Rector's Thoughts and Reflections

July 1, 2009

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

You have heard that time worn cliché since you were a child. At the time it was offered to you, this American wisdom was meant to caution you from prejudging a person, particularly a stranger. The message was quite obvious; withhold judgment, even first impressions until you really know the person. Made sense then and even now, but we tend to ignore the best advice, even when it makes good sense.

I and thirty other seminarians in a class entitled "Human Dynamics" were asked to react to a simple black and white photograph held up by the professor. It was the picture of two arms and hands side by side, obviously representing two people. One was black, the other white. Connecting the two was, what looked to be, a standard (then) police handcuff. The Professor, Sister Bessie Chambers, gave simple instructions: what do you see, who is being arrested, react quickly. As you can imagine the responses, offered verbally, were interesting and revealing to a group of students in their twenties, thirties and forties. The group also took the time to process the information and discussed  the implications. Can you imagine the responses to that picture in the mid-seventies? Does it matter the year? Would the responses be any different today?

I still find myself labeling people, situations and experiences through the cognitive lens of my own mysterious history as a human being. I wonder if I carry with me, unconsciously, a presupposition to label and define people and situations instantly, for my own security and survival. Is it about control and power?

I find myself fighting against this invisible predilection, what seems to be, an unconscious knee jerk reaction to my world. It seems I (and maybe you) have developed and fine-tuned a convenient cubbyhole that sorts out things and people and takes some of the work out of the process of living in a dynamic world of mystery and surprise.
 
In a world where even the Bible speaks of 'sinners' and 'saints', those 'saved' and those 'damned'; of stories that depict the 'righteous' and the 'innocent', we find ourselves asked by our Lord to be present for others in ways that go deeper than what appears to be obvious observations, to the point were we are to love even the unlovable; the person, who by most human standards would be otherwise abandoned and ostracized.
 
It is not that Jesus doesn't 'size up' people, even instantaneously, he does, but it doesn't end there. He extends himself, even if it's risky, as if he trusts life and is OK with who people are and why they are in his world.
 
It seems high time to jettison adjectives that give superficial definitions to people. 'He's a great black guy', or 'my best friends are Jewish;, as if to sweep away any notion that we are above being racist or anti-Semitic. We are now beyond, even inwardly and privately, thinking and acting as if people are fundamentally different than we are; that God, in God's infinite wisdom, loves a Christian more than a Moslem, or even an atheist. I recall in the Gospel of John, "God so loved the world"; not in spite of, but because God simply loves, we are to respond to the world as experienced through the love of God.
 
How far I have come from the seventies and Professor Chamber's class? I certainly have not traveled far enough. It's a process; it's a process to reorient the interior of our lives to match what we profess and claim about who we are and what is important to us. The unspoken word in us is capable of diminishing human dignity and worth; and because we are made in the fine image of God, we have that great capacity (and I might add the responsibility) to uphold "the dignity of every human being." BCP Baptismal Vows.
 

 

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