Tending the Urgent Wound

Tending the Urgent Wound--December 15, 2016

[Mary said:] "God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." (Luke 1:52-53)

I love both of my children. Dearly and fiercely, like any parent worth their salt.  That's a given, day in and day out. I love them both, and I dare say I think they know it.

But when one pushes the other down, or when one steals the other one's apple slices at breakfast without provocation, guess what--I take sides.  At least, I should say, I don't let the sibling-smacking or apple-pilfering go uncorrected by responding identically to both in that moment.  If my son has been hit, then I am going to be wrapping my arms around him, and his sister will have to face consequences for her choices and eventually have to apologize to him.  If my son is the puckish fruit thief and takes his sister's snack while my back is turned as I cut the rest of the apple, well, then I will make sure she gets apples given back to her.  This is, of course, basic Dealing with Small Humans 101.

Same thing, really, when there is a scrape, a splinter, or other boo-boo: I love both of my kids, but only the one who has the cut needs the Band-Aid.  I love them both fiercely, but when only one is running a fever, only that one gets the Children's Advil, even thought they both think the blue raspberry liquid is like drinkable candy.  I am not saying that the health of the well one doesn't matter--but rather the well one doesn't need the medicine while the sick one does.  And in fact, giving medicine to the well one, out of some misguided attempt to show that "all my kids' health matters," would only run the risk of causing liver damage.

And even though  I would hope this is obvious, let me be clear: I still love both my kids in the midst of those situations. 

Sometimes love is comforting, and sometimes love is correcting. Sometimes the most loving thing to do for a kid is to give them medicine, and sometimes if that child is already well, more medicine would not be an act of love but harmful. Sometimes loving everybody means that special attention is given to the one who just got stepped on, or who had their snack taken, or who is demonstrably feverish... not because the other one doesn't matter, but because that's the one who is especially hurting right now. Of course both of my kids matter--but in any given moment, one may need to own up to their unkind choice and the other may need to have their snack given back.  In any given moment, one may need help, and other may need to see where they have caused hurt.  And when I set things right, yes, sometimes it means that I give apple slices to the one whose dish just got spilled on the floor, but no more to the one who already gobbled up their own share as well as some stolen ones from the sibling across the table.

If all of that is just plain obvious when it comes to managing young children, why is it hard for us to see the same with adults? And why is it so hard for us to hear in the Scriptures?  Not just as in Mary's song, but woven throughout the stories and visions of the people of God in the Bible?  God loves everybody the way I love both of my kids--sometimes you comfort one and confront the other, not because you don't love the one you are scolding, but because they have to see how they have hurt their sister, their brother.  And of course everybody's life matters to God--but you have to ask in the very same breath the questions, "Whose life is most threatened right now?"  "Whose lives are least valued by their brothers and sisters right now?"  "Whose lives are cut and bleeding--because those are the ones who need the band-aids."

Mary gets it. She would not deny that God loves every mother's son, every last father's daughter, every last one of us.  But Mary, here, not even a mother yet herself, knows a thing or two about raising small (and small-minded) humans.  Mary knows that when somebody is hurting, that's the one you comfort.  And when the brother across the table has pilfered the apple slices, he has to be told, "No--you don't get to do that to your sister!"  And she has to hear that there will be enough for her to be fed. 

So Mary sings about God the same way anybody would talk about a half-decent parent: the ones who bully the others need to be stood in a corner for a while. The ones who take from their siblings without caring about them need to be sent up to their rooms for a while, and the hungry ones who are afraid need to be given daily bread.  In Mary's words, that is exactly what God is up to in the world: "throwing down the powerful from their thrones, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty." That doesn't mean God doesn't care about bullies and stinkers, no, not all. But even parents who love their children don't want them to grow up to be greedy jerks, and part of loving your kids is helping them to change when they are on the verge of getting spoiled.  Sometimes the world's so-called "winners"--the rich and the powerful, the pedigreed and the prestigious--need to be sent away without an extra prize, and the ones who have been picked on and gone without need to know they are cared for.  Everybody matters--but in any given moment you have to ask, "who is getting picked on... who is getting tromped on...and who is doing the tromping?"  Those folks' needs matter especially.  The band-aids are for the kid whose knee is scraped, not for the one to pushed the other down and just wants one for a fashion accessory.  Mary's song just helps us to see that God has always been about that business on the grand scale--not merely apple slices and scraped knees, but dethroning dictators and feeding the hungry, turning the tables on the powers of the day, whoever and whatever they are.

That's what Mary's song is all about.  That's the movement God has begun. That's what the Kingdom Jesus announced and embodied is all about.

Today, what might happen if we let Mary's song make us squirm where we ought to be made uncomfortable, and what might happen if we started asking the question underneath her poetic prayer: "Given that everybody matters, who in particular is bleeding?" I suspect we would come to see God there as the Presence of Fierce Love who both binds up the wound of the children who are hurt and who says, "No more," to the children who have been doing the pushing.

Lord God, give us the ability to see your fierce and honest love in all things, both as you correct us and as you comfort us--as you stop us from hurting one another or taking from one another, and as you restore to us what has been broken and hurt.  Thank you for the many ways your love is real with us.