Us & Them On So Many Levels

June really hasn't been a good month.

This is a picture of Stanford rapist Brock Turner: white, wealthy, privileged. When he found an unconscious women rather than helping her he began to rape her.

Some people came along and caught him so technically I suppose he is an 'attempted rapist', but he got far enough that the woman reportedly had dirt and grass inside her when they treated her in hospital.

He was sentenced to just six months in prison, reportedly reduced to four, by a judge who shared his background, and he and his family are appealing that as too harsh. His victim, once she had been treated, was articulate enough to ensure the case came to wider notice: a shocking example of 'them & us' in US society.

Melissa Etheridge's song, at the top of this post, was written in response to the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando this month.

A deeply homophobic man shot dead 49 people and wounded 53 others. Behind him lay a deeply homophobic family, living in a deeply homophobic culture, surrounded by deeply homophobic churches (and presumably mosques).

Homosexuality has been a divisive issue across the world in recent years. My question on such things is "where are the haters?" Those who spread hatred of others are not God's people; and those who would divide Christ's body are nothing to do with Jesus.

Then we come to the UK's EU referendum campaign. The picture shown was probably the low point of a generally negative campaign. 

Both the Leave and Remain official campaigns focused on fear-mongering and negative propaganda. Both the official and unofficial Leave groups hammered away relentlessly at immigration and at people's fear and resentment of 'the other'.

Now the result is out and it seems the Leave campaigns worked - at least among older voters. The picture below, in many variations, is widely shared on social media by younger people angry at what they see as a betrayal of their future by those who won't have to live with the consequences. I suppose 'us & them' across generations is nothing new, but the anger is real.

I was going to put up picture of those utterly stupid politicians whose response to a crisis is to play politics and ignore the needs of the country. In many ways it was the Conservative party's internal politics, especially the ambition of Boris Johnson, which created the crisis, now Labour's MPs have decided they'd rather play leadership games than help rebuild the unity this country desperately needs to face a challenging future. The us & them of a broken political system.

In my view the most apposite comment was used as a headline by the Guardian newspaper: "If you've got money, you vote in ... if you haven't got money, you vote out." Subheading: "Brexit is about more than the EU: it’s about class, inequality, and voters feeling excluded from politics. So how do we even begin to put Britain the right way up?"

So much of the anger, so many of the divisions, arise from the deep and increasing inequalities within our society. A lot of the Remain campaign was based around fear of losing what we have got; to many that means nothing. A lot of the resentment of immigrants and minorities flows from insecurity, uncertainty, and a feeling someone must be to blame.

I'd like to come up with a nice 'Christian' solution to all this: "love one another," perhaps, "then everything will be wonderful." Meaningless! If we loved one another we wouldn't have the problems anyway. "Jesus Christ died to bring reconciliation," is at least apposite, but lacking in how and when.

At the moment my feelings are more in line with Habakkuk: how long, O Lord, is this unholy mess going to continue? When will there be justice and peace and cleansing?

Mark: Poverty, Service, Struggle

If you take a strip of, say, paper and stick the ends together with a single twist you end up with a Moebius strip - see picture.

One odd property of a Moebius strip is that if you start from the top and follow the same side all the way around the loop, instead of ending up back where you started you are on the other side: upside-down and back-to-front. One could say that a Moebius strip is a parable of the Kingdom.

In Mark's Gospel, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus tells them that the wealthy, for whom all doors are opened in normal experience, face a challenge akin to threading a needle with a camel. Power and status come from service and humility, not from coercion and wheeler-dealing. Religious authorities are called to account for abusing and exploiting the faithful. The giving of the poor is valued more than the beneficence of the rich. The values Mark describes in this week's chapters are really nothing like our normal world.

The promise is that one day everywhere will live by these upside-down values, when God's Kingdom comes. In the meantime it is up to those who follow Jesus to do what they can to demonstrate these priorities to a waiting world. Those with power and status may hate them, but there will be others who are just waiting to hear that things can and will be different, that there really is a better way to live.

So it was with Jesus, and so it is for those who truly follow him today.

But Mark had another point. Mark was writing for people who had suffered terrible persecution in Rome. They had lost family members and friends, homes and livelihoods to Nero's spite. Their world had turned upside down; Mark is telling them to hold on, to stick with Jesus because his kingdom was easier to get into from an upside-down state.

When you have sufficient wealth and social status and influence, it is hard not to feel secure in that - to put your trust in those things. When you have lost them you realise how fallible they are and, maybe, are ready to seek something or someone more reliable to trust your life to.

In his discussion with Peter about riches, camels and needles, Jesus says this:

"Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life."

In the context of the persecuted Christians of Rome, as well as those in Galilee and Judea caught up in Vespasian's brutal suppression of a Jewish rebellion, this is about the church.

The church community is to be family for those who have lost family, provide homes to those who have lost homes, and give purpose and meaning to those who have lost their livelihoods.

In other words, the church - then and now - is called to act as the heart and hands and feet and voice of Jesus, and to look after those who have suffered for him.

In this, Mark's message is good news for rich and poor alike. The poor because they will find help amongst God's people, the rich because they can use their wealth, status and influence for good, to help those in need. If they can do this in humility and service then they may indeed find their camels travelling smoothly through that needle.

With God all things are possible.

Whose Image?

“Then the Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested. They sent some of their disciples, along with the supporters of Herod, to meet with him. “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You teach the way of God truthfully. You are impartial and don’t play favourites. Now tell us what you think about this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? Here, show me the coin used for the tax.”

When they handed him a Roman coin, he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

“Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
His reply amazed them, and they went away.”

I don't know about other countries, but here in the UK all our money - coin and paper - has the queen's head on it; how little has changed in two millennia. But it makes the first of Jesus' points clearer: pay your taxes, don't cheat the government. The government prints the money and, these days, it gives it its value, so give to the government what is theirs. No tax evasion, no tax avoidance: the mean-spiritedness which pays accountants and advisors in order to avoid paying the government just shrivels the soul.

But that part of Jesus' reply is not what amazed his questioners and sent them away silenced.

"Give to God what is God's" - if money bears the Caesar's image, what bears the image of God? Or, more precisely, who? Way back in the very first chapter of the Bible, we are told "God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them". You and I bear God's picture, his image ... maybe somewhat messed up, but there nevertheless.

"Give to God what is God's" - that would be myself, and my neighbours. Jesus said elsewhere that we cannot serve both God and Mammon - money, wealth, possessions. Money is useful to live, and has its own rules, including payment of taxes due. But God takes priority over money.

Part of the background to the question was that people were struggling to pay both the Roman taxes and the taxes and tithes demanded by the religious authorities. Part of Jesus' answer is that these religious authorities - and the questioners - were wrong to be focussing on money as they did. Their focus should have been righteousness and justice - which would have messed up their cosy relationship with the Roman occupiers, of course.

The standard Anglican communion service has a quite remarkable line toward the end:

Through him [Jesus] we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice.

Which is an amazing sentence, when you think about it, but it does take Jesus' 'Give to God' point very seriously.

Money is useful for living, but God must come first: his justice and his mercy. And how we spend our money (after taxes) reflects our priorities. Whether that is in spending a few extra pence on 'fairly traded' food (or not), or buying more expensive (in the short term) low-power light bulbs (or not), or reducing our use of our car - if we have one - in favour of walking, cycling or public transport (or not).

We are made in God's image; so are African farmers struggling against unfair global terms of trade; and so are Bangladeshi's at risk of being flooded out as sea levels rise due to global warming.

Giving to God what is God's means being careful of God's image, wherever it occurs, and acting in ways which benefit that image throughout the world.

"Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."