying..." No one believes him, no matter who recognizes him, no matter how many times he tells his story. 

He tells them over and over what happened, and they won't listen. Then they take him to the religious elite – the Pharisees – who don't want to listen to him either. Finally the Pharisees call on his parents to testify for him because they can't believe his story. When they ask for his account again, he says, "I've already told you." Can you imagine how exhausting this probably was for this man?

Everyone knows who he is. They heard his parents' testimonies. They heard his story. And he's obviously not blind anymore. But even with all the proof right in front of them, they refuse to believe. In fact, they become defensive and dismiss his claims: ‘“You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.’ (John 9:34)

Tho no-longer-blind-man is “the other,” the man on the margins. The Pharisees are powerful; the man is not. We know from Scripture that the Pharisees feared the people following Jesus because they didn’t want to lose their control and their position. And so, even when presented with evidence that essentially proves Jesus is who He says,  they refuse to listen.

Y’all, I was so convicted reading this. How often am I – are we – like the Pharisees? How often do I – do we – refuse to listen?

Our neighbors, our friends, our family members – even our own brothers and sisters in Christ – are telling us their experiences. They are letting us know the world is not ok, that their lives are at stake here. People experiencing injustice – based on their race or culture or gender or class or orientation or religion – are crying out for their lives…

...and we just look the other way. 

Or like the Pharisees, we get defensive or dismissive so we're not implicated in any part of the injustice in which they live: But not all of us are like that! I’ve never done that! Well, that’s not my experience. I know someone from [insert whichever group you are talking about] who says that's wrong. We don't have the whole story! 

In doing so, we cast them out of our presence so we don't have to consider any of the hurt they’re experiencing, or whether we are at fault at all. 

We’ve got to start valuing the humanity of each person, valuing the image of God in them. And that starts, in part, by listening. Listening not to defend, but to empathize. With a willingness to hear the hard, the messy, the broken. Listening with an open mind and an open heart. Listening so that it convicts us to action, rather than condemns our neighbors to the margins. 

We are supposed to be one body, one Church. What affects one affects us all: “If one suffers, all suffer. If one rejoices, all rejoice.” Scripture tells us how the world should see us: "they will know you by your love." But if we aren’t willing to listen to our own family when they tell their stories – if we won't truly see them – how on earth are we able to call ourselves followers of Christ?

I was in tears reading this and thinking it over…and then spent time repenting. I’m still begging God for this not to be true in my life, in our lives. For the willingness to listen, the heart to enter into the hard places, to be led by others, and learn from their lives, their wisdom, their experiences.

I don’t want to be like the Pharisees. I don’t want to turn away when my neighbors, my family, my brothers and sisters are crying out, when lives are at stake. I don’t want to hold on so tightly to life as I’ve known it that I dismiss and cast aside. I long to enter in as Jesus did, to cast myself beside others, to walk alongside them, with a heart and hands and eyes wide open, to practice real hospitality.

And dear God, I’m praying this for all of us.



**I recently learned of the website Genocide Watch, which details the 10 stages of genocide, and keeps a watch on warning signs of potential genocide (or currently occurring genocides) around the world. The United States is on their map to be watched because we currently fall into several of the stages. This is terrifying, and we cannot stay silent anymore, friends. It's time to listen and to act.