She was falling down the mountain,
An avalanche of human stone
As she tumbled to the valley,
She thought she's better off alone.
He felt the pressure of a million miles underneath the sea
Still taking in water from a love that couldn't be
It was girls on one side, boys on the other
No one was dancing or looking for love
Sometimes it's over
Before it begins
No one takes a risk and everyone wins
If you love someone, then let them go
'cause goodbye
Is the new hello
The new hello
“The New Hello”, The Hawk In Paris
Most days, I wish it were easier.
Let’s be honest: Relationships are hard. People are frustrating. Intimacy is risky. Love is dangerous. Conversely, it costs me nothing to allow a stranger to remain a stranger. It is an easy thing to maintain animosity with an enemy. There is a certain cognitive safety in isolation. Yes, there is safety in solitude for my weary - admittedly introverted - soul. But, in the end we know that safety alone is not the substance of an abundant, whole life. The truth is, we need each other.
In his fantastic work, “Exclusion and Embrace” theologian Miroslav Volf describes the temptation - indeed, the abiding psychological inclination - to understand ourselves and articulate our identities in terms of CONTRAST with that and those which lie beyond our boundaries and borders. The ease, with which we think of ourselves in terms of the “other”; that which we are NOT. At the boundary between “us” and “them”, we stake the fenceposts of our own identity, knowing by virtue of that and whom we exclude from our “us”, who WE are, and thereby coming to know with whom else we can feel we belong. In many ways, this is just a cognitively efficient way in which to engage the world. It has been proven efficient, likewise, to boost our own sense of esteem and self worth by means of disparaging and actively disassociating from the “other”, when given the chance to do so. Social psychologist Christina Cleveland (“Disunity in Christ”) has done some remarkable work in this area, and I recommend her highly.
And maybe this is just an overly complicated way of preparing to say that, of all the words in the English language, I suspect that one, single word above all others may very well be the most dangerous to the flourishing of the Gospel in our day:
“Them.”
We must realize: while it is true that “exclusion” and “other-ing” is a natural and psychologically efficient way by which to engage the world around us it is NOT, it turns out, the way of Jesus. Those of us who have been exposed to Jesus for any length of time ought not be surprised by this. But some thousands of years on, now, the teachings of Jesus still manage to remain surprisingly radical. In contrast to the way of exclusion, Volf articulates the Gospel of Jesus in terms of radical EMBRACE, by way of the cross:
“When God sets out to embrace the enemy, the result is the cross. . . . Having been embraced by God, we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in— even our enemies. This is what we enact as we celebrate the Eucharist. In receiving Christ’s broken body and spilled blood, we, in a sense, receive all those whom Christ received by suffering.”
Early on in his earthly ministry, Jesus himself paints a powerful picture for us of the breadth and significance of the embrace he intends to bring about:
“Then (Jesus’) mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”’ (Mark 3:31-35)
It seems that Jesus intends to make us family, with him, and within his embrace there’s not an “other” in site.
Here’s the thing: so long as another person is comfortably exiled in my mind to a position of “OTHER-ness” - so long as they remain a “THEM” to me, rather than an “us” - I can find ways to justify failing to care for their well-being.
Consider: So long as people struggling with addiction remain THOSE (addicts/junkies/burnouts/whatever), they remain a political issue, a law enforcement issue, perhaps a medical systems issue, and demand very little of me. But when that struggle comes HOME, whether by accident or choice; when the “issue” becomes a name, a face, a voice, a story - becomes, even, by the Spirit of Christ a brother or sister or mother - then love holds agency to move me into sacrificial engagement. The struggle becomes a burden we bear together, because in the economy of embrace it is OUR burden, not simply “theirs”.
Consider: Those of advanced age, so often exiled to “out of sight, out of mind” in a culture which idolizes youth and youthfulness; mothers and fathers in Christ, too often deprived of our embrace.
Consider: The toxic, vehement false binaries of our present political economy. No one knows what WE stand for, anymore; we just know that we’re not THEM, and we’ll burn the country down if we have to, to prove the point.
Consider: Our persistent, pervasive American racial unrighteousness. As a white, middle class, American male (from New Hampshire, no less), from a “natural” posture of self-oriented exclusion, there is little that would compel me to take up the burden of broken systems around mass incarceration, immigration, generational poverty and the like. My own survival and well-being are not contingent upon the struggle and, in fact, the simple act of choosing to enter the fray may come with not insignificant personal cost that I might have otherwise avoided. But when, through the cross of Jesus, I come to understand that the refugee, the immigrant, the black, latino, the asian “other” - any and all those laboring beneath broken systems and generational burdens - cannot simply be relegated to the cognitive safety of a “THEM”, then I must come to grips with the responsibility which the love of Christ would call forth from me.
Here’s the earth-shattering Gospel of the crucified Christ, friends: By death itself defeated, and every “dividing wall of hostility” torn down, the now-and-coming Kingdom of Jesus declares that there is no “other” whom the grace of God does not purpose to embrace as “US”. In the light of such a declaration, we discover that “them” will be shown to be just a lazy, dangerous, four-letter word in the end. To the extent that we find we cannot part with it in our thinking, it may be that we need to embrace a bigger, truer Gospel.