Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Let Your Light So Shine (Fr. Tony's Mid-week Message)

 


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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