It's all personal

I have made a consistent point at different times in my ministry. Sometimes it has been blunt, and sometimes it has been more subtle, but when I am told that I am being too political, and it doesn't happen too often, my response is that everything is political. Politics just means that something is about people, and if it isn't about people, then it probably isn't going to come up in a usual sermon.

Lately I have seen some claims that when talking about people in the church, including in the areas in which people are qualified to serve, those claims can be made on an intellectual and theological basis. In other words, it's nothing personal, I'm just saying what I think, or what God thinks (as if anyone knows this for certain).

My response to that is similar to the response about politics. If it's about people, it's personal. Now, it may not seem personal to the speaker, because the speaker is talking about a community to which he or she does not belong. But speak to people from that community about the words spoken, and it will quickly become apparent that those words feel awfully personal.

I am a fan of NPR, and I was saddened this week to hear that long time newswoman, Cokie Roberts, passed away. I heard an excerpt of a story in which one of her colleagues mentioned that women were granted the right to vote on such and such date, and she cut in to say that women weren't granted the right to vote by some benevolent white male force, they were already American citizens. They won the fight to be able to vote legally.

That was a seemingly innocuous phrase, and one that is used all the time--"granted the right to vote"--but to Roberts that language was personal. And she was right.

How many human rights violations have been perpetrated because something wasn't personal, it was "just the way it is?" Slavery based on racism, Jim Crow laws, laws that subjugate women, the "science" of Eugenics, all based on claims of truth given by people appealing to tradition, to science, and to religion.

We have to stop reducing people down to their ethnicity or their religion or their sexuality or their age or whatever when we talk about others. Each person is an individual. Each person is precious in the sight of God. Each person deserves respect. Each person deserves to be heard. Talking about people as if they are impersonal objects like tables or computers isn't giving people the dignity they deserve. And don't ever believe that rejection of a person isn't personal. It may be wrapped up in quasi intellectual or theological speech, but it is very personal. Every time.

That's my view today.