These Wounds I Suffered in the House of My Friends...

I credit my mother with the great majority of my Bible teaching.  She bought me my first Bible when I was 14 years old.  She drove me to Bible study for the 2 years following.  She taught me memory scriptures from my earliest days, and so beautifully sang gospel music that I still hum her songs to comfort my soul when it is troubled.  Mom gathered the family for Bible reading and prayer periodically.  She also called me to help pray through the family's toughest times.  My spirituality is mostly a reflection of hers.  Nevertheless, the two verses my father taught me reverberate in my mind as often as all the others.  One verse is about having to show yourself to be friendly if you hope to make friends.  The other is the subject of this entry. 

And one will say to him, "What are these wounds between your arms?" Then he will say, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."  --Zechariah 13:6

 Despite being raised in New Jersey, my father has a Southerner's gift for memorable phrases.  His sayings, like, "What they do with you, they'll do to you" have served me well.  His quotations of Zechariah 13:6 were given like an old country saying, and I have internalized its wisdom accordingly.  The context for Zechariah 13 is God's prophecy of a devastating military defeat for Judah, and the verse itself centers on a false prophet whom the Jews reject.  Again, I never learned the context for the verse.  In fact, I don't recall Dad ever giving a citation for it all--beyond it being in the Bible.  So, I've learned the scripture and used it as folk wisdom.  Even still, the word of the Lord is never void. 

We've all heard the saying, "you only hurt the ones you love."  Standing alone, Zechariah 13:6 pretty much means the same thing, but from the victim's perspective.  Paraphrased, "I am only hurt by the ones I love."  Through my many hours of therapy  :)  I almost exclusively talk about the "wounds I suffered in the house of my friends."  Though the events are years, even decades, old, I spend countless hours rehashing hurtful incidents--incidents that refuse my best efforts to bury them beyond my memory.  Usually, folks had no malice when they hurt me, but the wounds are so deep that I am still tending to them all these years later. 

The scripture speaks to that sentiment.  The wounds the false prophet bares are actually from his mother and father, who attempted to kill him because of what he spoke (Zech. 13:3).  Though no one tried to kill me, the wounds are so deep and obvious to everyone that it appears the wounds came from a murder attempt.  I'm sure everyone relates to that.  We all carry very deep wounds.   

The point being, the wounds we suffer in supposedly safe and nurturing places hurt the worst and mark us for years.  As Paul Simon said in "Graceland", "Everybody sees you're blown apart.  Everybody hears the wind blow."  Simon concludes by saying, "I'm going to Graceland."  My next post demonstrates why the metaphorical "Graceland," i.e. Heaven, represented by the Church, may not be a sanctuary for safety.  When it comes to race, white Churches apparently function as "the house of your friends." 

Sociologizing Sin

[I wrote this a few years ago. It wouldn't be identical if I wrote it today, but I still find it interesting. Hope you do, too!]

Sociologizing Sin

Coming to understand my place in the world has caused me to completely reconsider my understanding of sin. Recognizing myself as a frequent oppressor of others--whether consciously or unconsciously, individually or corporately, personally or through social structures, intentionally or unintentionally--I have come to realize that avoiding sin is pretty much impossible. Depending on your theology, one of two conclusions will be the logical result of the insights I am about to share. Either one will take this message to further demonstrate our constant dependence on Jesus' payment for our sins and lead a more relaxed Christian life that does not consider it possible to never be guilty of sin ever again (this belief leads many to modern aesthetic practices and is burdensome on us all, especially when it is politicized). Or one will conclude that a personal relationship with Jesus is a poor and illogical solution for a crime that is both individual and corporate. One may futher conclude that judging people as individuals, rather than as social groups, and sending individuals to heaven or hell is fundamentally unfair. I have not thought down these paths yet. Neither am I steering one direction or the other. I simply want to share how understanding my social identity and status has broadened and deepened my understanding of many concepts, including sin and the intractiblility of our dependence on God for forgiveness.

Before I fully understood and considered my social identity, I basically boiled sin down to dichotomous, individualized actions and decisions. Each option presented to me was essentially a choice between doing what God wanted (e.g. telling the truth) or sinning against God (e.g. lying). Regardless of where one stands on the doctrine of original or imputed sin, after salvation, sin is generally understood to be an individualized choice.

But now I think of things differently. I know that I daily actively oppress and/or benefit from being a member of a group that is oppressing others. For instance, I know that my ability to attend graduate school inexpensively is dependent upon Texas A&M University and the state of Texas deciding to financially exploit custodians and other low-wage workers at the institution. I know that the relatively low gas prices I enjoy as an American are due to the American government using its military and financial might to pressure and exploit people in oil-producing countries. I know that, as a man, I participate in and/or fail to stop sexist activities (including joking and objectifying women as sexual objects rather than whole human beings). In so doing, I help to create the social climate we have now. One in which most women experience sexual harassment at some point in their lives. If memory serves, over 20% of American women have experienced some sort of sexual assault, including rape. I am at least partially responsible for that.

These are just a few examples. Just because I don't have the nuclear codes, doesn't mean I'm not responsible for my government's oppression of people around the globe. We all know very well that if the US engaged in fairer military and economic practices and the American economy suffered, the great majority of us would vote for candidates who would restore "the good old days." We would pretend not to know how they did it.

As an active participant, passive (or intentional) beneficiary, and structural party to the oppression and exploitation of countless others, I am constantly in a state of sin from which I cannot and do not extricate myself. No amount of physical, mental, or spiritual self-chastisement will free me from some exploitative relationship to others. And even if I could find a way to have no structural or relational exploitative power over any single other person on the globe, I would not do it. Sin has its enjoyable season.

I never knew how much I was asking God to forgive when I asked God to remove my sins from me and impune them to Christ Jesus. I cannot imagine how much sin of mine God is constantly forgiving (or storing up, if God is judgemental and Christianity is untrue). It's frightening and humbling all at once. For me, it is a beginning to understanding grace, mercy, forgiveness, and the character and omnipotence of God. Forgiveness of this magnitude is far more impressive to me than any of the miracles mentioned in Scripture. No human can even imagine giving that kind of grace.

This is by no means an excuse for our sinful actions or for not trying to end oppression of all kinds, everywhere, regardless of the sacrifice.

It is actually an attempt to bring these kinds of sins to our attention and to bring glory to God for God's mercy, grace, and love.