Whatever Happened to Black and White?

Yesterday's sermon got a quick response from a reader outside our congregation.  Distilled, it said this (more or less):

"I understand where you're coming from, but what happened to black and white, good and evil?  I miss the days when God was about the rules and you followed them.  I'm tired of having to think so hard about something that should be easy."

Hey, I empathize.  You've just described my life in a nutshell:  think about everything, be concerned about everyone, every day.  After a while you just get tired!

I would also hasten to add that nothing has happened to good and evil.  There's still a huge difference between the two.  They haven't mixed, nor are they interchangeable.  Say rather that we've learned not to trust our own perceptions of good and evil, our own ability to judge.

Back in the day when communities--particularly church communities--were homogeneous we didn't have to stretch our perception very far.  Whatever looked normal (meaning "like us") was good.  Anything that stuck out or threatened that normality was evil.  Our communities are far more diverse now.  "Normal" is a relative, and in some ways dangerous, term.  With all the variety of people coming in and out of our lives now we can no longer depend on the old perceptions.  Sometimes what's different (meaning "not like us") is good!  That doesn't mean evil is good.  It means good was bigger than we once understood when our world was smaller.   Trying to go back to the older, simpler way not only denies the changes in our environment but shuts out people who need to hear God's message.  That we cannot do.

The price of making sure we're not shutting people out is simple:  we have to work harder.  We need to listen, discern, study scripture, figure out how new stimuli and the word of God meet.  As I just mentioned, this is a pain.  It's often exhausting.  It would be much easier to say, "Let's just not deal with this."  In a way that's what "black and white" means:  no thought, no change, no exceptions.  Wishing for black and white is the same as wishing we didn't have to do so much spiritual work.

But if we do not do this work, who will?  If we do not reach out, make ourselves open, accept the challenge of this new type of community then we'll find God's Spirit lacking among us.  Nobody's going to do this work for us.  No self-help book, no judge or TV talk show host, no old piece of advice from mom can bail us out of it.  God has sent these things our way.  We can't undo that.  Our only choice is to do the work or quit.  And if we quit, I assume God will find someone else--someone more faithful--to do it.

It's funny...every time we hear stories of saints dying for the cause, people in foreign lands being persecuted for the faith, people risking their lives to help others in need, we always wonder if we'd have the courage to do it.  We imagine ourselves put in the spot of being the Hero.  We ask if we could give up our life for God.  Fear rises inside us, to be sure, but in our secret heart of hearts we'd like to imagine the answer is "yes, I would".

The thing is, very few of us are called to give up our lives in that particular way.  Instead God gives us our daily life, things to enjoy, beautiful and enriching experiences.  He also asks us to do a little work in the midst of these wonderful lives...exactly the work we're talking about.  "As you go about your daily tasks," he says, "pay attention to your neighbor instead of dismissing them.  Welcome them instead of turning them away.  Make an effort to understand them and their perception of me so that your own perception of me can grow. Share with others this goodness I've given you so that more people can know it."  None of that happens when we quit, when we paint the world black and white and decide who's in and who's out.  How in the world could we imagine being heroes if we can't even do the simplest work of faith?

In the end, saying, "I think it's all black and white" is the same as saying, "I don't intend to spend any time thinking about anything or anyone else today.  My judgment is the only thing I need."  You can then hear the words of scripture pealing down upon you.  "The greatest commandment is this:  that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself."

We haven't moved to a more nuanced view of the world because we're nice, nor mushy and wishy-washy, nor liberal.  We've moved to a more nuanced view of the world because scripture calls us to do just that and in the end we trust scripture more than we trust our own opinions, perceptions, culture, or traditions.  We don't move away from the Bible as we do so.  We stand right in the heart of it.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)