Us and Them

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment Phil.1:9 Love Knowledge Discernment One thing changes everything, without which nothing changes Killing the Hostility Kill “No man is an island, entire of itself.” John Donne The truth about us humans… We are the most social of God’s creatures. We cannot live any other way. Our social existence defines us. We understand ourselves in the context of the groups to which we belong. We are our family, our religion, our nationality, our ethnicity, our class, our politics and the football team we root for. “We are Penn State!!” But who we are is often understood today most clearly in terms of who we aren’t. We are us because we are not them. We are prone to have more passion for what we oppose than for what we support Negativity is easily energized. Politicians understand this and know how to manipulate the group (groupthink) If we nurture the antagonism of groupthink hostility toward the others – the alienated them—then that hostility can so corrupt our thinking that we deprive them of their full humanity (dehumanize) Once that’s done all things are permitted If the Nazi denies the humanity of the Jew, If the Serb denies the humanity of the Bosniak, If the Hutu denies the humanity of the Tutsi, then all things are permitted, Including genocide We are becoming more than a nation divided… A study published last year found that just over 42 percent of Democrats and Republicans view the opposition as “downright evil.” Some 20 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans think “we’d be better off as a country if large numbers of the opposing party in the public today just died.” When asked “how much do you feel violence would be justified” if the opposing party won the 2020 presidential election, 18.3 percent of Democrats and 13.8 percent of Republicans said such violence would be appropriate on a scale ranging from “a little” to “a lot.” The Dennison Report Jan.30,2020 The human race has a tragic history of drawing lines in hostility and relating to the whole world as either the accepted us or the alienated them. The us vs. them attitude of groupthink hostility is the source of humanity’s most shameful crimes: racism, torture, war and genocide. A relevant gospel must go beyond the realm of private piety and afterlife religion and address the curse of deep-seated historic hostility The Cross of Jesus - God’s Peace Project designed to end the hostility and achieve reconciliation The Jewish mind of the 1st century understood citizenship in the kingdom of God (Israel) was based on three things: ethnicity, circumcision, and Torah Observance—all of which excluded the Gentiles “To be accepted by God, you must become one of us.” BUT ISRAEL SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Gen.12:1-3 From Abraham to a family, into a tribe, and finally a nation and culture. At the heart of that nation was the temple where the people could encounter the living God but not Gentiles Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed…. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people” “…these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Isaiah 56:1,3,7 Us and Them… The wall placed around the holy precincts of the (Herod’s) temple had an inscription carved in stone every few feet… “No foreigner is to go beyond this wall. Whoever is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his death, which will follow.” The Kingdom of Heaven…on Earth making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Eph.1:9-10 Eph.2:11-22 The cross is where God ends human hostility and forms a new humanity, a reconciled humanity, one capable of living together in peace; and a new temple with the Messiah as the cornerstone I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, Mt.8:11 Paul’s mission …to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (the kingdom of God). Col.1:27 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, Col.1:12-13 Not everybody saw this as good news One of the primary problems between Jesus and the Pharisees was the difference in their approach to the us vs. them attitude The Pharisees saw the kingdom of God as the righteous vs. the sinful and their interpretation of who was righteous was nonnegotiable—they were the righteous ones and those outside their movement were the sinners. … Us versus Them REMEMBER the Pharisees were a conservative religious-political party who saw their mission to take Israel for God The Pharisees would try to produce a “moral majority.” Jesus’ practice was to welcome the very ones alienated by the Pharisees The Pharisees showed their faithfulness to God by hating the right people Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. Ps.139:21-22 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. Lev.19:18 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Mt.5:43-44 When hating your enemy is understood as hating God’s enemy that’s when the us vs. them paradigm of hostility takes on a religious nature. Hating your enemy (who is believed to be the enemy of God) becomes a demonstration of your love of God. The Pharisee’s paradigm: Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Jesus destroys their paradigm: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus’ new paradigm—the kingdom of God paradigm: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” The idea that you can prove your love for God by hating the right people lives on The suicide bomber does what he does because he loves God. The God he imagines. The God who is on his side But are we Christians without guilt? The Crusades The Inquisitions John Calvin’s endorsement of the burning of the heretic Michael Servetus in 1553. Calvin argued that God’s “due honor” demands “extreme severity” requiring us to “forget all humanity” and “combat for his glory.” The NT demonstrated God’s glory by Jesus’ cross and the forgiveness of His enemies For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:13 How did the cross kill the hostility? “The open arms of Christ on the cross are the sign that God does not want to be without the other-humanity-and suffers humanity’s violence to embrace it. When God went forth to embrace his enemy, the result was the cross.” Miroslav Volf “The early church fathers were fond of describing the Trinity as a dance—an eternal dance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A shared dance of mutual love and joy. Humanity is the alienated other. Humanity is outside the dance. But humanity is not just the other, but the beloved other, the beloved other who has become an enemy. In the most agonizing moment of the cross, known as the Cry of Dereliction, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In that moment we might imagine a break occurring in the eternal dance of the Trinity, a momentary fissure to make room for us. Now humanity is invited to join with God in the joyful dance of reconciliation—a dance that not only celebrates reconciliation but also celebrates the death of hostility… The prayer our Savior prayed as he was being crucified forever defines how the Christ follower must regard the alienated them. Hostility is no longer permitted.” Brian Zahnd For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named (KJV) Eph.3:14-15 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Jn.17:20-23 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. I Thess.3:12-13 “When you see the plan of God for all mankind, it will turn into the love of God for all mankind.” Rick Knapp