The
following article by Rev. Nancy Wilson has been offered for publication to
U.S. press outlets.
by Rev. Nancy L.
Wilson February
2008 “Would Jesus Discriminate?” asks
us to think about Jesus, today, in a very different time and culture.
Discrimination is a very modern concept. It is a word with many meanings,
but the most common, in our culture, is to act on one’s prejudice,
particularly racial or gender or class prejudice: to dis-favor
someone because of some perceived and even arbitrary
characteristic. A gay pastor was being ordained,
and wanted his father to come and participate. His father was a pastor in
a conservative denomination, and felt he had to ask the head of his
denomination for permission to lay hands on his gay son in this more
accepting church. The denominational head was in
the process of retiring, and he and his wife had just moved into a new
senior complex, next door to a gay male couple. Over time, his wife became
friends with the men, and with one, in particular. They went shopping
together, had lunch, coffee, and he was handy around the house in a way
that the denominational executive was not. When he told his wife about the
request from one of his pastors, to participate in the ordination of his
gay son into a denomination that has a very different view of
homosexuality than his own, his wife just got upset. She said, “Our
neighbors are the nicest two men I have ever met – they are Christian in
every sense of the word, and I just don’t understand what the big deal is,
and why the church believes and acts like it does!” The pastor got permission from
the denominational executive because the wall between their assumptions
and prejudices, and what is true and real, came tumbling down. And because
his wife remembered that the Jesus she grew up with was all about love and
grace and not just saying “Lord, Lord,” but “doing the will” of the One
who created us. About loving our neighbor, maybe even our gay neighbors.
We can only continue to hate and
discriminate if we keep the “other” at a distance, and don’t see them as
human, as a part of someone’s family, if not our own. If we can just label
them “sinners,” and not eat or drink or shop or work or go to church with
them, we can continue to see them as a “threat” to us.
Jesus not discriminate because
he can’t discriminate against his own. In the 25th chapter
of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said we would always know how to find
him: he lives, today, among the “least of these,” those who are
discriminated against, hated, de-valued, abused. Those who need food,
clothing, shelter, a visit; those who need justice, hope and
understanding. Jesus is with the gay teen who
is mercilessly teased and bullied at school on a daily basis. Jesus
suffers with lesbians and gay men in Jamaica who are attacked and beaten
in their own homes by vigilantes. Jesus is with the undocumented mother
who is threatened with deportation and having her family split apart.
Jesus is with the parents who suffer silently in a church that condemns
their son or daughter, and who agonize about their child’s spirituality
and safety. Jesus is with the child with AIDS in Zimbabwe who cannot get
the life-saving meds because they are too expensive.
In our heart of hearts, we know
that Jesus was incapable of the kind of cruel discrimination that divides
and harms. And that following him should cause us to care about our
neighbors, all our neighbors. All the time. You are
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Community Church's WJD? electronic communication distribution
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UFMCC P.O. Box
1374 Abilene, TX 79604
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