If you are old enough, you will remember Rodney King, a black man who was beaten by LA police officers in the spring of '91, King led police on a high-speed chase before he was apprehended, but the severe beating that he received from four white officers is what caught public attention. The beating was videotaped and, when a predominantly white jury found the policemen "not guilty," riots erupted in South Central LA. These riots took the lives of 50 people and resulted in 9500 arrests before they subsided, and on the third day of the rioting, King made a public plea, "People, ...can't we all get along?"
Can't we all get along? Can't we...just get along? It seems like a reasonable question, and for willing individuals, it's entirely possible to get along with people who are distinctly different from oneself. Many conservatives have gay friends, many white people have black friends, many Christians have Jewish friends, and both of them may get along wonderfully with a non-believer. Individuals who know one another can easily get around the labels that divide them, but tribes find it to be much more difficult, When Rodney King was pleading for us to "get along," he was talking about blacks and whites, and that has proven to be much more difficult... because we are all tribal. We want to belong, and the "belonging" gives us identity. Years ago our daughter worked with troubled teens in the Joliet area, and when we asked her whom she worried about the least, she said "the teens who are in gangs because they have a support group." Amen. Gangs are support groups, but so are political parties, country clubs, self-help groups, and people of the same religion, or color, or income status. In the main, people are tribal and they're prone to trust people who are just like them. One of my friends told me recently that "she could never trust a Democrat," and she wasn't kidding. My Pilgrim ancestors left England because they weren't allowed to worship as they pleased... but when they landed in America, they immediately persecuted everyone who did not agree with them. They did this to protect their own group from dangerous beliefs...which is the same reason that the ancient Israelites were forbidden to associate with people who were different from them.
This is the way of the world. We form tribes of people who think, act, and look like us... and in many ways, this is a good thing. It gives us a community and something to hang on to- and a sense of pride, or outrage if we feel violated or misunderstood. As far as I'm concerned, nerds should hang with nerds, and Presbyterians ought to congregate with other Presbyterians. The South-going Zaxs will always go south and they undoubtedly feel more comfortable with other south-going Zaxs... but they must not abuse or bully the North-going Zaxs! On the contrary, without losing a sense of self, they ought to go out of our way to talk with, listen to, and try to understand them. And it is the same for us. The Presbyterians I know will never be comfortable in a contemporary worship setting... but they should never devalue those who are. What gets us into trouble is not the fact that we belong to different tribes, but rather, that we let the differences define us and separate us into "good and bad, or worthwhile and worthless," people. We go astray when we label others because this leads to dehumanizing them... and this leads to fear, entitlement, bullying, persecution, and violence. Rodney, we will never get along if we come to believe that others are nothing more than the labels we give them and the names we call them! If we allow our tribe to define and degrade others, it will be very easy to abuse them. I don't know anyone who would kill another person (outside of combat), but I may know a few who could kill a "savage," or a "witch." Words can be very damaging, and we ought to avoid labels- especially labels that engulf another person or even the entire tribe to which they belong!
Our labeling and our name-calling is probably less that it used to be, but it is causing more extensive damage because they are exacerbated by social media. Names and labels are easy to cast in our time, and it is still tempting to judge a person's worth by the label that someone else has laid upon them. Can we all get along? Sure, if we don't demonize one another. If we share what we hold in common and respect our differences, we should be able to get along... but we will never know what we do have in common unless we take the time to know the other and listen in love. I'm reminded of a man who owned a gigantic ranch in Texas. He called it something like the "Double S, Winding Z, Triple W, Running Waters, Deep Gorge" ranch, and he had thousands and thousands of acres. Wow, one of his friends said, how many cattle do you have? "Not that many," the rancher replied, "very few survive the branding." Amen. Friends, let's be proud of our own values. Let's nurture them, protect them, and practice them. Our ways are comforting and energizing, but we can enjoy these things without labeling and dehumanizing others. There's a story about a zoo in which a lion and a lamb shared the same cage. Day after day they could be found together, and one amazed onlooker asked, "How can you do that?" And the zookeeper replied, "It's easy. We just put a new lamb in the cage each morning."
Surely we can do better than that- even on this side of heaven. Amen.
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