Lately I’ve been trying to understand the Middle a lot. When we talk about the middle ground in this country what do we mean? Really? Do we mean the place where everyone agrees not to argue or just to not mention unpleasant things? Or by the middle – sometimes called the center- do we mean that place where we believe the majority of people actually sit? That is to say, we talk about people being out on the fringes of the so-called Left or Right, we call certain beliefs or people extreme – and then we work under the assumption that there is a big messy center that isn’t ideologically pure or in perfect lock step with the official platform of whatever party for whom they tend to vote. Centrist. Moderate. That middle?
Let’s look for a moment at that center – one where people actually sit in terms of the events of the day. 66% of Americans believe that the government should ensure health care coverage for every citizen. 64% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. 70% of Americans do not want immigration decreased. 60% of Americans do not approve of the way ICE is operating in our country. 60% of Americans believe that gun laws should be stricter. 63% of Americans believe that taxes on corporations should be raised. 79% of Americans believe in vaccine mandates for children for preventable diseases.
Let’s just stop there for a moment, because these are all hot-button issues, and I’m wondering how you feel about me bringing them up at all in the first place. Am I deliberately trying to be controversial? No, I have been writing the last few weeks about the tricky sticky territory of trying to hold the middle ground, trying to be centrist, and I realized we haven’t even explored what the center looks like. So I took a look at the basic public opinion on some of the central issues of our current day. We are told these are controversial issues, but the numbers demonstrate that the middle looks really clear.
There is so much talk in our country about a desire to move to the middle and this is what the middle looks like.
Ok, let’s take a step back for a moment. I am not a politician. I am not an economist. I am not a scientist or a physician. I am a priest. Which can mean a lot of things, I suppose, other than just being a religious nerd. I often refer to myself as a professional Christian – and I have to tell you that this bothers some people right out of the gates. Some people think Christianity is about having a personal relationship with Jesus and how can one be paid to have a relationship with Jesus?
But Christianity is about practice and it is about community. To be a professional Christian is to be about the fostering and support of Christian community, and this is the bulk of my work. I seek to foster and support Christian community both in the general sense with my words and work in the world, and in a particular sense as I pastor a specific church community: The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer here in Cincinnati, Ohio.
To prioritize community is to seek the center quite often – to find the common ground between people who differ, to understand that culture moves slowly and to prioritize connection over ideological purity. To take community seriously is to not let perfect be the enemy of good. To take community seriously is to try to find truth and beauty in people outside your natural inclinations.
But we are not just any community. We are a Christian community. So while it is good context to understand where the center is in our particular culture, it cannot actually be our primary concern. Knowing what the center looks like is good and healthy. But as Christians we are meant to center our lives on Jesus. One question I find myself asking is, am I trying to fit Jesus into the center of my context, or am I trying to center my context in Jesus. The difference is material. We want Jesus in the middle of our lives, don’t we?
If we say Jesus is in the middle and we mean that Jesus is standing in our midst as we imperfectly work our way towards justice, towards peace, towards a more equitable and humane way of sharing life – then yes: Jesus is in the middle. If we say Jesus is in the middle and we mean that whatever our current culture’s status quo is, Jesus is utterly neutral, has no opinion and sees no one option as better than another, then no. Milktoast Jesus, bowdlerized Jesus, neutered Jesus, pablum Jesus, lukewarm Jesus – is no Jesus at all. All it takes is reading literally any of his words to know how ill-fitting that kind of middle is to Jesus.
And, hey, if you don’t want to center Christ in your vision of how we build a community, a city, a county, a state, a country – that’s fine. If you think that Christ’s understanding of community is naïve, idealistic, unrealistic – that’s fine. Just be clear about the fact that your vision is not Christian. It’s perfectly fine not to be Christian. It’s not fine to be dishonest about it.
For the Christian, Jesus is not a metaphor or symbol, nor is he a mere guidepost nor even one sage voice among many. Jesus is God. To call oneself Christian is to believe that Jesus is Lord. This means I cannot dismiss Christ’s vision of Beloved Community just because it doesn’t fit with the current status quo or my current comfort zone.
Christianity is a practice: To call myself Christian means I have to practice decentering myself and my preferences so that I can center Jesus and his love. Many of us like the middle because that’s where we naturally gravitate. But we have a responsibility to be wary of allowing our yearning for the middle to overwhelm our obedience to Christ’s vision for a more loving, inclusive, equitable, peaceful world.
My primary responsibility in my vocation is to point you toward the almighty love of God. That love is not a feeling, not a sentiment, not a weak and feckless dream: It is the organizing reality of all life that ever has been and ever will be – it is the vehicle for the healing, transformation, and reconciliation of all things. If we are not about making the world a more loving place, we will fail. That’s reality. God wins in the end. That’s the fundamental truth upon which the Christian faith rests: God wins in the end, and God is Love. If we, as people who live on this earth in real time dealing with real life situations do not center our hearts, minds, priorities, values, and politics in the reality of that love, then we are wasting our precious time.
Love is our center, or we have no center at all.
