“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and
cumin, and have neglected the weightier
matters of the law: justice and mercy and
faithfulness. These you ought to have done,
without neglecting the others. You blind
guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a
camel!” (Jesus, Matthew 23:23-24). Matthew
23 should be routine, required reading for all
people of faith. It is a sober reminder of the
direction that our hearts can go when we
become too enamored with our own ideas of
what it means to live holy lives.
If an understanding of “holiness” leads to a
place where we refuse to be in the presence
of people who are not like us (for whatever
reasons—faith differences, life choices,
habits, idiosyncrasies, ethnicity, politics,
personality conflicts, etc.), then that “holiness”
is actually something else entirely. In fact, it is
rebellion against the intentions of God. It is
idolatry. Idolatry that prioritizes the avoidance
of personal, social, familial, religious, or
theological distress over the desires of God—
a God whose longing is that we become
people who shed light and spread salt among
the “nations.” That is, that we enter into the
lives of those who desperately need the care,
lovingkindness, compassion, and truth of God.
Naturally, in order to give light and scatter
salt, we must be in close proximity with those
upon whom salt and light are intended to rest.
Here is a truth that is critical for each of us
to grasp: We reject the world’s values, but we
do not reject the world. Being “unstained from
the world” (to borrow a thought from James
1:27) does not mean that we become
detached from the world. Far from it.
Being unstained from the world simply
means that we are not guided by the ethics
of the sinful world in which we live. We do
not buy into the schemes of Satan, who is
“the ruler of this world.” We do not bow the
knee to a culture of sin. Instead, as the
people of God, we live as citizens of God’s
kingdom.
We are not called to be spiritual
hermits. On the contrary, we are ordained
by our faith in Christ to be like Christ in
every way possible. In the name of Jesus,
we are meant to be in the places where
Jesus was, and among the people that
Jesus himself was among. There is scant
evidence in Scripture—most notably
absent in the gospels—for license to
batten down the hatches and disengage
from the community around us.
Alternatively, we see Jesus over and over
and over again entering into the lives of
others. Most often, Jesus engages others
who do not fit the common mold. He
converses with the dregs of society. He
shares the kindness of God with the ones
who experience no kindness from their
neighbors. Jesus works to create
community in the midst of the cultural
riffraff—those who are labeled because of
their physical circumstances, those who
are maligned because of their social
condition, and those who are adrift
spiritually. The history—and current
state—of the people who are in these
situations seems to matter far less to
Jesus than does the future that is available
to them in him. He addresses their sin, of
course. But to Jesus, it is not their sin that
defines who they are. It is not their
economic status. It is not their diseases or
maladies or misfortunes. Instead, for
Jesus, the folks he encounters are
identified by the truth that each of them is
made in the image of God. Every last one
of them.
–Ricky