When Rage Looks Like a Good Option
A couple of Saturdays ago was a busy one in Bend. We attended Chris Friess’ memorial service (a very good man remembered well), and after changing clothes I rode the bike down to Drake Park for the No Kings protest and march, and at the same time the downtown bike criterium was running hard on the streets, and Styx was warming up at the amphitheater. Oh, yes, also there was a triathlon finishing up at River Bend Park, and half of the West Coast was visiting our town.
I’m not much of a yeller and marcher, but I wanted to be counted among those who challenge the direction of our leaders in Washington. Can’t say I agreed with much of the crowd’s rhetoric and cringed at many of the signs, but my faith calls me to stand up for the outsider, the labeled, the marginalized, the ones denied justice, and the poor. Cuts made to social programs are already doing real harm to vulnerable people and programs at home and across the globe, and widespread immigration raids to remove some cause real and substantial fear in many.
The frustration of more than a few in the crowd bent toward rage. Rage at a man who was fairly elected and placed by law to lead our country. Rage at policies that appear heartless and using blunt instruments to do social surgery. Rage at the helpless feeling that the country is fundamentally changing without any recourse to alter its direction.
Rage screams and flails. It finds its targets and brooks no compromise. Rage fills a person with a righteous indignation that refuses to discuss and agree to disagree, while remaining friends. It stakes out turf to defend at all cost without compromise.
As I stood on the edge of the crowd I wondered if rage is a good option.
Then, as a follower of Jesus, I remembered hope.
As we look out onto our world, the overwhelmingness of the problems (regardless of political orientation) can paralyze and poison healthy culture. Ultimately, I must, as a believer, rest in the truth that God is in the midst of our mess, but I’m also called to do what I can to build kingdom goodness wherever I find myself in the smallness and ordinariness of a day. I can’t make changes to any president’s agenda, but I can cause ripples in my pond, nonetheless.
Washington will do its thing without my input. But…eventual big change through small moves is the way worthy social movements begin, with folks making a difference in their towns and communities, whether free public school or universal suffrage or workplace and food safety or civil rights or any other action to improve the nation.
An individual can move the needle of change.
So the question driven by hope is, “What’s in front of me that I can invest in to improve my town?” The hope of these days can be found in the many ways people are prompted not to wait, but act.
You don’t have to feed a thousand people, but maybe your donation to the Food Pantry or homeless shelter is the front door to your activism to backfill cuts in programs. You may believe it’s wrong for ICE to suddenly take your landscaper into custody, so possibly find ways to make a statement of acceptance with the “others” in your town. My actions declare my beliefs better than my words ever could.
We can easily get wrapped around the axle over big issues that we have no control over, but really it’s where we live that we can make a difference. And that is the place where hope dwells in and through people.
Nadia Bolz-Weber writes this about hope.
Hope is different than expectations. Our expectations are what often keep us from being present to the gift of what IS. Not to mention, expectations are sometimes just the other side of entitlement, and there really is very little joy in getting what we believe we have coming to us anyhow.
This kind of hope anticipates God to work in any situation, but carries no expectation that it must be just so or on our schedule. The OT prophets lived this out as they watched the hard outcomes they predicted come true time and again. Jeremiah stands as an example of audacious faith that God will work his will and plan regardless of how the chips are falling.
An author I like talks about Jeremiah, who had both predicted doom in the near future but also that God will never forget his people.
There is violence and fear and foreboding all around him and what did this prophet do right before this part of the text? Bought land. In an outlandish act of hope he purchased land in the lower 9th ward knowing Katrina was coming because he would not give in to the idea that this is all there is.
A current equivalent to Jeremiah buying land for us is any concrete move of expectant faith, that God will honor and multiply efforts in our place alongside any person of good will. Your actions will be different than mine, but we all have gifts to be invested to build hope and diffuse rage…and there is no excuse to not use your gifts.
And the really cool thing about our diversity of passions lies in the picture of how the various interests will cover many of the needs in your town. Let one go hug trees while another fights for the unborn and still others work to end abuse or trafficking and still others take on affordable housing or welcoming immigrants or sewing purses to keep girls in school in Africa. The place where I often stumble is when I expect everyone else to share in what drives me to action. Make space for each other.
Biblical hope is not passive, but necessarily and routinely active. It takes no delight in tragedy or suffering. It groans with creation, it intercedes with compassion, it labors for biblical justice. Paul, facing his world, pled for unity, spoke powerfully of the life-giving hope in Jesus, raised money for the poor, and instructed believers in Rome to “overcome evil with good”.
The artwork shown above stands in Grand Junction, CO, that we saw as we walked toward a morning bagel while driving to the start of our bike trip. I am captured by the piece. It says to me that out of the same situation, the same set of circumstances, either rage or hope will be our calling card. I want to be known for my hope in Jesus that no matter what comes, God’s got this.
Martin Luther has so many notable quotes, and one along this line of thinking goes like this:
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree today"
So, standing with an animated crowd, some full of rage, others just there for the show, I felt a mix of withness and apartness. Whether you agree or not, I choose to stand with many there for justice and the general welfare of society, but my anchor is set in God alone which separates me from much of the crowd. I’m alright with this mix.
Today, the words of St. Francis of Assisi seem appropriate to close this out.
Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Let’s plant a tree of hope today in defiance before a difficult world.
Music for the week
How about a joke or 2wo?
Two goober moose hunters are flown into a remote lake in Alaska. They have a good hunt, and both manage to get a large moose. When the plane returns to pick them up, the pilot looks at the animals and says, "This little plane won't lift all of us, the equipment, and both of those animals. You'll have to leave one. We'd never make it over the trees on the take off."
"That's baloney," says one of the hunters.
"Yeah," the other agrees, "you're just chicken: we came out here last year and got two moose and that pilot had some guts: He wasn't afraid to take off!"
"Yeah," said the first hunter, "and his plane wasn't any bigger than yours!"
The pilot got angry, and said, "If he did it, then I can do it. I can fly as well as anybody!"
They loaded up, taxied at full throttle, and the plane almost made it, but didn't have the lift to clear the trees at the end of the lake. It clipped the tops, then flipped, then broke up, scattering the baggage, animal carcasses, and passengers all through the brush.
Still alive, but hurt and dazed, the pilot sat up, shook his head to clear it, and said, "Where are we?"
One of the hunters rolled out from being thrown into a bush, looked around, and said, "I'd say about a hundred yards further than last year."
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After cleaning his patient's teeth, the dentist accompanied the five year old boy to the reception area, only to see him struggle with the oak door.
"It's heavy, isn't it?" asked the dentist.
"Yes," he said. "Is that so children can't escape?"