Be The Good
Acts 2:14, 36-41
Growing up, I can remember a number of quick explanations for the really complicated realities unfolding in the world. Conflict between Palestine and Israel was framed as all about religion—Muslim vs. Jew. Hunger and poverty in the US was simply described as a failure of effort and will for people to “pick themselves up by their own bootstraps.” Civil wars in Africa were chocked up to poverty and parochialism.
And folks, it’s the simplistic narratives that have the potential to sustain the most evil.
Since I could chalk the conflict between Isreal and Palestine as some unrelated-to-me religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, I never learned about the Nakba of 1948 in any meaningful way until later in my life.
Since I could dismiss poverty and suffering in my own country to a failure of willpower and the moral failing of those who are poor, I didnt ever really become introduced to the myriad systemic realities that not only create poverty in the US, but sustain it: white supremacy, regressive tax policy, defunding services that demonstrably get people out of poverty…
Since I could effectively ignore war in various countries in Africa like Rwanda in the 90s and Sudan today, I never had to question the fact that Africa’s conflicts have been historically driven by the monied interests of many countries including our own, and it’s rich culture and people have still miraculously survived, in vibrant ways, centuries if not millennia of imperialist efforts by various nations, empires, and armies; as well as the imperialism of both historical Islam and Christianity.
We shouldn’t oversimplify the causes of vast inequities and evils that plague the world today. But, while saying that, I do think that a significant contributor to these evils is maintained by our desire for easy narratives, and just how good those in power have gotten at creating them.
And so, for me, I think one way I think we can add good to the world is to be humble enough to stay curious and remain suspicious when complicated crises are rendered down into simple narratives. In Acts 2, the apostle Peter is among people of many nations giving birth to the Christian church. After sharing the gospel story, the people cry out “what should we do?”
And Peter responds, “save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” While he might have been referring to the excesses present in the hellenistic culture deeply infuencing his jewish community in his day, I think we have another way we can understand this.
Our generation has a different corruption than the Apostle Peter’s. That corruption leaves us susceptible to believing what we want to believe, and not feeling the need to confront the spiritual forces of wickedness revealed by the forces of oppression, war, and injustice, especially when that wickedness establishes a status quo that benefits us. We cannot follow Jesus if we become habitual and even comfortable ignoring our neighbor’s suffering.
We are in a time of warring madness across the world. Being the good in a time such as this requires us to be curious, and not embrace the narratives pushed onto us that the people “over there” are bad, while the people “over here” are good.
I was watching a clip of an interview Jon Stewart had with peace activists and authors of the book “The Future is Peace,” Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon and was struck by a story Aziz told of his father. In the middle of a forum on peace between Israel and Palestine, Azis’ father feigned ignorance about the legitimacy of the story of the Holocaust and implied a deniel of it happening at all in this room full of Palestinians and Isrealis. Luckily, someone in the room connected him with their father who had a lived experience of the Holocaust. In the moment, this person responded to Aziz’s father by saying, “I don’t want you to believe in something you never learned about.”
It was a difficult moment of learning for the Palestinians. But two weeks later, Israelis approached Aziz and asked for a similar experience to learn about the 1948 Palestinian Nakba by visited a village destroyed when that historic atrocity occured.
And that struck a deep resonant chord for me. Because I have never changed my mind on something I was convinced to be right without being exposed to a story from my neighbor I had never heard before. How can we be the good in this world today? Perhaps we could start by telling our stories, and listening to the stories of our neighbors. Perhaps we could have less fear of conflict, and debate openly our disagreements so we can find a way to live together without forcing one another to violate their sense of self or religious beliefs. I think we would be shocked at what we find in common, and what kind of peace is possible.
I can’t commend this conversation between Jon Stewart, Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon to you enough, so here is a link to a youtube video of the entire thing—the 20 minutes is very worth your time.
