Who is In and Who is Out?
The older I got and the more I
served as a pastor I found myself becoming intolerant of intolerance. A lot of the religion I encountered seemed
focused on who is in and who is out. I
call some of what goes under the name of “faith” simply security based religion
that is based upon the certain feeling that a person has to know that they are
a “card carrying” believer who is most sure that those who do not carry the
proper credentials are and will be on the outside.
These days this same kind of
thinking seems to be very prevalent in our political rhetoric which leads to
policies. We become afraid of those who
are not like us. We label them so that they
lose their human status and become members of groups. In my opinion this is not only bad “policy,”
it is unhealthy religion.
Healthy religion begins with a good
dose of humility. Balanced religion is
based on the realization that life is a gift.
It was not ordered out of catalogue.
No one “deserves” to be here. We
are created from a Creator who wanted us here.
The Danish theologian Soren
Kierkegaard supposedly stated that we are all born and then given sealed
orders. Life then becomes a process of
opening those orders to discover why we are “here.” So what do you think would be in those sealed
orders?
I think one of the orders that might
be common in each of our “packets” is a phrase that comes from Judaism; Tikkun
Olam. It means “to heal the world.” Yes, we only have to watch the evening news
to be reminded that the world is broken but it seems that some religious and
political perspectives want us to curse the darkness and allow it to settle
into our souls. This kind of thinking
breads the security based perspective that is based upon certain people being
“in” and others being “out.”
How about we open our orders and
realize that one reason, and maybe the main reason, we are here is to help God
heal the world. As a pastor countless
people came to me saying something like, “Pastor, why is there so much darkness
in my life?” I would listen first and
then gently remind them that is has always been dark.
According to the latest scientific
discoveries the cosmos is made up of 95% darkness; dark energy and dark
matter. Only 5% of the universe is made
up of light.
Creation is full of darkness so it
is no wonder that our lives contain darkness that includes tragedies, illness,
dreams that die, and the constant reality that even nature creates havoc and
destruction. So what are we to do?
In my tradition we are told from our
sacred scripture that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could
not overcome it.” That does not mean
that is not real dark out there. It is. But we are to be light bearers. We are to help the Creator heal the world.
That healing begins with the
recognition that we are all in this together.
It continues on a path that refrains from labels and choosing who is in
and who is out.
Another phrase comes to mind from a
different tradition. In that tradition
you do not reach your hand out and shake another hand with the greeting like
“How are you.” In this tradition you
cross your arms over your heart and bow to the person in front of you and say,
“Namaste,” which means “the divine in me greets the divine in you.”
So to all of you I say, “Namaste….let
us be about the healing of the world…together.”
Jody
Seymour
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