John* was walking along the sidewalk. He wore faded, black denim jeans and an Iron Maiden t-shirt underneath his studded leather jacket. Far removed from the latest fashion trends, he was decidedly a child of the 80s as he lit the cigarette he just bummed from someone passing by.
"He should work like the rest of us."
Perhaps. I won't argue the point. What I would argue, however, is that in this "common sense" statement of moral outrage and judgement we have committed a fundamental injustice: we have absolved ourselves of collective sin without any notion of reconciliation.
Even though we made John.
We made him when we bullied him on the playground and in our silence told our kids it was okay. We made him when we thought taxes were too high to justify allocating resources on kids without potential. We made him when our tough on crime agendas made us feel safer and righteous.
The pursuit of justice and reconciliation, the core of our gospel message, requires that we have a more robust theology of sin. Too often we are content with a fundamentalist reading of society that limits our view to simplistic boot straps "common sense" and a theology of blame.
Neither of these ubiquitous heresies leads to grace and yet we accept them. We accept them because they are easy. We have accumulated poor theology that blinds us not only to the process of reconciliation but to the fullness of grace itself.
The full article is available here
