Us versus Them
I am not one of them. I have lived in the Chicago area for 20 years now, but I will never be a true Chicagoan. Why? Three reasons.
I like ketchup on my hot dogs.
I think Lou Malnati’s pizza is subpar.
And I will always like LeBron more than Michael.
If you’re not from Chicago you might not know, but I just broke three cardinal rules. And I know that the majority of my readers are in the Chicago area so now I wonder what might happen. Will they unsubscribe from my mailing list? Will they stop reading my blog?
I hope not. Because even though I don’t see eye-to-eye with most of my neighbors on the above three topics, I still love them. It would seem silly for a wedge to be driven between us over condiments, pizza crust, and NBA superstars. I have a lot of hope that despite passionate disagreements on these topics, we will all have the ability to look past them and remain friends.
Yet, I don’t know. Years ago, it seemed like we had the ability to disagree on far more important topics without vilifying one another. But that time seems long-gone now, doesn’t it? So much of our public discourse is entrenched in an “us versus them” narrative. If this is the way we’re choosing to go, ten years from now will I be ostracized by the mustard purists? Will I want nothing to do with them?
I would venture to say that in today’s climate, unless you are actively trying to do otherwise, by default you will get sucked into an “us versus them” mindset. We’re all swimming in it. It dominates the media we consume, including Christian programming and publications. We fight for “us” and denounce “them.” It’s a war out there. There’s just one problem.
Jesus isn’t playing.
The “us versus them” game was strong in Jesus’ day too. And yet, from the start of his ministry to the end, he refused to get sucked in. It’s ultimately what cost him his life. To see what I mean, let’s look at a scene from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
The setting is Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, the place where he grew from boyhood into a man. On the heels of his baptism and his 40 days of testing in the wilderness, Jesus returns home to begin his mission.
On the Sabbath day, he went to the synagogue and was handed the scroll of Isaiah to read to the congregation. He unrolled it to a prophetic passage that spoke to the coming of the Messiah.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
With that, he handed the scroll back to the attendant, sat down, and declared, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
What happens next is puzzling.
At first, his hometown crowd praised him. Luke tells us they were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth and everyone spoke well of him. (Luke 4:22) This truly was good news!
But just a few moments later, the story takes a drastic turn. Suddenly, amazement turns to anger and: “They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.” (Luke 4:29)
What in the world caused this reversal of affections?
To understand, we have to remember that the people of Israel had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to free them from their enemies. They were tired of drawing the short stick, tired of having to answer to a government they couldn’t control, tired of never getting their due. When Jesus came and announced that he’d come to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, they thought it was finally going to be their turn. At last, their enemies would get what was coming to them, and they would finally come out on top!
But as soon as they began to dream of palaces, power, and prosperity; Jesus dashed their plans to pieces.
He reminds them of two stories from the Old Testament that at first seem like a tangent:
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:25-27)
Immediately after these words, we are told the crowd became furious with Jesus. What was it about these stories that had people up in arms?
These two Old Testament stories show God acting on behalf of outsiders. God sent Elijah to help a foreign widow, not an Israelite widow. God sent Elisha to bring healing to a foreign ruler, not an Israelite ruler. With these two stories, Jesus is making it clear that he isn’t going to play the “us versus them” game. He wouldn’t hate the people they hated. He wouldn’t fight the way they thought he should fight. He didn’t come to topple one worldly power so that another could take control. That wasn’t the game he was playing. He had come for all people. His mission was not for some to finally get their way, but for all to find new life in The Way.
The warning for us in the story: If we’ve adopted an “us versus them” mentality and think what matters is that “we” come out on top, we’ve lost sight of the mission.
And we might even have turned on Jesus.
It’s interesting that this story from the start of Jesus’ public ministry happens again at the end. The specific details are different, but the plot has not changed. The same crowd who shouted, “Hosanna!” as Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem turned around a few days later and shouted, “Crucify him!” Jesus didn’t fit what they wanted in a Messiah so they were ready to kill him.
I’d never thought about this before, but in commenting on the cliff story from Luke 4, author Jason Porterfield points out that if dying for our sins was Jesus’ sole mission, getting hurled over the cliff could have accomplished that from the start. The cliff would have been less painful than the cross. We could have been singing hymns about kneeling at the foot of the cliff.
But as the crowd is ready to hurl Jesus to his death, Luke tells us:
“But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” -Luke 4:30
Jesus wasn’t ready to die at the cliff because he came not just to die for us, but to show us how to live. Porterfield writes:
“Yes, Jesus died for our sins so that we might have life. But he also came to show us the way to live and the truth about God. While the first task could have been accomplished quickly (as Luke 4 indicates), the latter two tasks required Jesus to spend years living among us.” -Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace throughout Holy Week
Jesus came not just to die for us, but to show us how to live.
If we are to follow him, we have to become people who learn to see the imago Dei (image of God) in our enemies. We have to surrender an “us versus them” mentality and learn to…
love our enemies,
turn the other cheek,
pray for those who persecute us
…for that is what the real Jesus did.
He loved us when we turned on him.
He did not strike back when we struck him.
And he died praying, “Father, forgive them.”
If we are to follow Jesus, we must refuse to play the “us versus them” game. We have to learn to navigate our differences in a way that honors the imago Dei in each other.
This is the challenge in 21st century America, but it was also the challenge in 1st century Palestine. The disciples and the early Christian community learned to follow Jesus in the upside down ways of his Kingdom, and the mission flourished.
What will we do?
