Let Your Light So Shine
Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
June 29, 2016
“Let your light so shine
before others, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father
in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
We heard last week here in Ashland a terrible story of one
of the primary actors in the OSF troupe as she walked her dog near Railroad Park being harassed and bullied with racist
threats by a passerby. (To see her reaction, click: https://goo.gl/790WOA). Racism is alive and well in our community,
as much as we would like to think it is a thing of the past. Oregon’s long history of intentional
exclusion and harassment of people of color still casts a shadow in our
present. We seem to be hearing of and seeing more incidents of hate speech—either
veiled or coded or in the language of open bigotry—in recent months.
I think this is partly due to the overall demeaning tenor of
political discourse in the country during this electoral season. Some complain about “political correctness”
and say that their freedoms are under attack by whatever it is they mean by this
phrase. Some politicians are profiting
from demonizing foreigners, aliens, and what they call “losers.” This has, I think, emboldened the closet
bigot, who ends up thinking that somehow hate speech is a legitimate act of
political expression.
But the fact of the matter is this: simple human decency and compassion mean we
should not say or think things that are hurtful to others. This is all the more true when such speech is
part of a pattern of past and ongoing oppression of one group by another. Tarting up such wrong behavior by believing
that somehow it helps you “take back our country” actually reveals the nasty white
Anglo-Saxon Protestant male privilege at his heart.
“Political correctness” has nothing to do at its root with
political ideology and everything to do with common decency and treating others
as we ourselves would want to be treated.
Ethicist John Rawls’ rule of thumb here is advised: what is fair if you don’t know anything at
all about the people involved in a question of fairness (nothing about if it’s
you or someone else, your group or another, etc.)
As part of our baptismal covenant we promise to “seek and
serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor as [ourself]” and “strive
for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human
being” (BCP, 305). Part of this means
calling people out (including ourselves) when they use stereotypes and labels
to dehumanize individuals and groups of people.
We at Trinity are particularly well placed to show welcome
to all, and embrace the glorious diversity of people in our community. Let’s face this awful background noise of
hate in our political cycle in the spirit of the African-American spiritual:
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
Grace and Peace, Fr.
Tony+
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