Too Busy Making Monsters to See Children of God

One Sunday July 10, 2016 I invited members of the church to join in a one day fast to consider ways in which we individually and collectively create monsters of other people. Objectify people is never a right thing. Objects are often used, consumed and dismissed. We never should make a human being into an object.

But objects are not the only thing that turn people into, we also turn people into monsters. When we make another person or a certain part of our own selves into a monster, we feel like we have a righteous cause and the moral justification to kill that monster. Just like the mob in Beauty and the Beast wanted to gather together to "kill the beast!" We will become that mob when a monster is present. 

Saul was a person who made others into monsters. The followers of the Way were not doing right by the tradition Saul was brought up in. These people claimed to the eat flesh and drink the blood of their leader. These “cannibals” worshiped a man named Jesus who was an enemy of Rome and even the Jewish leadership. Jesus was so bad that when given the option, the people chose to release a religious zealot named Barabbas instead of Jesus. These Christians knew their actions were evil which explained why they met in secret and even had secret codes and symbols. These Christians were, in the eyes of Saul, monsters. 

Saul's conversion moved Saul away from making and slaying monsters. But this conversion was not on his own doing. He had an encounter with Christ. He was struck blind and needed the help of others. He fasted for three days. When his sight was restored, he was eyelash to eyelash with one of these Christian "monsters". 

I believe that Paul's life is the archetypal Christian life and as such, the Christian must go through a conversion. While we cannot control the Spirit of conversion, we can make space for the Spirit to move us. While not formulaic, I asked anyone who would like to join me in a one day fast to reflect on ways we make monsters. In response to this invitation, I share with you some of the things I saw shared on Facebook.

It is my prayer that we might have a conversion from identifying people as monsters to identifying people as beautiful, beloved children of God. If it can happen to Saul/Paul it must happen in us.

The anger of Jonah looks silly! (and so does ours)

Now this is just silly.

The prophet Jonah was called to go to his enemy and offer up the hope and Grace of God. After his epic struggle of accepting this call to go to "those people", Jonah sat outside the city and waited for God to rain down wrath on "those people". And, of course we know now, this wrath never happened. Jonah got angry at the whole thing and the story ends with God asking Jonah if it is okay for Jonah to care about a plant then shouldn't it be okay for Got to care about people and animals? 

It has been said that you can go to the area of Nineveh and look up and still see Jonah, sitting there on the top of the cliff looking down, angry that the destruction of "those people" never happened. 

It is silly to think that someone would be that angry for that long about anything. It is silly to be in the base of the valley and look up to see one angry person just sulking. It is silly to see one person get so caught up in anger. Looking at another person who is angry give us a different perspective on our own anger. 

Just as Jonah looks silly, so too we look silly when we are angry. There is much to be concerned about in this world, and those concerns can stoke strong emotions, but let us remember that anger was one of the things the desert fathers/mothers taught seekers to be cautious to embrace.

Just a few sayings:

Abbot Ammonas said that he had spent fourteen years in Scete praying to God day and night to be delivered from anger.

Agathon said, “Even if a person raises the dead but is full of anger, that person is not acceptable to God.”

James O. Hannay in his book, The Wisdom of the Desert, even speaks of the Fathers teachings on anger in this way:

The only point which is really peculiar in the hermits' teaching about anger is that the possibility of righteous anger is altogether denied. No matter how wicked a brother might be, or how serious the consequence of his sin, it was not right to be angry with him. To try to cure another of sin by angry denunciation was the same thing as for a physician to try to cure his patient by inoculating himself with a similar fever, for to be angry even with sinfulness is to sin.

May we be a people who sit in the valley with the Ninevites and repent of our misdoings and have pity on Jonah who sits on the edge of our city, praying for our demise.

This is difficult to do, not of least of which because we are not talking about repenting quite as much as we once did. Just doing a quick search take a look at how the term 'repent' has declined in usage over the decades.

More Jonah Greatness

In the last post I expressed how Jonah (whose name means "dove") was rejected as a sacrifice because God sent the fish to save and protect Jonah. The interpretive jump then was to the speculation that in the story of Jonah, God is rejecting the need for sacrifice all together. An idea that I am sure has been fleshed out elsewhere, but this post I want to share just another bit of Jonah greatness.

On the boat, it is clear that the sailors are looking for the cause of the violent seas. However all their searching to find the person responsible was just that - looking for someone else other. Not one sailor verbalized they may be part of the problem. All their finger pointing was to finding someone else to blame. Surely they are not part of the problem, right?

We do this. When there are "sea" of life becomes violent and out of control, we tend to be like the sailors and think that someone else must be to blame for the problems and difficult situations we find ourselves in. We tend to think that our contribution to a difficult situation is mild at best and if it were not for "the other person" life would not be so messy. 

Sailors look to scapegoat others for the problems.

Which is why the actions of the king of Nineveh is so remarkable. He, and by extension the entire city, do not know why there is a pending calamity coming to their city but they all take a share of the blame. From Jonah 3:6-10

"When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."

The Ninevites do not look to blame others. They do not sacrifice a dove (like the sailors did at Jonah's direction). They did not look to find an alternate scapegoat. They covered themselves in ashes and sackcloth. 

Nineveh looks inward and humbly accepts they might have been part of the problem. 

It is my prayer that we all might be less like a sailor and more like a Ninevite.