Precious savior, you gave your life for every sinner and every person who has been labeled as "other." Teach us your love that we may hold every person with your grace. Amen.
We are now a month removed from the elections. One of the most disturbing things during this past campaign season has been the way in which truth has been so easily discarded to the side of the road. Many politicians and the people supporting them no longer seem to feel any accountability to the truth. What is worse is that the people we count on to help us sort out the facts from fiction no longer seem inclined to make any effort to do so. We now live in a media culture that seems to pander for directly to ratings and profits.
The art of exaggeration and hyperbole has always been part of the campaign season raising up your work or intended work in the future and criticizing the opponents weaknesses and or "questionable" goals. But what we had been immersed in for this season seemed to entirely ignore any connection to reality or at least any need connect to what is measurable and real in the world.
Our President, Barack Obama, has been accused of falsifying his birth certificate, of being a foreign born plant from Kenya, of being a closet Muslim and dozens of "other" things. Every effort has been made to paint him as "other." At the same time Mitt Romney has been treated similarly sometimes during the nomination process, sometimes later during the main campaign, as other, he is a "Mormon," his grandfather was "a polygamist" who had fled to Mexico, he is "too wealthy," he is "detached" and has no understanding of what it is to be middle class. Again, he is "other."
From the earliest stories of the Bible the people of God have struggled with the "other." Sometimes God defining "the chosen people" over against the "other" Canaanites who occupied the land. Sometimes the heritage of Sarah in Isaac over against the child of Hagar, Ishmael, and the two were sent away. There was the "other" in the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom Judah. The was the "other" in the Samaritans and the "other" in the powers of Rome. Again and again "other" is continually present. We even find it in some of the sentiments expressed by Jesus on occasion, but always in transition to new teaching and new ways of seeing.
Human beings have always been suspicious of the "other." Often it has been with good reason when an "other" arrived as a conquering force on the shore of the homeland. But when Jesus speaks of "others" like the Samaritan woman at the well, or the women who touched the hem of his garment, of when he eats with Matthew the tax collector he suddenly throws open the doors of the kingdom to the unexpected embracing the "other" and bringing them into his circle.
How much more effective might we be as the church if we stopped seeing the "other" in every "other" group or person. As Christians we need to demonstrate our openness to embrace and hold fast in Christlike love to those who find themselves defined as "outside" the culture, the group or simply as "other."
We are now a month removed from the elections. One of the most disturbing things during this past campaign season has been the way in which truth has been so easily discarded to the side of the road. Many politicians and the people supporting them no longer seem to feel any accountability to the truth. What is worse is that the people we count on to help us sort out the facts from fiction no longer seem inclined to make any effort to do so. We now live in a media culture that seems to pander for directly to ratings and profits.
The art of exaggeration and hyperbole has always been part of the campaign season raising up your work or intended work in the future and criticizing the opponents weaknesses and or "questionable" goals. But what we had been immersed in for this season seemed to entirely ignore any connection to reality or at least any need connect to what is measurable and real in the world.
Our President, Barack Obama, has been accused of falsifying his birth certificate, of being a foreign born plant from Kenya, of being a closet Muslim and dozens of "other" things. Every effort has been made to paint him as "other." At the same time Mitt Romney has been treated similarly sometimes during the nomination process, sometimes later during the main campaign, as other, he is a "Mormon," his grandfather was "a polygamist" who had fled to Mexico, he is "too wealthy," he is "detached" and has no understanding of what it is to be middle class. Again, he is "other."
From the earliest stories of the Bible the people of God have struggled with the "other." Sometimes God defining "the chosen people" over against the "other" Canaanites who occupied the land. Sometimes the heritage of Sarah in Isaac over against the child of Hagar, Ishmael, and the two were sent away. There was the "other" in the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom Judah. The was the "other" in the Samaritans and the "other" in the powers of Rome. Again and again "other" is continually present. We even find it in some of the sentiments expressed by Jesus on occasion, but always in transition to new teaching and new ways of seeing.
Human beings have always been suspicious of the "other." Often it has been with good reason when an "other" arrived as a conquering force on the shore of the homeland. But when Jesus speaks of "others" like the Samaritan woman at the well, or the women who touched the hem of his garment, of when he eats with Matthew the tax collector he suddenly throws open the doors of the kingdom to the unexpected embracing the "other" and bringing them into his circle.
How much more effective might we be as the church if we stopped seeing the "other" in every "other" group or person. As Christians we need to demonstrate our openness to embrace and hold fast in Christlike love to those who find themselves defined as "outside" the culture, the group or simply as "other."
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