Can we be honest to God?

Secondly, white Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology. As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the princess in every story. They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman. They are Peter, but never Judas. They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisees. They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt. For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel and not Egypt when studying Scripture is a perfect example of Disney princess theology. And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society — and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice. It is some very weak Bible work.

                               Erna Kim Hackett

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“once upon a time”

there was a man named Abraham

another named Joseph

and another named Moses

 

“once upon a time”

there was a woman named Mary

actually a lot of women named Mary (all important)

 

“once upon a time”

 

there are lots of stories in the Bible

stories about individuals, yes

but stories that are,

when all is said and done, cosmic, universal

 

every story in that book is my story

your story

 

and the question we must always ask

as we read those stories

 

is who am I in this story?

which one of these characters is me?

 

(We can do the same thing with the prophets -where is my country, my political party in

 these words of warning?  Is God talking to me, to my country?  Or the letters.  If this letter (say Romans) showed up in my mail box, what things in my life would that letter be addressing?  Has Paul been peeking through my window?  Or the window of my church? That voyeur!)

 

But when we ask that question, we must ask it with honesty

And we have to be prepared to understand, that we may not like the answer!

 

We are well prepared to be the people of faith in the story.

 

We are even prepared to take on the weaknesses of the Biblical heroes,

for many of those heroes have “feet of clay”

many of them have doubts, and fears

 

and we are good with that

 

but are we willing to see ourselves

as “them”

as those who are functionally the “enemies” of God and God’s way?

 

can I recognize the fact that, when reading about John the Baptist

wailing his way out of the wilderness,

that I may be more likely to be one of those tagged as a “viper”

than one of those humbly standing in line to be washed?

 

can I see myself, important and busy person as I am, more as the priest who hurries by the beaten and bloody traveler, than as the Good Samaritan?

 

Can we as a country see ourselves as oppressive Egypt, rather

than enslaved Israel

 

Can we see, in our armor clad police, the echoes of the Pharaoh’s soldiers, chasing down the children of Israel?

 

Can we as the church see ourselves as those Amos is speaking to when he says

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me…

Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your [guitars]

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

 

for the failure of the White church over so many years to insist that Black Lives Matter?

For our failure to understand that unless black lives matter as much as white lives, we cannot say all lives matter.  That we, as whites, are merely defaulting to the place of “I matter!” (which is not untrue, but still…)

 

It is not just our own, individual faces we need to see in the mirror

It is our political party

It is our nation

for in the Bible the individual and the nation, the community, the people, are always intertwined and cannot be artificially separated

 

As I preach the lectionary this week

Am I oppressed Israel, hoping for the angel of death to pass over,

or am I oppressive Egypt? (Exodus 12)

 

Am I the sentinel of Ezekiel (33) shouting warming, or am I the recalcitrant one who refuses to listen?

 

Am I the righteous one, chastising the sinner, or the sinner who refuses to change?

(Matthew 18).  Or will I just skip that and jump to the comfort of “where two or three are gathered, there is God”?

 

Am I the one who has put on the armor of love, or am I the one wallowing in the darkness of resentment (Romans 13)?

 

If I am honest, I am everywhere

I am the hero and villain alike

I am good and I am not so good

I am faithful, and I am faithless

I am loving, and I am not

I am kind, and brutal, generous and grasping

 

It’s a right mess

But thanks be to God, for the freedom I have to be honest

For the Sacred takes me as I am, and we go from there…..

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  (Romans 7:25)