The View From The Vicarage
In these weeks leading up to the Season of Lent, the gospel lessons turn our attention to Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, called the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. Today, Jesus instructs his listeners in very demanding terms: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…” ending with the fundamental teaching shared by all world religions, The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Given the extreme levels of strife, discord, and violence spilling continuously out of the disorientation of life in pandemic time, what comes to mind is an old Native American (I believe) proverb which advises us to “Let any judgment of a man go until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” Perhaps more so than men, this teaching applies to women as well, especially those single moms struggling to hold a job, run a household, and raise a family at the same time—many of them on poverty-level wages.
I truly believe that, at no time in the history of the world since WWII, we need to be reminded of this proverb, for so many of us have elevated the judging and condemning of others to the level of a vicious and destructive art form. As the continual onslaught of disease and death drives us into overwhelming levels of fear and anxiety, fraying connections and institutions that seemed permanent and inviolable only a few years ago, we have entered into an era when people feel rudderless, adrift, abandoned in the face of losing so much of the “glue” that held life together for individuals, communities, and nations alike.
Yet the summons of God in Christ to build our lives around fostering the well-being of others—loving our neighbor as we love ourselves; doing to others as we would have them do to us—remains unchanged even as Love reveals once-hidden places of deep brokenness crying out for healing, while at the same time inviting us to see new and different places requiring our love and attention. So yes, with the strength of the Love revealed to us on the Cross, walk we must in each other’s shoes long before pronouncing judgment, ultimately leaving the judging to God. But over and above sharing another’s journey as best we can, we Christians are to walk together in the shoes of Christ Jesus, at all times and in all places, that this world—in every facet of creation—may truly be reconciled to God.