People with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often
have trouble focusing. They can become easily distracted, and find it difficult to get certain things done. I think many of us have such tendencies at one point or another, but for those who live with ADHD, it can be debilitating. In Sunday’s sermon I mentioned how the Good Shepherd might be trying to help keep us from getting distracted by what we think are the shinier, greener pastures around us. I think it’s a part of human nature to get distracted. And sometimes we welcome the distraction.
There are days when I will do anything other than what is on my to-do list. Strategic procrastination, as I like to call it, can be responsible for a very unproductive day, especially when I didn’t really want to be productive in the first place. It’s particularly true when the tasks before me are complex and difficult, or just plain unpleasant. So I find other things to focus on.
I see this same process happening on a large scale, yet again, as I follow the events in Baltimore this week. Set aside the particulars of the events in Baltimore for a moment. Set aside Freddie Gray. Set aside the police. Set aside the rioters. Set them aside, not because they don’t matter – they do. Set them aside because in some ways, they are in the way of what we really need to see. Moments like these can be moments of public ADHD. We get distracted by what flashes across our screens and our mobile devices, the passion of pundits, and the righteousness of the right causes. In doing so, we can often lose sight of what lies underneath. Yes, such events can shed light on underlying causes, but as history has shown, that light quickly fades.
It’s not that I don’t think this young man’s life matters; it’s not that I don’t think that police forces around the country need
some careful attention to procedures and practices; and I can’t stand those who use events like the one in Baltimore to steal from others and destroy other people’s property at will. Yet in many regards these are all symptoms; symptoms of much larger, underlying issues. The earthquake in Nepal reminded us again that there are often things going on below the surface that we are unaware of. Great pressure builds, largely unseen, until it erupts into a massive earthquake, doing great destruction in the process. The very people who live on the mountains created by past eruptions and earthquakes can forget that they live over a fault line.
Baltimore and Ferguson, and similar blowups are the eruptions of underlying issues that are largely out of sight and out of mind. Poverty is a serious threat to all of us. Economic justice is just one element of the justice that our baptismal covenant calls us to strive for. Poverty and race have long been known to have a correlational relationship. Dr. King, at the time of his death, had shifted, somewhat, to a focus on poverty, recognizing that it was an underlying element of racial struggle and tensions. Frankly, not much has changed in that regard. I’m not going to get into the partisan politics of these matters, although those politics certainly have their place. The reality is that regardless of political persuasion this is something that we are called by our Lord to address. Our failure to do so is certainly among the sins of omission that we confess on Sundays: things left undone.
Our President, in the midst of some remarks made yesterday during a press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan, said this about the events in Baltimore, “We can’t just leave this to the police,” he said. “I think there are police departments that have to do some soul searching. I think there are some communities that have to do some soul searching. But I think we, as a country, have to do some soul searching.” No matter where you fall on the spectrum, this statement is a strong and accurate one. The President was referring to issues of cyclical poverty. We desperately need to do some soul searching with regard to issues of poverty. Poverty affects race relations, it affects education, it affects criminal activity and incarceration. It affects most everything, which might be why it was among Jesus’ favorite teaching topics – arguably his most frequent subject.
In the sixteenth chapter of Luke Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man, a story I think most of us know. Lazarus is poor and sick, sitting outside the gates of the rich man’s home. When they both die, the rich man is in torment, but sees Lazarus from afar, essentially in heaven. The rich man asks Abraham to have mercy on him and to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with water – even a drop. The “sin” of the rich man in this story is not that he was rich. His condemnation comes because he knows the name of the poor man outside his gates. By calling him by his name he is admitting that he knew he was there, knew he was sick and starving, and chose to do nothing. His wealth was not his sin, it was his hard heart that did not seek to serve as Christ calls us to serve.
According to Jesus, the great chasm between Lazarus and the rich man in this world becomes the source of the great chasm between them in the next. I am well aware that we are blessed by great abundance in these parts, and that some days it feelsas though there is a great chasm between our world and another world, a world accessible by causeways and bridges. When I hear calls to deepen and widen the chasm I cringe a little, thinking of those sins of omission and the calling placed on me as a follower of Christ. When I know there is a need, I must address it, not ignore it. And I certainly don’t want to contribute to it.
The biggest challenge before us, however, is the ease with which we are distracted. Our collective and individual ADHD tendencies prevent us from really giving the underlying issues serious thought and getting creative about solving them. To consider the huge issue of poverty is complex, difficult, and unpleasant. Most of us have a large stake in the systems that allow cyclical poverty to continue, and in some cases to grow. We rather prefer the distractions of political fights and violent headlines. Those things are easier, and safer for us to deal with than the soul searching required of us as individuals and a nation. We rather like our distractions. I have a whole list of my own preferred distractions.
I heard a reporter give a report from Nepal who said that the ground was just today beginning to be still again. The ground has been shaking in some places with near constant aftershocks of this weekend’s large earthquake. Pray for Nepal and all those affected. Pray for Baltimore too. Pray for all those who live in poverty, without much hope, and for children who don’t have near the amount of opportunity most of our children have. In a few days the ground in Baltimore will quit shaking too, and the news cycle will move on. In all likelihood we’ll move on with it. But only for a while. Until we do something to address what’s going on under the surface, we can be sure there will be similar headlines in our future again. The wider the chasms of this world grow, the more work we have to do.
Tom+
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP p. 824
O God, Almighty and merciful, who healest those that are broken in heart, and turnest the sadness of the sorrowful to joy; Let thy fatherly goodness be upon all that thou hast made. Remember in pity such as are this day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fellow-men. Bless the congregation of thy poor. Uplift those who are cast down. Mightily befriend innocent sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and unhappy people, and by thy heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose penury tempteth them to sin; though they be troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they be perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of him, who for our sakes became poor, thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 28BCP p. 599