Will We Exclude, or Will We Pay Attention to What Jesus Said?

By Linda Hart Green

Jim Wallis is an evangelical Christian who has worked for peace and social justice all his life. I remember when his book, “God’s Politics” came out in 2005 and caused quite a stir. For many years, I read the magazine “Sojourners,” which originated in the Christian community he founded in Washington, D.C. He has a new book about Christianity and democracy that I am reading now. It is worth getting for the notes and bibliography alone! They are a rich resource.

In a later chapter titled “Our Community is not a Tribe,” he extensively quotes Eddie Glaude who wrote a pivotal book in 2021 titled, “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lesson for Our Own.” Dr. Glaude is a professor at Princeton University and a scholar of James Baldwin’s writing. He writes: “We are at a time of reckoning where everything is about to collapse and everything is possible all at once.”

That sounds scary and exciting! We can be part of transformational, systemic change -- if we respond to the challenges around us accordingly. Changes will not happen by hunkering down into our old ways and divisions. We can fulfill a vision to become the first real multiracial democracy in the world if, and this is a big if, we as a democracy and as a church, confess our sins of racism, classism and sexism in all their forms.

For those of us who claim the name of Christian, that means reclaiming the vision laid out by Paul in Galatians 3:28: “In Christ, there is no Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female for all are one in Christ Jesus.” Did you know that slaveholders literally cut this out of the Bibles given to slaves? Its inclusive vision was seen as a threat. Scholars authenticate the letter to the Galatians as very early, about 46 of the Common Era and authentic to the apostle. Later writings attributed to him are by his students and followers.

We cannot cut this verse out of our vision for the future of our country or of our town. If we celebrate national exceptionalism but do nothing about wrongs committed past and present that yes, are systemic, then we reinforce whiteness as superior, male dominance as acceptable and stereotypic gender roles and sexuality identity as normative.

This is not a vision that is going to heal our divides. When others are called out for reinforcing these barriers, it is not persecution. It is simply calling to account those actions and attitudes that wound and divide. We need less parading and more praying, less flag waving and more alms giving, less condemnation and more community.

We’ve emerged from a global pandemic into an epidemic of national loneliness. People are fearful and in these times, it is understandable to cling to the familiar and the comfortable. But that is not going to make things better. What people long for is belonging, meaning and a sense of community. We are in a unique position in a small(ish) place that already enjoys so many attributes of a loving community that is inclusive and welcoming of diversity. We sit on an island that was once home to the settlers and the slaves, the indigenous peoples and the industrialists, the pirates and the pious.

We have wonderful and effective organizations reaching out and meeting needs like Micah’s Place, Barnabas, the Elm Street Sportsman Association, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Council on Aging and many local churches. Yet, we still have unhoused and food insecure persons in our community.

While we have very generous benefactors who have made many things possible, we still have organizations struggling for funding as budgets and government programs are cut. We have young people who need jobs and elderly who need care in their homes. We have workers who need housing they can afford.

What would we be able to accomplish if we were having community-wide conversations about ways to meet these needs instead of arguing over archaic and irrelevant theology? Wouldn’t we be closer to actualizing the biblical challenge, “As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me?” Matthew 25:40.

I have a friend who recently went through identity theft. She recounted how scary it was and how tedious to change all her personal information. Reconstructing her life safely took time. Jim Wallis uses the image of identity theft in his book. He says Jesus has suffered a case of identity theft in our country.

I would add that the nation’s founders have also suffered identity theft. If we want to prevent further identity theft it will take a “civic discipleship” of people from all religions and no religion to practice the politics of loving one’s neighbor as oneself.