THE LAST RIVER MILE

Much of humanity seems to be addicted to having an enemy. If life isn’t the way we want it to be, or if we somehow feel threatened, then that has to be the fault of someone or something. As a result we focus on the goal of defeating or eliminating that someone or something. This is not to say that human beings don’t face real threats, raising the need to defend themselves. But I believe we can come to the point of defining ALL of life as overcoming real, imagined, or manufactured enemies.

The need for an enemy creates a kind of negative definition for human groups. Organizations, political parties, nations, churches, etc. identify themselves as “not them” or “against them.” They build their momentum around what Richard Rohr refers to as “oppositional energy.” People focus more on what they oppose than on what they favor. Rohr suggests that it’s easier to galvanize folks together around resistance to an enemy than to unite them around real forward progress. (Hence the state of the United States Congress today.)

In my admittedly limited view, the present administration in our nation has built an entire political platform around fear of enemies. Say what you will, the presence of armed, masked troops on the streets of our cities is but one piece of evidence of this. Conversely, as generally peaceful as an estimated seven million protesters were last Saturday, their energy largely was oppositional as well. Personally even as I note my own opposition to those currently in power, I feel the presence and allure of “against” energy within me.

If history tells us anything, it demonstrates that oppositional energy eventually turns on itself. German National Socialism built a brief empire on blaming anyone and anything non-Aryan for all of Germany’s problems. As we know, that went down in flames. In church world, so many so-called Christian denominations and associations are in fact oppositional to one another, that the non-Christian population knows us more by what we are “against” than by what we are “for.” And we wonder why the number of people associated with organized religion in the United States continues to plummet.

Is it possible to have a human movement that is not oppositional? It seems the original movement of following the crucified and risen Jesus was that way. By the very definition of the One who launched it, it was not adversarial. Followers claimed Jesus embodied God’s unconditional, pursuant love for all people. Jesus-followers lived with the mandate to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them. Fellowships included people who should have been natural enemies: non-Jews and Jews, slaves and slaveholders, Roman Empire citizens and the poorest of the poor. Followers of Jesus gained attention by what they were actively FOR and not by what/who they were against.

Human efforts built around oppositional energy come and go. The pure movement of following Jesus (not dependent on structured religious organizations) will not die. Something to think about…

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.