Christian Middle

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Upsplash

Our deepest freedom rests not in our freedom to do what we want to do but rather in our freedom to become who God wills us to be. —James Finley 

The Old Testament Josiah stands out as one of the few kings of Israel credited for his goodness in the eyes of the Lord. In the wake of his father’s abuses of the faith and desecration of the Temple, Josiah focused his reign on purging Judah’s people and their worship practices of these pollutions. In the course of cleansing the Temple, workers found a book recognized immediately as part of Moses’s revelation, (probably an ancient copy of Deuteronomy, or perhaps the whole Torah). As the priest read out the text, Josiah ripped his robes in dismay (2 Kings 22:11) because Israel had failed her God. Not even Josiah’s seemingly radical reforms to ban idols and outlaw child sacrifices had scratched the surface of Judah’s wrongdoing. The people had not even celebrated Passover as it was intended going back hundreds of years to the days of the Judges.

America is experiencing a Josiah jolt this month. Whatever we may have told ourselves about making progress against racism has proved not nearly enough. 

Like Josiah and the ancient Hebrews, America has within our written legacy a good belief system to guide us. Even though slavery remained the “elephant in the room” throughout the founding of our nation, Jefferson managed to get into the Declaration: “We hold these truths: that all men are created equal …” Perhaps the founding fathers’ understanding was narrower than ours. Perhaps they were merely appreciating how the new world had shed some of the British obsession with class stature, enabling people from humbler roots an opportunity to ascend the ranks of society on their own efforts. But the bare words themselves speak a deeper truth. For instance, they allow me, as a woman, the interpretation English allows us that “men” here refers to humankind, not merely males. Further, they resonate with all theists the reality that while God did not make us all the same, the Lord cherishes each of us equally. 

Like God, sometimes Truth is too magnificent for us to see all at once. Read the book of Acts and see how hard it was for the first Christ followers to believe that non-Jews could become Christians. Even when Paul fought to convince his spiritual brothers that gentiles’ faith was genuine, the more traditional Jerusalem church still wanted him to prove that he had not forsaken Judaism (Acts 21). I suppose it’s human nature, even when we know it’s right to be “inclusive,” still to want people who join us to be “like us.”

Yet we have only to look at the world God created to see where the Lord stands on this idea of homogeneity. Clearly, the divine love affair with variety emerges as vast – exhausting even astute biologists and anthropologists. At the same time, everything on this planet breaks down to a limited number of chemical elements, DNA maps out all life, and humans all, equally bear the image of their Maker. 

Reading again the scriptures that were supposed to found his kingdom jolted Josiah into a rededication of himself and his people to God’s ways (2 Kings 23:1-3). Today, we would do well to follow suit. I can’t speak specifically to what that would look like for you or even for myself, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be a lot easier for God to cue us the right words to say and things to do if we’re primed to listen for it.