I can’t remember when I was taught these symbols < > in grade school. Was it 2nd grade or 3rd grade, honestly I cannot remember? I do remember the concept!
For example: 3<8 (three is “less than” eight) or 5>2 (five is “greater than” two).
It is funny to think that I probably have not used those symbols since grade school. Yet this week, those symbols popped into my head.
I wasn’t thinking about which numbers are “greater than” and “less than” other numbers. I was thinking about how we do that with other people. Of course we would not say it, but we certainly think it. This person is a bad person (less than). This person is awesome (greater than). When it comes to God there is no such thing as “greater than” and “less than” when it comes to people.
Martin Bell wrote a book of short stories and essays in 1968 and they are wonderful. I pulled my copy with browned paper off my shelf to share a part of this essay with you. It is titled Wood and Nails and Colored Eggs.
“Something like an eternity ago, human beings got caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant sort of proposition. Here today—gone tomorrow. A vale of tears—that sort of foolishness.
What’s more tragic, of course, is that in the wake of this basic error there quickly followed the idea that human beings are expendable, which easily degenerated into the proposition that some human beings are expendable. Certain human beings are expendable. Really bad people are expendable. People with low I.Q.’s are expendable. Anyone who disagrees with me is expendable…
Well, that’s not true. It’s wrong. All wrong. And it has always been wrong. From the creation of the heavens and earth, it has been wrong. There is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable…
God raised Jesus from the dead to end that. We should be clear—once and for all—that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable…
When we see people as “<” (less than) bad stuff happens. In Rwanda several years ago Tutsis were < Hutus. We all know what happened in the middle of the 20th century in Europe: Jews and others were < everyone else. That is just scratching the surface. We know that on Sunday night an armed gunman killed many people in an Orlando nightclub because he most likely thought they were < him.
< (less than) has no place in conversations about people. When we view people or a group of people that way it can quickly turn to oppression or even violence. When we keep silent, others will view our silence as quiet approval. Neither is acceptable. This goes back to what I said last Sunday and our core value of “Hospitality to all.” Either everyone is welcome or we are a country club without a golf course. It is an all or nothing proposition. Either Jesus died for the sins of the world or he didn’t. What I mean by that is this: either Jesus died for everyone or he didn’t. (Belief in that action is a different conversation.)
This isn’t about a secret agenda. This is about our ability to live up to the words we claim as our core value. If we see all people as children of God, then there is no “less than” or “greater than.” Those words get replaced with another math sign: =. In God’s eyes we are all sinful. We are equal because we all have the same need, a God who will forgive us and bring us into community.
We don’t have to agree with someone 100% to be in community. However, we do have to treat each other as =’s to be children of God and the Church.
Below is the text of the letter from our Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Elizabeth Eaton after the shootings in Orlando on Sunday morning.
Think and pray on these things and for the people who are treated like they < others.
God bless,
Pr. Ben
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” Genesis 1:27
We are killing ourselves. We believe that all people are created in God’s image. All of humanity bears a family resemblance. Those murdered in Orlando were not abstract “others,” they are us. But somehow, in the mind of a deeply disturbed gunman, the LGBTQ community was severed from our common humanity. This separation led to the death of 49 and the wounding of 54 of us.
We live in an increasingly divided and polarized society. Too often we sort ourselves into like-minded groups and sort others out. It is a short distance from division to demonization. Yesterday, we witnessed the tragic consequences of this.
There is another way. In Christ God has reconciled the world to God’s self. Jesus lived among us sharing our humanity. Jesus died for us to restore our humanity. God invites us into this reconciling work. This must be our witness as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The perpetrator of this hate crime did not come out of nowhere. He was shaped by our culture of division, which itself has been misshapen by the manipulation of our fears. That is not who we are. St. Paul wrote, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ” (II Corinthians 5:17-20).
Our work begins now. We need to examine ourselves, individually and as a church, to acknowledge the ways we have divided and have been divided. We must stand with people who have been “othered”. We must speak peace and reconciliation into the cacophony of hatred and division. We must live the truth that all people are created in God’s image.
This morning your churchwide staff came together to mourn and to pray. We prayed for those killed in Orlando and remembered the Charleston Nine killed only a year ago. We prayed for the family of the shooter, for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and for our Muslim brothers and sisters who now face the threat of retaliation. And we prayed that the Prince of Peace will bring us to the day when we stop killing ourselves.
Your sister in Christ,
Elizabeth A. Eaton
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America