In our day and age, when we think about pollution, we think about poisons that threaten our environment. The wreck of the Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. The spill contaminated 1,200 miles of shoreline and put fishermen out of business. That is what we call pollution.
In biblical times, the idea of pollution was understood very differently. Impurity referred to certain kinds of people, rather than toxins in the environment. Some people were impure due to religious protocols. If you touched a dead body, you were automatically unclean. If you were a leper, your diagnosis as unclean had to be authorized by a priest. Other people were seen as impure because of their sinfulness. Sinners endangered the entire community through the threat of God’s judgment—the same way God destroyed Sodom. The sinful also encouraged others to sin, making it more likely for God’s judgment to happen.
Religious impurity kept you from the holy places, like the temple. Moral impurity separated you from the people. Both were types of pollution, threatening to the community, something that had to be kept away until made clean again.
The outcasts included tax collectors, sex workers, and lepers. But it also included orphans, the disabled, vagrants, and especially the hated Romans. These were the faces of pollution, back in the days when pollution had a face, rather than a chemical signature.
Not everyone agreed with the idea of social pollution. John the Baptist welcomed sinners, and condemned the self-righteous. Jesus ignored the concept, and was frequently found in the company of the unacceptable. He had dinner in their homes and allowed a sex worker to wash his feet with her hair. Today, we have a hard time understanding how outrageous his actions were.
Imagine going to a lake for a swim, only to find a sewage treatment plant has spilled over, dead fish are floating on the surface, and the water is fluorescent green. You and I might turn around, but Jesus did the equivalent of jump right in. For folks of the time, by mixing with those types of people, Jesus was swimming in very polluted waters. It was certainly not a place where you would find upstanding members of the community.
Jesus flouted the need to avoid the unclean and condemn the sinful. He disobeyed both religious laws and social norms. He healed on the Sabbath and ate with tax collectors. His socializing with outcasts was a source of real indignation. Jesus didn’t just tolerate these people—play at being nice until they finally left—Jesus invited them in, and accepted their invitations back.
What the righteous ones see as hopeless causes, God sees as opportunities to save. According to Jesus, no one is hopeless and there are always opportunities. God is love, after all, and love never gives up. There is no such thing as an outcast. There is no such thing as pollution. There are only humans.
Over the last two thousand years, there have been a lot of advancements in technology, but much less in terms of our behavior. Social outcasts are still with us.
As people, we feel better about ourselves when we have others to exclude—the feared homeless, addicts, and queer. They are today’s polluted, poisoning the lake. All experience being kept at arm’s length. Despite the example of Jesus, this is as true among Christians as it is among others.
After I was done in the ministry, it took me a couple years to find a second career in substance abuse treatment. What surprised me, once I began counseling addicts and alcoholics, was that I felt more like a minister working with those seen as contaminants, than I did while the official pastor of a church. It was like getting discharged from the army, only to find myself on the frontlines.
I met all kinds of people I never met in church, some of them guilty of true depravity. But I could also understand what Jesus saw in them. They were lost, navigating without a compass, seeking relief. They were also aware of being outcasts. One of the most helpful things to be accomplished in therapy is allowing people to feel accepted. It’s a basic aspect of love. No matter how much bravado someone might display, feeling cast out is a continual type of pain.
One sex worker I counseled (I’ll call her Alice) had a sister who was a nurse, with a family and nice house in the suburbs. But the nurse sister would have nothing to do with the prostitute sister.
Despite the obvious reasons, Alice was hurt. “She won’t talk to me. She won’t let me in the door. Doesn’t she realize I’m still a person?” It was an ache that never left.
Alice wasn’t proud of herself. She suffered from guilt. But she had reached a point where, being who she was, there was little else she could do. As she told me, “On a job application, what do I put down under job history?” Alice couldn’t see a different future. She would be one of those eagerly listening to Jesus, basking in his willingness to give them time, to treat them as people, even as she knew what he thought of her work.
Occasionally, in my courses, a student will write about “loving the sinner, but hating the sin.” It’s a common saying in church circles and has always bothered me. People don’t feel loved when you hate what they do. Hating the sin is another term for fearing the pollution, and keeping the contagion away. That is not the way of Christ. Christ died for them.
Feeling known without judgment, having a moment without the pollution, being offered something better than they have—that is the way of Jesus. Not everyone accepts the offer. Not everyone repents and changes course. But that is why God never gives up looking for the lost.
Jesus never feared those who were outcasts. He knew there wasn’t a reason. He stepped into the waters avoided by others, because people are never pollutants. All of us are persons, like Alice.
Heading photo by John Hain from Pixabay
Do Not Enter photo by JaimeAP from Pixabay
Polluted lake photo by Yogendra Singh from Pixabay
Wooden pegs photo at http://www.pexels.com/photo/leadership-concept-with-wooden-figures-38514392/
Sex worker photo at https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-black-leather-jacket-standing-beside-a-car-8387966/
Helping others photo by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
I loved this Bucky, thank you. Janice
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback.