Until the color of a mans skin
is of no more significance than the color of his eyes -
Me say war.
-Bob Marley, from his song War
I've always liked this Marley song. Can you imagine if, in our society, the place in which you lived was determined by your eye color? All of the green eyed people lived in "this" part of town and all of the blue eyed people lived in "that" part of town. And then, somehow along the way, the blue eyed people became more powerful than the green eyed people and started limiting access to resources for the green eyed people. As a result, the green eyed people lived in the "bad" part of town and the blue eyed people lived in the "good" part of town.
Overtime the blue eyed people began to refer to the green eyed people in derogatory terms like "those people". The green eyed people then grew to resent the blue eyed people for their disrespectful attitudes and responded in various ways, sometimes violently.
Over time, the blue eyed people began to feel bad for their rejection of the green eyed people from society and so they started to conduct political campaigns, service projects, and mission trips to assist the lowly green eyed people from the terrible conditions in which they lived. They called this justice.
Ok so maybe this isn't the best metaphor, but I think you get the picture. It's completely ridiculous. Blue eyed people despising green eyed people?
You would call me crazy if I told you that I didn't want to live next to a green eyed person right? But do you ever wonder how we got to the point where skin tone is considered to be any more sane as a way of separating groups of people than that of eye color?
Churches and politicians are notoriously bad at perpetuating these ridiculous classifications. They use the almighty "demographic" to determine who is most likely to "vote" for a particular platform or "attend" a particular service. And so the cycle of segregation continues. Old people here - young people there. Black people here - white people there. Liberals here - conservatives there. Rich people here - poor people there. Blue eyed people here - green eyed people there...maybe it's not so far fetched.
I know a man who has spent most of his life living in the streets of Memphis. He now lives in an apartment of his own. One of the things he likes to tell people is this: "At the end of the term "homeless person" is the single word "person"'. I think that's a good reminder to us all. At the end of all of our societal identifiers is always the word "person". Black "person". White "person". Poor "person". Gay "person". Green eyed "person".
I believe Memphis would be so much better off if we just scrapped the demographic sheets and the political agendas and gave up the language of segregation. No more political agendas catered to blue eyed people or green eyed people, because that's just ridiculous to begin with. We're all just people - we all deserve justice. A blue eyed person doesn't deserve justice anymore than a green eyed person.
I also believe churches would be so much better off if we would quit spending so much time on "cultural relevance" (code phrase for catering to specific demographics) and more time on "people relevance". Culture divides people into groups. But the Christian scriptures speak of the absence of this segregation: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." If we believed this, would have churches created specifically for blue eyed people and those created specifically for green eyed people? What about for black people and for white people? It's completely ridiculous when you really stop and think about it.
Ignoring these distinctions results in a different way of living. Now blue eyed people can live next to green eyed people. Sounds reasonable right? Now blue eyed people can go to the same schools as green eyed people. Now blue eyed people can vote for the same candidate as green eyed people. And now blue eyed people can be a part of the same spiritual family as green eyed people. Is this idea really that crazy?
As Bob Marley put it, until we learn to put these ridiculous societal distinctions aside, we will continue to experience "war".
Amen, Ryan. Great post!