(39) Systemic vs. Personal

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Systemic vs. Personal, originally shared on August 10, 2020. It was the thirty-ninth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We are at a point in the coronavirus pandemic where pastors and churches are being sued for defying mandates to worship outdoors, and rival demonstrations have broken out. The question is being asked, “Why can protestors gather without restrictions and, in one case, burn Bibles, but churches can’t gather and read Bibles.”

   I think that this question sheds more heat than light.

   Protestors are required to obey all local laws; how those laws are enforced are, as they have always been, a matter of balancing the rights of protestors to free speech and for free public assembly with their responsibilities for public safety and respect for private property, while not falling into the trap of the small minority within them who want to spark an us vs. them mentality and maybe a civil war, locally or nationally.

   Churches are required to obey all local laws; how those laws are enforced are, as they have always been, a matter of balancing the rights of churches to religious freedom and freedom of assembly with their responsibilities for public safety and public health and as an institution serving God, who wills an abundant life for all people, and as centers promoting the common good.

   Most churches I know do not want to be known as centers for the spread of a deadly disease, but that’s what’s happening. Contact tracing frequently leads back to churches’ indoor worship and activities. Outdoor worship where, like in public protests, air can circulate and not be recycled through air-conditioning systems, is being practiced and the likelihood of infection is greatly reduced.

   When church protest that they should be able to exercise their faith that God will not allow any evil thing to come to them, that it’s purely a matter of religious freedom, I wonder if no one in that church ever developed cancer, or lost a job, or got a divorce? Are they then told, at one of the lowest points of their lives, that their faith wasn’t strong enough?

   I’m reminded, in these cases, of the story of the guy who was sitting in his home one day when a Red Cross worker pounded on his door, yelling “The dam has broke. Get out now! We’ll help you.”

   He replied, “Oh, thank you very much but I’m a Christian. I know that God will take care of me. I’ll be fine.” And the Red cross worker finally left and went on to the next house.

   The waters came and flooded the first floor of his house, so that he had to move up to the second floor. A guy in a rowboat came by and said, “Hop in, buddy. I’ll get you out of here.”

   “Oh, thank you,” the man said. “But I’m a Christian. I know that God won’t let anything harm me.” The man in the rowboat finally went on to other houses.

   The waters continued to rise and the man had to crawl onto his roof. A helicopter flew over and the crew spotted the man on his roof. They dropped a rope ladder and shouted, “Climb up and we’ll get you out of here. The waters are rising. This is your last chance!”.

   “Thanks for coming, but I’ll be fine. My faith is strong. I know God will take care of me,” he shouted.

   The water kept rising and pretty soon the rose over the house and over the man, and he drowned.

   When he arrived at the gates of heaven, dripping wet, he immediately demanded to be taken to the throne of Grace. “That’s kind of an unusual request but, OK,” St. Peter said.

   He stomped through the throne room into God’s presence and whined, “You promised me! You said that you’d always be with me, no matter what. What happened?”

   “What do you mean,” God said. “I sent you a Red Cross worker, a rowboat and a helicopter.”

    We aren’t promised that no evil will touch us, but that we are not alone, and we will not tempted by evil in any way that we aren’t able to resist.  We aren’t promised that we will be strong enough. We are promised that God is strong, and will show us a way out.  

*1 Corinthians 10:13

   I know many of us feel, like the elderly woman once said, “I know God won’t give me any more than I can handle. I just wish He didn’t think so highly of me.”

   I have to say that the people whose faith I most admired growing up were people who had a kind of luminous faith, and I wanted that. When I was able to see what they had in common, I realized that it was experiences of suffering through which they could see that God had been faithful. They were faithful in response to God’s gifts.

   So, as I grew up, I prayed that God would give me just enough suffering. Not enough to sink me, but enough to bring me through with this same kind of luminous faith. Until I grew up and found out what that suffering involved. Then I stopped praying for that. 😊

   Sin still enters the world as it first entered through rebellion against God, from saying essentially that if I were God I’d do a better job.

   There’s nothing romantic about that rebellion. It results in all human suffering. But, God does not abandon us, God loves us and promises we will never be given any temptation that is more than we, and especially our faith, can handle.

   What is the answer to Sin that is infects the policies and practices of systems and institutions, so much so that we often aren’t aware of its effect on us? It’s like the guy who dumps toxic waste behind his factory to save money. He sleeps well, and the shareholders are happy. But, downstream people are getting cancer. The answer to that kind of Sin is systemic transformation.

   The centerpiece of our faith is that Jesus died on the cross to set us free from our separation God, the effect of our Sin, so that we might come into the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were created, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.

   That is a personal gift, but while faith is always personal, it is never private.

   I read a post in a meeting for Lutheran clergy last week that said, “Since white evangelicals construed faith individualistically, as a “personal relationship with Jesus,” their faith (and theology) offered a limited capacity for understanding social issues…” and that, “…So when white evangelicals do recognize racism, they tend to see it as a “personal” sin requiring repentance, not a structural injustice demanding rectification. When the sin of racism is reduced to personal animosity, the “solution” is simply relationships. That's why so many white Christians have responded to the recent protests demanding systemic change by encouraging friendship across the racial divide. They prefer to pursue “reconciliation” rather than justice.”

   I have said this exact thing. I believe that relationships are the best way to heal the racial divide. I’ve also lived and worked against systemic injustice such as the racial divide in the United States and the system of apartheid in South Africa.

   I consider myself an evangelical, I am a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and in most of the world, the word “evangelical” is synonymous with being Lutheran. I also identify with the classic Christian worldview of American Evangelicals, including a high view of scripture and the importance of living and sharing our faith.

   But, to many American Evangelicalism only means a branch of American Christianity that has compromised its beliefs and any claim to moral authority, by selling its numbers in the service of political power and influence.

   The prophet Amos said this at a time when the people of Israel had become corrupt.:

*Amos 5:21-24

   When the Bible speaks of justice it’s not speaking of what my party thinks is just, or what my faction thinks is just, or even what I think is just. It means doing God’s will.

   So, is it more faithful to change systems or to change people?

   I would say you have to change both, but they must be changed at the same time!

   What happens when you change systems but not people? You get pretty much what we have now: social disconnect resulting in polarization, alienation, and division. And when a pandemic comes along to require a new normal, these things are made worse, leading people to look for more authoritarian expressions of their own beliefs.

   What happens when you change people but not systems: You get people who are self-righteous, apathetic and see the common good as somehow external to themselves.

   What does God will for human flourishing? That is the only justice question that matters.

   Justice rolls down like waters, like streams of living waters. It is the product of the Holy Spirit.

   Let us listen to that voice of God, act upon it, and not be afraid.