Your health is not more important than my liberties
Seen
on a car at an “open the country” rally
Unfortunately, for centuries the Christian vision of church
was narrowed to what we have today—a preoccupation with very private salvation.
Our “personal relationship with Christ” seems to be with a very small notion of
Christ. We’ve modeled church after a service station where members attend
weekly services to get their faith fix. We’ve commodified the very notion of
salvation.
“Individualism has taken away the credibility of the
Gospel in the western world because we think we can seek our private freedom -
independently of others. But genuine evangelization must move forward on two
rails. We must simultaneously evangelize individuals, calling them to freedom,
and evangelize institutions, nations, and systems, calling them to conversion.
The West has made an art form of the individual person;
it is one of our gifts to civilization, but we have paid a big price for this
gift. Because of our over-identification with this autonomous self, we have
overemphasized our separateness and uniqueness, leaving us trapped and alone.
(Christians, who should know better, usually seek an entirely private notion of
salvation instead of their communion with everybody else—which would be
“heaven” here and now.)
Richard
Rohr (selected readings)
_______________________________________________________________
Moments of trial
Are often moments of change
Many of us struggle with change
Especially change that is profound
The kind of change that forces us to leave behind
things that we treasure
or leave behind our comfort
Especially the kind of change that takes us beyond
ourselves
that is one of the things about this virus
it is forcing us to change
to rethink
what is important
to shift patterns of behavior
and ways of thinking
one of the things that is being assailed
is the essential selfishness that has become so much a
part of America
these past few years
It is not that it is unimportant to care for the self
We need to do that
And some people are deficit in just this way
They have no boundaries, they are enablers….
But we can only focus on self in the context of community
As I see it, this is the great failure of Christianity
today
It has become about “Jesus and me”
and the place of community has been lost
Faith is about my being rescued from my sin
My being protected by God’s love
My finding my way to heaven
My joy
My peace
Me
When in fact Christianity, at its best is all about
community
“You are the body of Christ”
Says Paul
A body where everyone is important
Where everyone has a role
Where everyone works together for “the common good”.
The fact is Jesus did not call people to individual
salvation alone
He called people to the task of initiating
Of BEING the Kingdom of God
He called people to live together in such a way
That no one was excluded
Neglected
Shamed
Oppressed
Devalued
Minimized
But rather in a way that everyone
Was included
Cherished
Valued
Built up
This time of crisis is reminding us
That all are Children of God
No one is expendable
We cannot throw people away because they are ‘on their
last legs”
We cannot behave in ways that endanger others for our own
benefit
It’s a razors edge, to be sure
There are no easy answers
Damage lies in every direction
But as we make our choices, we must think of the other
And it is likely
In the divine equation
That another person’s health IS as important as my
liberties
Of course it goes much deeper than this
Way past the issues of a virus and sheltering
And this may be one of the things we need to learn from
this time
That we cannot continue to support systems
That marginalize people
And exclude people
We must, as followers of Jesus
Work to change those systems
Those institutions
Those priorities
That leave others behind
Health systems
Justice systems
Economic systems
Ethical systems
All must change
For Jesus came not just to save you, or me
But to save all creation
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