I read something interesting today in the book of Exodus. In chapter 30, God tells Moses to take a census of Israel, and he says that each person who is counted must give an offering. Each person over 20 must pay half a shekel. Then God says something interesting: “The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less…”
At first blush, this may sound unfair. Why ask the poor to give a higher percentage of their wealth? Is God being unjust? I believe it’s quite the opposite. I believe God is making an important point here that each human life has equal value. As Genesis 5:1-2 says:
“…When God created human beings, he made them to be like himself. He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them “human.”"
Each person has an equal imprint of God’s image, and therefore each person is absolutely, completely equal. the rich are not worth more than the poor. Men are not worth more than women. Each human is equally blessed.
This sounds nice, but we hate this idea.
We like to have hierarchies. We want to know where we stand. We want to make sure we’re not at the bottom, and are hopefully getting closer and closer to the top. People with fame, fortune and/or power? They are considered to be worth more.
It’s easy to prove. How much coverage did you see about the wealthy people who died exploring the titanic wreckage versus he amount of coverage you saw for the sinking of the Messenia? It sank 8 days earlier and an estimated 400-600 people died.
But they were migrants. No billionaires aboard. So we just ignore and move on.
Life would be really difficult if we actually believed everyone had equal value., so we create categories of people who matter and people who don’t. And we love to create categories of people who are ‘them’ instead of ‘us’.
I knew a pastor who half jokingly said he wanted to mount machine guns on the fence between the US and Mexico to deal with people trying to enter the US unlawfully.
Our nation was founded, in part, on the declaration that a black person is worth 3/5 of a white person. That’s in the Constitution. Of the United States. Of America.
I regularly talk about questions concerning the LGBTQ community with my college students, and concerns they have about gay and transgender people being treated equally.
But the answer to each of these questions is the same, coming from the scriptures: each person deserves to be treated as a bearer of the image of God.
You want to argue about lawful and unlawful immigration? Fine. But start from the position that each and every person is equal in the eyes of God.
You want to talk about affirmative action in colleges (which SCOTUS just ruled on)? Sure. But start from the position that each and every person is equal in the eyes of God.
You want to discuss LGBTQ issues/community/identity? Okay. Start from the position that each and every person is equal in the eyes of God.
Maybe it makes you a bit uncomfortable to love the immigrant. Or the black person. Or the gay or transgender person. But it doesn’t stop there. You have to love the person who hates you. You have to love the murderer. The rapist. The pedophile. (and please note: I am NOT equating being black/gay/transgender/immigrant with being a murderer/rapist/pedophile. I’m simply pointing to the full scope of what the Gospel commands us to do.)
You don’t get to call people monsters and hate them. You have to love them.
Now. Does love mean you have to let people do whatever they want? Does loving the murderer mean I have to let him continue to murder freely? Absolutely not. Love comes with boundaries. The scripture literally tells us that God is Love, (see 1 John 4:8) and throughout the scriptures, we see God give boundaries and consequences for crossing those boundaries.
But loves boundaries are not about control or domination or bigotry or exclusion. They are about freedom from sin and death. They are about helping everyone to find their way into community with their creator who loves them.
As Shane Claibourne has written, “God hates sin because God loves people and sin hurts people.”
So the next time you hear people screaming about an issue, whether it’s guns, or abortion, or criminal justice, or marijuana, or a million different things. Take a breath and remind yourself that your first priority is to love people. Because when you forget that, you’ll end up caring about labels and politics and control. That’s not your calling.
If you read Matthew 25 where Jesus describes the final judgment, he doesn’t talk about having the right politics. He doesn’t talk about positions they held on social issues. The only thing he cares about is, did you love people? Did you help people?
And frankly, he seems interested in all the wrong people. Did you help the sick? The naked? The ostracized? The hungry? The thirsty? Because your crazy neighbor has as much value as Elon Musk. The person driving like a maniac has as much value as Beyonce.
Everything that doesn’t help you love people better needs to go in the trash. For me, that meant 24 news networks and the American political system could no longer be part of my life. I don’t know if it’ll look different for you, but if you haven’t had to make some radical changes at some point, you may want to sit down and take a hard look at whether your values are in line with the ones God calls us to.