Strength

What if the enemy wasn't someone else? What if the enemy wasn't your neighbor, or the person who was different? What if the person who disagreed with you was your ally because you both cared passionately about the same subject? What if the real enemies were more difficult to deal with than the demonized other who really only functions as a symbol of the true, abstracted enemy, enemies such as hate, laziness, unwillingness to take responsibility, unwillingness to be honest, to accept others, to demand accountability or set boundaries? Enemies such as relying on charisma as well as other forms of manipulation and conflation to sway opinions. A desire for pleasure, entertainment, over actual engagement (love)? 

These are the enemies we dare not name because they exist within ourselves as well. If we define an other solely in terms of such enemies we can pretend to polarize the nature of these abstracted enemies so much that we release ourselves from any association. But such work is a false holocaust. The goat does not take on our sins simply because we call her evil. Rather we confound and multiply our own weaknesses, the abstracted antagonizing forces, when we participate in such cruel behavior. 

You want a symbol of the weakness? You want an easily identified (i.e., personified) other? Do what the Christians do and call him the devil or Satan, their own brother in heaven. But don't spread the title around to other people. If he is Satan, he can tempt all, no matter what side of a conflict you find yourself. You may not sin in your values, but you most certainly can sin in how you behave, communicate, promote or uphold those values. 

Sunday School lesson after Sunday School lesson, we hear about all of the bad that is occurring in the world, out there. My worship is not about others and their faults as different from my own. My worship is about my faults and the sharing of weaknesses as well as the sharing of that which strengthens us.  

Media story after media story. 

Political struggle upon political struggle. 

Policy debate follows policy debate. 

And all we do is talk about how horrible the other is. It gets old real fast guys. Let's see that strength is not in simply pointing out differences, but in one's ability to get differences to work together. 

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