we are all the rich man, we are all lazarus

The cult of victimhood

I could just go off on a good rant, but I've found that just leaves me mulling over things even longer. What strikes me is that the same scenario is playing itself out in so many different ways and the angrier I get about it - the less I am able to see any way through and the further I feel away from God.

Here's my diagnosis - everyone is falling over themselves and lashing out at each other to try to lay the most authentic claim to victim status - in the Episcopal Church, in our national political life, in our daily interactions and relationships. "traditionals" are oppressed, "conservatives" are looked down upon, the more agressive of us are being "censored." On the other hand, the exact opposite can be said from the other perspective - try being a liberal female who's a little more timid speaking out for the first time in a southern baptist church growing up.

But, I don't want to get distracted by my own experience because the problem is that all sides seem to get lost in their own "victimhood" that they can't seem to see past it such that had it not been Gene Robinson, it would have eventually been something else or in my case were it not for the role of women in the so. baptist church it would have been something else - so solidified
are we in villifying those who have made us feel less than true and fully loved children of God. The tit for tat goes on and on and suddenly the verse in Romans begins to make sense - We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all victims, we have all victimized and no one can claim the moral high ground because we've beaten it all down as we have attempted to beat each other down.

This is where I realize just how radical Jesus' concept of forgiveness is - seventy times seven (whatever number that actually is) is unthinkable when we can't get past the first. For me it is a moment in I think 10th grade when I was more or less shouted down in Sunday School for saying it was unchristian that both presidential candidates were in favor of the death penalty - they all came back at me with the "eye for eye" bit and I've been "keeping score" ever since. It makes me quite reactionary and it makes comments from conservatives get under my skin so much because I just want to scream like a child that "you've done it TOO!!!" And it spirals downward - just look at the tone of discourse among our supposed leaders!

I'm beginning to think that the idea of being a victim is just about the hardest thing to let go - the last vestige of self-righteousness - the wealth of all the wrongs done to us that we hoard up as our self-justification that like the rich man we can't quite part with to follow Jesus. It's not about being right or having been wronged, but our capacity to truly forgive, to hold each other mutually accountable, and to humble ourselves before the cross that is God's love.

It takes so much energy to hate and try to come up with the perfect answers to refute once and for all the other side - and it makes me think again of Paul (with whom I have had and still have a few quarrels with) when he says that the wisdom of man is foolishness to God and God's wisdom is foolishness to the wise.

I'm not sure how we get past this, when I find it excrutiatingly difficult to write without trying to get my own jabs in - what a strange instinct (or maybe not so strange when one observes wounded animals) it is that we have that says "I've been hurt, therefore, you must hurt as well." And , I confess, I am not past it, but I know I need to be and that our church needs to be, that our political leaders need to be, and that we need to find a way to be here as well.

I guess I've just laid all my cards out as an offering of sorts and I wonder how we get beyond our own defensiveness and sarcasm and intellectualizing to face one another as good but fallen and wonderously forgiven and loved people all desperately in need of God.

Now I may crawl back into my shell again.

Blessings and Peace,
Alison