The post on Facebook read, "If your religion causes you to hate anyone, then you are practicing the wrong religion." I might think of that same sentiment differently. I might suggest, "If your form of Christianity causes you to hate anyone, then you are not walking with Christ."
I realize well how passionately some will reject this sentiment. I hear the contrary refrain sung every week, in politics, in the media, on the pages of editorial op/ed pieces, on Facebook and at church. I hear precisely how desperate we have become in protecting Christianity from the secular, ecumenical, unifying voice of a shared faith-in-practice. There is an attack on Christmas, I hear. Christianity is under siege, I see. We have to do something to protect ourselves from Muslims, from terrorists, from enemies of the country who would attack our way of life. I hear the call to hate and reject and exclude, to blame and to demonize.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a Christianity that walks with Christ. This may be a religion that is founded in Christ's name, but it is far afield from the peacemaking, loving, compassionate Jesus Christ of history and reality. This Jesus pours himself out for all people, both those like and unlike himself, Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female. We can extend that thought to include the poor, the homeless, the desperate, the hopeless and the rejected, expelled, excluded masses. It includes Muslims, gays, homophobes, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats ( even Independents and Libertarians). It includes the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, those who live in mansions and those who sleep under newspapers on our city streets. It envelopes every race, every kind, every clan, every nation, every philosophy, every ignorance, every privileged and advantaged one, every gender, every life-style, every hair color and make-up choice. It does not exclude anyone on the basis of skin color, body shape, height, weight, ability or disability. Everyone is included in Christ's love. Every one!
History is filled with the destructive stories of sectarian religious groups engaging in violence and hatred. Wars have been waged, Crusades enacted, interments ordered, cultural divisions created, exclusions made, heretics named and names called...all in the name of religion.
While human beings tend to fall into patterns of protectionism, especially when it comes to our religious heritage and traditional practice, to protect our institutions when doing so leads us astray from the foundations of the faith is wrong. Christ is the foundation of our faith. We base ourselves in his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness and generosity, universally and cosmically, individually and personally. We are called to be his reflections, to embody him, to practice what he showed us.
If hate is what we choose, then we are not in and of Christ, even if we are the most faithful of church attenders and the most active of church participants and the staunchest defender of church values, traditions and practices. If rejection, division, fear and loathing are at the core of the ways that we live, then we do not live in Christ.
We have got to stop listening to the very loud voices of fear and loathing. We have to begin listening to Christ, instead, and to the direction of God's Spirit, which speaks powerfully and tenderly from within. We have to work at connecting the ways we actually, concretely, practically live with the example that we have seen in God's Son. If our form of Christianity causes us to hate anyone, then we are not walking with Christ. If our religion causes us to hate anyone, then we are practicing the wrong religion.
I know that we can live faithfully in relationship with the real Christ Jesus. When we bring him to life within us, we overcome the hate and divisions of the world in which we live and testify to God's will. What if that were our Christmas gift this year? What if that were our New Year resolution? What if we were to walk with Christ, even when the world would have us live differently? The earthly realm and reign of God would be within our grasp.
Reject the hate and walk with Christ!
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