Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. I think it was no coincidence that we were discussing the seemingly contradictory topics of personal dignity and reconciliation with those who would try to take it from us.
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In a passage from John, Jesus is seen answering accusations from the teachers of the Jewish Law. John 8:14-18 NIV says, "Jesus answered, 'Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me...." By their own standards, He had a viable reason to believe in His own value to a extent that He didn't feel it necessary to do anything beyond disagreeing with their assertion. He was merely standing His ground instead of wrestling with a legitimate threat to His identity.
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As hatred escalated to an unfounded execution by the cruelest means practiced in the Roman culture that governed the Jewish people of that time, He used His dying breath to ask forgiveness for them as He experienced the end result of their ignorance of His value. As He had said, they and no one else had the power to take His life from Him, so nothing was done outside of His consent; it was instead offered willingly to make a new start possible for those who had lost that inner place of peaceful assurance and had turned to outward posturing to try to satisfy the pull of the void. Still, He was proven right in the end to have trusted the scriptures that foreshadowed His resurrection--"For You will not abandon me to Sheol (the place of the dead), neither will You suffer Your holy one [Holy One] to see corruption." Ps. 16:10 AMP. One who trusts and His God are a majority, no matter who or how many may cast doubt. Truth is indestructible. One who does not trust and does not know where they've come from or where they're going is somewhat at the mercy of the opinions of men.
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How do men form their opinions of each other? Paul says, "Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view [in terms of natural standards of value]. [No] even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now [we have such knowledge of Him that] we know Him no longer [in terms of the flesh]." (II Cor. 5:16 AMP). Men, without the benefit of their Creator's perspective, evaluate each other's worth in terms of what may be personally gained or lost by themselves in temporal matters.
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James, thought to be the first bishop of Jerusalem, instructs his flock in the passage from James 2:
1MY BRETHREN, pay no servile regard to people [show no prejudice, no partiality]. Do not [attempt to] hold and practice the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ [the Lord] of glory [together with snobbery]!
2For if a person comes into your congregation whose hands are adorned with gold rings and who is wearing splendid apparel, and also a poor [man] in shabby clothes comes in,
3And you pay special attention to the one who wears the splendid clothes and say to him, Sit here in this preferable seat! while you tell the poor [man], Stand there! or, Sit there on the floor at my feet!
4Are you not discriminating among your own and becoming critics and judges with wrong motives?
5Listen, my beloved brethren: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and in their position as believers and to inherit the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?
6But you [in contrast] have insulted (humiliated, dishonored, and shown your contempt for) the poor. Is it not the rich who domineer over you? Is it not they who drag you into the law courts?
7Is it not they who slander and blaspheme that precious name by which you are distinguished and called [the name of Christ invoked in baptism]?
8If indeed you [really] fulfill the royal Law in accordance with the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as [you love] yourself, you do well.
9But if you show servile regard (prejudice, favoritism) for people, you commit sin and are rebuked and convicted by the Law as violators and offenders.
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Love is the fulfilling of the law, and love values the image of the God that created it, who is Himself love.
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Yet God says of us in Ps. 139:
1O LORD, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me.
2You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.
3You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.
4For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
5You have beset me and shut me in--behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.
6Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it.
7Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?
8If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there.
9If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
11If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me,
12Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.
13For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother's womb.
14I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.
15My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery].
16Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
17How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.
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The first quote is from a friend of mine with whom I share time on a message board. It describes the power to forgive as originating in humility. The English word humility derives from the Latin humilitas, recalling the humus, or earth, from which our seen component is drawn. This is not an incentive for God to ignore us; it arouses His compassion: "....he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust." (Ps. 103:14 NIV). It surely should not cause us to direct contempt for each other, since we are in a common state. We dare not forget that we are made of the same stuff as those we may be tempted to cast beneath our feet. The breath of God has transformed dust in ways as diverse as His own personality into creatures who can in small ways touch His artistry, His nurture, His excitement--or pervert the image of His omnipotence into the delusion of unanswered exploitation, thinking that the eternal eyes that made our own have closed.
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What do we do with those whom we've answered that persist in disagreeing with our Creator's affirmation? Matt. 18 describes the process of bringing the matter to them privately, then with another if they won't relent, then another, then the community of God. If they still won't restore their agreement with our dignity, we practice our forgiveness--our cry for mercy rather than punishment on such vulnerable stuff as we ourselves are made--from a safe distance.
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Unfortunately, this doesn't always remedy the emotional weight of the words. In the book Healing America's Wounds by John Dawson, the process of "identification repentance" is described. A representative member of the group that committed the offense that better recognizes the value of the one made seemingly small by words admits that the words were wrong, and the pressure against their trust in their Creator's affirmation is removed. His presence can then fill groups that had previously been keeping Him at arms length with contradictions to His love. Dawson illustrates the principle with numerous examples of how Caucasians and blacks, the children of immigrants and indigenous people, men and women, and others from the spectrum of God's imagination have chosen to say with Him that man was very good, and have experienced His peace at last.
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Joshua, in his instruction to the survivors of the Exodus, said "Choose ye this day...." In our own lives, we can choose to begin to live Dr. King's dream of harmony today.
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