Four Brothers and God’s Grace

Preached at Tigard Friends Church 1/27/2019

I want us to look at two stories from the Bible that use the relationships between older and younger brothers to explore what God wants from each of us, and how each of us has our own unique relationship with God. Ultimately, both stories give brilliant pictures of God’s grace to each of the brothers and also to each of us.

The first story is of the first brothers, Cain and Abel. They each specialize in a different branch of agriculture. Cain raises grain, and Abel raises sheep. When it comes time to thank God for the harvest, each offers something of what they have raised.

God graciously accepts Abel’s offering and rejects Cain’s. We do not really know why and must infer it from what happens next, namely that Cain carries the seeds of murder in his heart.

If we identify with Abel, we are working hard and giving part of what we produce to God. We are glad to see that God graciously accepts our offerings. We are also innocently oblivious to the inner dynamics in other people and trust that they mean us well. Abels are often surprised by the envy and hatred of others.

When Cain sees that God has rejected his offering and favored his younger brother, he becomes afraid that God has rejected him and as a result he is jealous and angry. God speaks to him directly and says, “Why are you angry? If you behave well, you will be accepted. If you behave badly, sin is at your door and wants to eat you up.” Cain says, essentially, “Whatever.” We see here the commitment of God to our free will, in that God could easily have prevented Cain from killing Abel and did not. It is always surprising how and when God intervenes in human affairs.

What in us might identify with Cain? Perhaps it is actual rivalry we have with our siblings. Perhaps our parents favored one child above the rest.  The first child has to watch parents get more lenient with second and third children. Perhaps now that we have grown up, we can see that our sibling has more trappings of success; we can see that though we work as hard or harder, everything goes our brother’s way. Even in religion, our sibling has a sunnier relationship with God and doesn’t seem to be afraid that God will reject her offering. Our sibling’s serene confidence is all by itself annoying.  Perhaps someone tries to reassure us that God will accept our offerings if we do the right thing, which we interpret as meaning we need work harder to earn God’s favor. Now we’re angry because we already tried that and failed.

So then Cain invites Abel out into the fields and kills him. This murder derives directly from the deadly sins that Cain has embraced in his heart. First, envy, then anger, then hatred. But just recall that they all are rooted in Cain’s fear that God does not love him as much as God loves Abel.

God again speaks to Cain directly and says, “Where is your brother?” Cain replies, “How would I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?” God says, “The earth itself cries out for justice for your brother’s blood. Therefore, you will be cursed by the land, which will not bear fruit for you. You will wander homeless.”

Cain says, “My sin is too bad for your grace. You have cast me out and you will hide your face from me, and I am a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me.” God replies, “No, in fact, whoever kills Cain will be punished even more severely.” And God places a mark on Cain so that no one will kill him.

So Cain departs from the face of God, a fugitive on the earth. But he finds a wife, they had a son named Enoch, and Cain builds a city and names it after his son.

Now why was Cain’s offering unacceptable? God’s rejection of the offering was not a rejection of Cain, which we can see in that God shows up to talk with Cain again, but it brings Cain’s inner life into the open. Cain is prone to comparing himself to others, which has its roots in fear of being unacceptable or inadequate, and which becomes envy when he sees God accepting Abel’s offering. This envy evolves into wishing Abel ill and progresses to actively eliminating the competition for God’s favor. Perhaps Cain sees God’s favor as a limited resource, so if Abel gets some, there is less for Cain.

I have found that this story stirs up in me a desire to do whatever it takes to be acceptable to God, so I can be as good as Abel, the one God likes best. It makes me want to be and do good so that God will be gracious to me. This impulse derives from the part where God says to Cain, “If you behave well, will you not be accepted?” When I respond this way, with increased good intentions, I miss the point, and the good I do is marred by its origin in comparison. St. Paul tells us to rejoice when others rejoice and to weep when they weep. This is impossible to do when I am comparing myself to others and becoming envious as Cain does.

I also have shared in Cain’s sense of being cast away by God. But note: Cain is the one who says that God is banishing him from God’s presence, and this internal state is what he carries with him. However, we know that we cannot elude God’s presence, though it is not always comfortable to have God so close. As the Psalmist David says, “Where can I go to get away from you? If I ascend into the heavens, there you are. If I make my bed in the grave or descend to hell, there you are.” And as Job the theologian says, “Could you not look away from me for one moment so I can swallow my spit?” So the distance between Cain and God exists only within Cain.

I also have shared Cain’s idea of justice. A murderer is beyond grace, deserves to be rejected and cast out of decent society. A murderer deserves to have the life taken away that he or she took away from someone else. This is justice, and Cain expects it. It makes sense, like adding 2 plus 2 and getting 4, or more appropriately subtracting 1 from 2 and then from 1, ending up in nothing and no one left.

It is interesting to note that the physical earth cries out about Abel’s blood. The need for justice runs through the universe and executing justice is God’s problem. We humans tend toward revenge rather than justice, and when God limits our revenge to eye for eye, we think that’s God’s idea of justice. But the prophet Micah says to us that we ourselves are to do justice and to love mercy; loving mercy mitigates against eye for eye justice. Instead, we judge God’s justice and mercy by our own, which hardly does justice to God..

What we learn about Grace

First, God’s grace shows in God’s willingness to have unique personal relationships with humans. God speaks directly to Cain, confronting him with the truth about what is inside him and then later with what he has done. God is gracious enough to confront us, to remind us of our ability to choose good, and often to give us time to grow into better people. There is no question that Cain chooses to behave badly, so it is easy to ignore the fact that when God confronts his attitude, this is grace to him, reminding him that he has a choice, and that God exhibits grace to him even when he has chosen very badly.

Second, God describes to him how the physical universe cries out because of Abel’s blood, and that there are life consequences for Cain, the farmer. The exercise of our free will has consequences, sometimes ones we see close up, sometimes ones experienced by subsequent generations or peoples far away. God’s grace doesn’t often (or perhaps ever) remove the physical and temporal consequences of human choices.

Third, God does not, in fact, shed Cain’s blood in payment for Abel. This calls into question our idea that the later Mosaic law that says, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life expresses God’s ideal. God’s grace uses a different kind of math to achieve justice. Furthermore, God’s grace makes us question our own simple understanding of justice. Indeed, God protects Cain from others who might kill him as a murderer.

Fifth, Cain does in fact wander, but eventually he has a family and builds a home and a city. So, in a moment when God could be exactly just and take from Cain the same life Cain took from Abel, God instead shows Cain mercy, gives him protection, and allows him to live a full life.

I won’t speak for everyone here, but I do think it’s common to be envious when we see God taking care of other people, particularly other people we see as second to us, either by birth order (as for Cain), by morality, by nationality, by some other measure. The psalms are full of questions to God: Why do the others prosper? Why are you so unhelpful to me?. “Why do the wicked prosper?” we complain with the prophet Jeremiah. We often have a desire to see God’s justice distributed on the bad guys and to have God’s mercy and grace distributed to us.

Our response to seeing God’s favor showered on other people reveals to us the state of our own souls. St. Paul says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” But if I’m obsessed with fairness, I may well rejoice in others’ misfortunes and weep only over my own. Turns out, God doesn’t like that. God will confront me directly and warn me about my envy and fear of unacceptability.

The second pair of brothers is the famous unnamed pair in the story we call the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells this story in the context of stories about God caring for the lost. Two brothers and a father, and the younger asks for his inheritance and goes off to waste it in wild living. The older stays home and works like a slave for their father while keeping an eye on his future inheritance.

The younger is working as a swineherd when he comes to his senses. He realizes that the pigs are getting more to eat than he is and that his father’s slaves live in more comfort than he does. He decides to go home and plans a repentance where he offers to work for his father as a slave. 

And when he nears home, the father, who has been watching for him since he left, runs to meet him. The father orders up for the prodigal son the best clothing, the finest jewelry, and the fattest calf for a (prodigal) feast. “My son who was dead is now alive!” he says.

When we identify with the younger son, we can celebrate whole-heartedly the gracious welcome of the father. We see how God is always waiting to welcome the wanderer back with open arms and heart. We are relieved to note that there is a welcome for bad brothers, the Cains of the world, and this encourages us to leave our unsatisfying self-made lives and run to God. I’ve found this so hopeful when I’ve clearly made a mess of things and found that God’s love is nonetheless constant.

But when we identify with the older brother who has worked all his life to please his father, we can learn some additional things about God’s grace. First, it is possible to live a life surrounded and infused by God’s presence and grace and never notice. It is possible to believe that we are earning God’s favor by our diligence and devotion. And when we do not recognize that we owe everything to God’s grace, it is maddening to see God ladle it out over a person who has forsaken God and goodness. It scandalizes our sense of fair play, of justice even, especially when there is no acknowledgement of our own moral excellence, when the only notice we get is to be invited to welcome the wastrel back.  We didn’t even get to throw ourselves a birthday party! I myself have said to God, “I know you’re gonna let that so and so into heaven and I’m not happy about it.”

The father’s response to his sulky son (who may be thinking about inviting his brother into the field to kill him…) is to confront his inaccurate view of their relationship head on. First, he calls him, “My son,” affirming their intimate relationship. Second, he reminds him, “Everything I have is yours.” The father remains committed to the son’s best interests, despite the son’s self-absorption. Third, he says, and I imagine gently, “But isn’t it appropriate to celebrate when our son and brother comes back from the dead?” He invites the son to rejoice with those who rejoice, to join the party.

So what do we learn from looking at these sets of brothers side by side?

1.     We humans have a tendency to compare ourselves to others.

2.     This tendency is often destructive of inner peace and relationships with those others. It leads to envy and other deadly sins.

3.     We humans tend to want God to be just to other people and gracious to ourselves.

4.     However, God’s grace surrounds and infuses our human lives, whether we recognize it or not. God’s grace reminds us to go home to God, protects us when we are wandering, offers hope for something better.

5.     We cannot and do not earn grace. Grace means favor we have not (and cannot) earn.

6.     Our response to seeing God’s grace in action for ourselves and for others needs to be gratitude (which includes the word grace). God’s grace is gratis—or free—and this is true for us and for those we have written off as prodigal, wicked, naïve, or prissy.

7.     We can tell we have the right attitude about God’s grace when we can rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

One of the dominant metaphors for God’s kingdom is a feast, a party. Let’s be grateful for how God’s grace surrounds us and how God is gracious to others as well, and we can be the life of the party in the kingdom of God.

Hope and Living Water

Jeremiah 17:13, 50:7,  John 1:25

The Pharisees came to John in the Jordan River and asked him, “If you are not the Christ, the Messiah, or Elijah, or the foretold prophet, why are you baptizing?”

There is so much to unpack in this single question.

To understand the full import of what the Pharisees asked, we need to return to Israel before the forced exile to Babylon and the voluntary exile to Egypt, namely the time of Jeremiah the prophet.

During a time of famine, the Word of God came to Jeremiah.

Judah mourns

The cry of Jerusalem has gone up

The nobles have sent their little children to the watersprings

They find no water

They return with their bowls empty

Ashamed and confused

They cover their heads

The ground is beaten down, afraid

There is no rain

The plowmen are ashamed and confused

They cover their heads

The deer calve but find no grass

The wild asses snuff up the air like dragons

Their eyes search to the end but there is no grass

Oh Lord, our sins witness against us

We have turned away, turned back from You many times

For Your own Name’s sake,

Israel’s Hope and Pool of Living Water,

Rescuer and Savior in time of anguish and adversity,

Why are you a stranger and a wayfarer in the land,

One who stays only for the night?

Why are you stunned and confused

Like a champion who cannot rescue or save?

                                                                        From Jeremiah 14:1-9

And again:

Oh YHWH, LORD,

Israel’s Hope and Pool of Living Water,

All who forsake you shall be ashamed and confused

Those who revolt from my words shall be recorded in the earth

Because they have forsaken YHWH, the LORD,

The wellspring of living water.

                                                                        From Jeremiah 17:7

Following the time when Jeremiah spoke and wrote these words, Israel’s people were divided and exiled. After their return to their homeland, they took great care to do whatever they could to avoid another exile and dispersal of their people. From this context, the Pharisees arose.

The Pharisees took Torah seriously and often literally. They followed its teachings in matters of belief and behavior. They were careful to observe religious rites and to perform acts of piety. They eagerly awaited Messiah, more so after their national humiliation first at the hands of the Greeks, defeated by the Maccabees, and now, in the time of John, at the hands of the Romans. They had not been exiled, but they were not the autonomous theocracy they believed God intended. So they were looking for the one God would send to rescue and save them, in part from sin, but in larger part from the Romans. They were the true believers, the true patriots.

One aspect of their belief is the necessity of ritual washing. Torah teaches that many life events cause uncleanness in the individual, who has then to wash and remain unclean until nightfall (see Leviticus, many places).  (It can be noted that these life events often have to do with the death of potential life or actual death, ultimately connected with sin by way of the Fall.) After the Babylonian exile, the devout constructed mikveh for this purpose, sacred individual baths, fed by “living water”—water from springs. Rainwater from a cistern that flowed by gravity into this mikveh was acceptable, but flowing rainwater cannot purify. Then as well as today, converts to Judaism must wash in a mikveh.[1]

The Jordan River, sourced by three smaller rivers all rising from springs, is living water for the purposes of washing away uncleanness. Thus it is the perfect spot for John to immerse those who are repenting of living wrongly.

The Pharisees who came hopefully to ask John his calling had already been through their daily washing, very likely. They wanted to please God so that their nation would be free from oppressors. They also wanted a Messiah who would help turn the nation toward God so that God would free them from Rome.

The Messiah Who Actually Came

The story is familiar about how Jesus arrived at the Jordan, John spoke prophetically of the Lamb of God who carries away the sins of the whole world, and then Jesus enters the purifying water and John baptizes him. John sees the Spirit of God descend on Jesus and witnesses that “this is the Son of God.” By the end of John 1, Jesus has identified himself as the same ladder Jacob saw between earth and heaven, with God’s messengers ascending and descending on it. In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that the natural birth and the water bath must be followed and superseded by a spiritual birth. In John 4, by Jacob’s Well, Jesus offers the Samaritan woman living water, even a well of water springing up in her to everlasting life. In John 5, Jesus heals a man waiting by healing waters, but the man does not, in fact, bathe either literally or figuratively in living water, and he turns Jesus in as a Sabbath-breaker.

In John 6, Jesus walks over the waters of the Sea of Galilee to join the fearful disciples in their boat.

In John 7, Jesus stands in the Temple and shouts,

All who thirst,

Come to me and drink

All who trust in me

Will have streams of living water

Within them

(He spoke thus of the Spirit of God)

                                                                        John 7:37-39

It would not have escaped the Pharisees in the crowd that Jesus was echoing the prophet Isaiah:

All who thirst

Come to the watersprings

                                                                        Isaiah 55:1

John 9 tells of Jesus healing a blind man by spitting in the dust, making a mud poultice, and then sending him to wash in the pool fed by the fountain of Siloam. This washing revisits the whole idea of the mikveh, the purifying bath that prepares for worship. Indeed, when the man sees Jesus again, he worships him.

By John 10, Jesus has completed a circle and returned to the spot where John baptized him. In John 13, Jesus washes feet, saying to Peter, “If I don’t wash you, you hold no part in me….Whoever has bathed is clean, and needs only to wash the feet. And you are clean.” Jesus himself is the living water that purifies, and to be part of him requires immersion in that mikveh as well as the specific washing of whatever is dusty. This becomes more vivid when the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’s side and blood and water flow out (John 19:34)—blood symbolizing life, human life, and water symbolizing the living water of spirit, first referenced in John 1:12-13:

But to as many who held onto him,

Who committed themselves to his character and authority,

To them he gave the strength and freedom

To become children of God:

Born not of human blood nor human pleasure nor human will,

But of God’s blood, God’s pleasure and God’s will.

John identifies Jesus with the purifying and healing water of the mikveh, and this is not entirely new information. But the most exciting insight comes out of the passages in Jeremiah, where the mikveh bath is a sacred pun for hope, one of the three central Christian virtues.

When Jesus is our cleansing bath, we enter into his being, we take hold of him and become one with him and one like him. This is our ground for hope. Hope is not an insubstantial wish for things to improve, but our hope, who is Jesus, anchors us. We may need daily to have Jesus clean us, but no one can take away from us that immersion in the water of life, which Jesus has also placed within us and provided for us. As the apostle says in 1 John 3:2-3:

Beloved, we are now the children of God

What we will be has not yet appeared

But we do know that when God appears

We will be like God

For God will allow us to see God

As God really is

And all who have this hope in God

Cleanse themselves

Even as God is clean

Here is a picture of that cleansing, healing bath from the fiction of George MacDonald. In The Princess and Curdie, Irene has had a terrifying adventure underground in goblins’ tunnels, and has found her way back to her magical grandmother. Here is the scene:

“You are very tired, my child,” the lady went on. “Your hands are hurt with the stones, and I have counted nine bruises on you. Just look what you are like.”

And she held up to her a little mirror which she had brought from the cabinet. The princess burst into a merry laugh at the sight. She was so draggled with the stream, and dirty with creeping through narrow places…The lady laughed too, and lifting her again upon her knee, took off her cloak and night-gown. Then she carried her to the side of the room. Irene…[started] a little when she found that she was going to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away…in a great blue gulf. Her hands closed involuntarily on the beautiful arms that held her, and that was all.

The lady pressed her once more to her bosom, saying: “Do not be afraid, my child.”

“No, grandmother,” answered [Irene], with a little gasp: and the next instant she sank in the clear cool water.

When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a strange lovely blue over and beneath and all about her. … she seemed nearly alone. But instead of being afraid, she felt more than happy—perfectly blissful. And from somewhere came the voice of the lady singing…

How long she lay in the water she did not know. It seemed a long time—not from weariness but from pleasure. But at last she felt the beautiful hands lay hold of her, and through the gurgling water she was lifted out into the lovely room. …When she stood up on the floor she felt as if she had been made over again. Every bruise and all weariness were gone, and her hands were soft and whole as ever.

And here is another lovely picture of the truth of this living water:

And he showed me a clean river

Of the water of life

Crystal clear

Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb

And on either side of the river was the Tree of Life

Yielding twelve kinds of fruit

One each month

And its leaves were for the healing of the nations

                                                                        Rev. 21:1-2

The first gathering of water referred to as mikveh is Genesis 1:10, where God gathers together the waters called Seas. The mikveh bath is a place where drops of water collect together. Many small drops of water springing from the earth or falling from the sky gather together in one significant community of water. This occurs because the separate drops abide together, or in the case of a river, they are continuous with one another.

Let us take to heart these truths. Jesus washes us clean, Jesus is the living water which springs up in us, Jesus is the living water in which we bathe ourselves, Jesus is our hope. As we gather together, we too can be living water for each other, and our hope bonds us together to be living water and hope—mikveh—for the healing of whole world.

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[1] Much of this information comes from the Wikipedia article on mikveh.

Jesus, Privilege, Victims, and Empathy

John 8:1-16

Recently, an old friend said, “We are all victims.” A young queer acquaintance of mine wrote, “everyone is not a victim. everyone does not experience harm in the same way.” So I spoke to my old friend and said, “Your words were hurtful.” He reiterated his belief that we are all victims. And I said, “Until you are willing to say publicly why you are a victim, how you’ve been victimized, you don’t get to say, ‘we.’”

The #metoo campaign startled a lot of my (male) friends. Surely it isn’t true that so many (all?) the women they know have been sexually harassed or abused. Surely the women who said #metoo need to publicly say how they were victimized. Otherwise, how can people know if the women are telling the truth or are exaggerating the harm or even making things up? So said (some of) my (male) friends.

As an aside, I really liked the idea someone put forward that men should ask themselves, “Would I treat Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson like this?” If the answer is no, then don’t treat the woman or girl like that either. If you wouldn’t extend a hug past 2-3 seconds for “The Rock,” then don’t do so for a female friend or acquaintance. If you wouldn’t spread into Dwayne’s space, don’t spread into hers. If you wouldn’t ask Mr. Johnson for a kiss—or just plant one on his lips—don’t try it with a woman. (Interestingly, women will need a different image to deter them from sexually harassing a man—maybe they need to envision a giant toad or a cobra or a python. This might also help women know when we can say “no.”)

So, back to the main story. I said on my FaceBook page, “Me too,” and I didn’t publish there why I posted it. I estimate at least ten percent of my FB friends know part of my reason for joining in, but not one of them knows all the reasons. And I don’t plan to put my life history in the public eye to justify my use of the phrase.

So we have a conundrum here. I want my old friend (white, male) to ante up his story of victimization before he can join in with #metoo, before he can say, “We are all victims,” but I can hardly bear to tell my counselor—sworn as she is to confidentiality—all the ways I’ve been victimized. Shame, self-blame—these cause me to withhold many experiences. And then there’s fear—the fear that if I share, the response will be, “What did you do to cause him to treat you like that?” And a new harm will be added to my collection. Or the response will be, “You need to forgive,” as if forgiveness erased pain, shame, self-loathing, fear. The lack of empathy for the seven year old I was (and inside still am) is a failure of imagination.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of the scoundrel, but religion may be the first, judging from my experiences. As a Christian child and woman, it pains and angers me to say that nearly all my victim experiences have been perpetrated by Christian men. The main exception is bullying/abuse by bigger kids, though these were in Christian school.

The way it works, as I see it, is this: a person of privilege has to drag out the story of victimization in order to show that he or she has the standing to speak to/with other victims. Those with less privilege can say #metoo, and they do not have to drag all the shaming things that have happened to them into the light. But when these things are dragged into the light, privilege may have something to answer for.

We can see the torture—perhaps even unmentionable rape by Roman soldiers—and crucifixion as evidence Jesus knows what we experience when we are harassed or abused. And these end-life events were not his only moments of rejection, shame, and threat of personal harm.

When he publicly claimed that God was sending him, that he was the one, his hometown folk tried to kill him, to push him off a cliff (Luke 4:29). Jerusalem folks threatened to stone him (John 8:59, 10:31). He evaded these physical harms, but the rejection fueled many of his hot statements condemning faithlessness and hypocrisy. The long-term result of Jesus’s victimization is the deconstruction of privilege everywhere.

A story found in John’s Gospel shows us this.

As a Jewish male—and one often recognized as a rabbi—Jesus had some of the marks of privilege in his culture. At the same time, his country was occupied by Roman soldiers, some of whom, it appears from John the Baptizer, extorted money from the citizenry and bullied unprotected Jews. Jesus’s privilege was also bounded by his status as illegitimate, which limited his ability to marry and made him a target for malicious ridicule (John 8:41).

Jesus used his privilege to welcome (Zaccheus the taxman, the sinful woman and her tears, the hemorrhaging woman, the children) and to confront (the rich young ruler, the religious elites, his own disciples, the Syro-Phoenician woman). He gave away privilege to talk as equal human beings with the Samaritan woman, with Mary and Martha at Lazarus’s tomb, with his mother Mary at the Cana wedding.

So Jesus’s behavior chronicled elsewhere in the Gospels is in line with what we see in the story of the woman taken in adultery and brought to him for judgment. The men in this story have all the privilege. The absence of the male adulterer speaks to this fact. The crowd speak to Jesus as a person of privilege—male, Jewish, a rabbi—and test him to see if he belongs with them. Will he uphold the system that privileges him?

Jesus resists their manipulations. He takes his own sweet time to sketch in the dirt. He knows he is inside a hostile circle. He knows a stray rock—or many stray rocks—may hit him as they punish the sinful woman. He knows that the only way to retain privilege and to stay personally safe is to step away from the woman and join those holding stones. But he stays beside her and challenges the crowd. He raises the double standard which privilege makes the norm when he says, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”

As the members drop their stones and slink away, he speaks to the woman. I have always seen her in my imagination as cowering in terror, but perhaps she was defiant, loud, shouting to the crowd that she knew things about them, that she might hurt them if she got a chance. Either way, as the members drop the rocks and edge away, Jesus speaks to the woman, cowering or shouting obscenities, inviting her to be calm, to look around, to go without shame or blame, to go forward as a responsible human being.

So what can we learn from Jesus about privilege, about #metoo, about “we are all victims”?

1.     What Jesus does is to stand by the least powerful person and against the crowd. As the only one on the scene with the qualifications to act as judge and jury, Jesus chooses to be with the accused and to share her fate.

2.     What Jesus exposes, at the same time, is that all are sinners. All have erred, strayed, avoided obeying, disobeyed, bent what is true, and so on. No one has superior status, either social or moral. We have to confront personally and seriously our own carelessness or cruelty as part of learning how to be humane, to be kind rather than victimizers. Not one of us gets to be judge and jury for another.

3.     To say “We are all sinners” is not the same as saying, “We are all victims.” It is saying “We have all done harm to others, we are all complicit in making others into victims.”

4.     So whenever we find ourselves in a crowd with rocks in our hands, we will find Jesus standing beside the person who is about to die, whose shame and fear are leaking out everywhere, who feels completely alone.

5.     Jesus told us, “Just as you have acted toward the least—the powerless, the alien, the despised other—you have acted toward me. When you assert your privilege to exclude, silence, shame, blame, diminish, even destroy another person, you are doing the same to me.”

William Blake pointed out that it is natural for those who have experienced tyranny to rebel against it and to overthrow it. It is also natural for the former rebels to become tyrants in their turn. We who have privilege can break this cycle. We must recognize who the outsider is, whom the present system victimizes, and stand beside them against the powers that be. The tide can turn, and those who previously stood above in the place of privilege can find themselves in the center of the circle, threatened with stoning. In that moment, Jesus stands inside the circle again, drawing in the dirt, facing the accusers with the same challenge. “Let those among you without sin cast the first stone.”

"You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above
And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love
And it makes me feel so sorry"--Bob Dylan

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