Repenting of Clannish Self-Protection: Great Reformation 5.0

French graffiti artist JR paints 65ft child in Mexico

5) Repenting of Clannish Self-Protection:
Post 5 of 6 on my list of reforms in honor of the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation. The first word is repenting of Christendom, which is a reformation of power. The second word is repenting of Capitalism, which is a reformation of trust. The third word is repenting of Consumerism, which is a reformation of identity. The fourth word is repenting of Certainty, which is a reformation of authority. Today is repenting of Clannish Self-Protection, which is a reformation of tribe.

I know, Clannish Self-Protection, is forced alliteration and it is three words not one. I am so sorry. Here is the big idea: We are a tribal species. We’ve evolved learning to unite our families into clans of families so we have a better chance of surviving. We are vulnerable on our own and therefore we are better together. Clans are an important expansion of the immediate family. But how do we manage the boundary? Where does my clan end and yours begin? Who is a threat? Who is an enemy? Who is my brother? Who gets to join my tribe? Who is my neighbor? These are ancient and perennial questions. And ancient wisdom gives this consistent warning: If you make self-protection your single moral concern, without a view to the other, it will back fire. 

Self-protection leads to self-destruction.

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Jesus, Matthew 10:39

The ancient Egypt, in the biblical narrative, plays an interesting role. It vacillates between a place of refuge and a place of enslavement. For Joseph and his family, Egypt was a national refuge. This story takes up 14 chapters in the book of Genesis. Egypt plays this role again for another Joseph millennia later. This Joseph, his wife Mary, and newborn son seek political asylum there. In the Bible, Egypt is a prosperous place of salvation for the outsider.

The book of Exodus, however, opens with a twist. “Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.’ So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.” Exodus 1:8-11

The moral mandate for the Pharaoh to protect his people turned Egypt from a place of salvation into a place of slavery. A good impulse can turn in on itself. Self-protection left without a counter voice can be a blinding moral motive with tragic outcomes. It is true that having no boundaries can invite abuse, but over-protection of boundaries will turn you into the abuser.

“But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor” Exodus 1:12-14

The Egyptians came to dread the very people they were oppressing. They were overtaken with a paranoid fear of the other and turned the screws on the poor even tighter. Their actions were driven by a blinding fear that their tribe would cease to exist. Their own self-protection became justification for dehumanization. The most prosperous nation in the ancient near east believed they would be over run by refugees. And so the place of salvation very quickly became a place of slavery. Clannish self-protection led to their self-destruction. This is the story of the Exodus and the warning from our wisdom traditions.

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” Jesus, Matthew 10:39

The rise of nationalistic movements all across the globe is driven by this perennial fear of the other. “We will only be safe, if we are only made up of us and not them.” This is a blinding fear that leads to tyranny. If we don’t exorcise this fear, we will allow it to turn us into tyrants. And the plagues we fear will be of our own making. We won’t be destroyed by them, we will be destroyed by ourselves.

To be a follower of Jesus is to have an ever-expanding view of family. To have permeable membranes which are able to include and welcome the other, not as stranger, but as Christ himself (Matt. 25). 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven…If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?...And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48.

“Wow, you really love your own clan…big deal, even the Sons of Anarchy do that. You know what will change the world? God includes the outsider in her family, I want you to do the same. Love like that.” (My translation)

"If the world is a temple, then our enemies are sacred, too. The ability to respect the outsider is probably the litmus test of true seeing." Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

Grace and peace everyone,

David

I highly recommend Richard Beck’s new book “Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise.” So good and honest on why the practice of radical hospitality is so challenging. And the practices necessary for expanding our affections to include the other as family.