“You know what time it is,” the apostle writes with his usual confidence. You know “how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” Wouldn’t that be something, to wake up and to realize that what feels like a terrible nightmare actually was just a bad dream?
There’s so much fear. So much anger. So much posturing. So much violence. I don’t know what time it is, and what little I can see and say of this moment, has been filtered through the particular layers of my life and the formative experiences that shaped me. I’m really worried about certain things and developments, and not worried at all about others, just like you are, I presume. I don’t know what time it is, but when I talk about the things and developments that worry me, I want you to hear me, just as you want me to hear you, I presume, when you speak of your fears and hopes. When you show up carrying a deadly weapon, I’m done talking, and what I hear you say cradling your gun is that you prefer it when I keep my mouth shut. And it doesn’t matter if you identify as a Boogaloo Boi or an Antifa supporter. All I can hear you say is, “End of conversation. I got the gun.”
Paul is able to write with great confidence, because to him, the difference Jesus Christ has made in the world, is like night and day. Jesus’ shameful death on the cross marks the hour of deepest darkness of the night—and its end. Jesus was ready to die for the kingdom he lived and proclaimed, but he wouldn’t kill for it. And God raised him from the dead, breaking the silence the empire and the mob had imposed, and affirming Jesus’ way of boundary-crossing love and radical welcome as the way of God’s reign. Call it the triumph of grace over sin, the victory of humility over domination, the dawn of the new day.
An old Rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun.
“Could it be,” responded one of the students, “when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog?” — “No,” answered the rabbi.
Another suggested, “Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it’s a fig tree or an apple tree?” — “No,” said the rabbi.
“Then when is it?” the pupils asked.
“It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night.”
We cannot wake ourselves from slumber, but we can let ourselves be awakened. We can look on the faces of the people on the other side, however we may perceive their otherness, and see Jesus’ kin, people who in Jesus’ eyes and heart are siblings, people he loves, brothers and sisters to die for. And once we see them as his kin, it won’t be long before we see them as ours.
“The night is far gone,” the apostle writes with great confidence, “the day is near.” Wake up, gear up, get ready. Put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put on humility and compassion and radical welcome. Our battle is not against people. Our fight is against the powers that divide us from each other. Our fight is against fear. Our fight is against a long history of injustice and mistrust. Our fight is for each other and for the beloved community.
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another,” Paul writes; “for the one who loves has fulfilled the law. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” The whole law is fulfilled by loving the neighbor as Jesus taught and modeled.
In 1861, the autobiography of Harriet Jacobs was published. Allow me to read a few paragraphs from this American story we still struggle to fully hear:
I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away… When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave.
My mother’s mistress was the daughter of my grandmother’s mistress. She was the foster sister of my mother; they were both nourished at my grandmother’s breast. In fact, my mother had been weaned at three months old, that the babe of the mistress might obtain sufficient food. …
On her deathbed her mistress promised that her children should never suffer for any thing; and during her lifetime she kept her word. … I was told that my home was now to be with her mistress; and I found it a happy one. No toilsome or disagreeable duties were imposed on me. My mistress was so kind to me that I was always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her as much as my young years would permit. …
When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died. As I saw the cheek grow paler, and the eye more glassy, how earnestly I prayed in my heart that she might live! I loved her; for she had been almost like a mother to me. My prayers were not answered. …
I felt sure I should never find another mistress so kind as the one who was gone. She had promised my dying mother that her children should never suffer for any thing; and when I remembered that, and recalled her many proofs of attachment to me, I could not help having some hopes that she had left me free. My friends were almost certain it would be so. …
After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister’s daughter, a child of five years old. So vanished our hopes.
My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” … But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor.
I would give much to blot out from my memory that one great wrong. As a child, I loved my mistress; and, looking back on the happy days I spent with her, I try to think with less bitterness of this act of injustice. While I was with her, she taught me to read and spell; and for this privilege, which so rarely falls to the lot of a slave, I bless her memory. …
She possessed but few slaves; and at her death those were all distributed among her relatives. Five of them were my grandmother’s children, and had shared the same milk that nourished her mother’s children. Notwithstanding my grandmother’s long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her children escaped the auction block.
These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.[1]
God-breathing machines — I swallowed hard when I read of the mother who weaned her own infant at three months old so she could nurse the babe of her mistress. And I swallowed hard when I read the words, not one of her children escaped the auction block. But nothing compares to the cold truth and the holy protest in referring to these children, these brothers and sisters of Jesus, as God-breathing machines.
It was all legal—the import, the breeding, the trade, the possession, the use and abuse of God-breathing machines. The quality merchandise was advertised. The contracts were notarized. The purchases were registered. The will was properly prepared and signed by witnesses. It was all legal. And on Sunday the master and the mistress, the notary, the clerk, the attorney, and the auctioneer all went to church, and they all nodded when the preacher read from the letter to the Romans, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” They nodded, but they didn’t awake; they dreamed on; they didn’t rise from sleep.
The scene makes me wonder, What are we missing? What dream images are we clinging to, convinced of their reality? Harriet Jacobs points us to the place where the darkness lingers:
My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” … But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor.
Who are the ones you and I don’t recognize as neighbors? Who are the ones you and I so easily overlook or dismiss?
Neighbors are given to us to love, all of them. They can be delightful and annoying. They can be needy, grumpy, kind, and weird. They are given to us to love, not chosen by us to wear our labels and take their place in our dreams of life. Who are the ones you and I don’t recognize as members of God’s household? Who are the ones you and I don’t recognize as Jesus’ own kin and therefore our siblings? And if we don’t recognize them, where does that leave us?
We know what love demands when we see the devastations caused by hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, and wildfires — but what about the devastations caused by fear and the erosion of trust? What does love demand?
I’m really worried about certain things and developments, and not worried at all about others, just like you are, I presume. And when I talk about the things and developments that worry me, I want you to hear me, just as you want me to hear you, I presume, when you speak of your fears and hopes.
The darkness around us is thick, but I trust that the way of Christ — the way of boundary-crossing love and radical welcome — leads us toward morning. I will strive to follow him on the way, and I invite you to do the same.
[1] Harriet Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself. Public Domain Books, 2009. Kindle edition. Location 50-102.