This past week I saw the movie version of the musical Wicked. Not knowing the plot line, I was looking forward to an afternoon of light hearted frolicking on the yellow brick road, with some music woven in about the witch with the black hat who is wicked, obviously.
I was wrong. If you want a thoughtful excursion into the subject ethics Wicked is a better investment of your time and money than the movie about my pastoral hero, Bonhoeffer. One would presume the Bonhoeffer movie would be about ethics because the protagonist wrote a book by that very name, but it fails to portray Bonhoeffer accurately. Wicked, on the other hand lays the foundation for our discussion about ethics because the movie, in one sense at least, is about the shalom; how its lost, fought for, and recovered, (though that word is never used, of course). Shalom matters because its one of just a few concepts that provide the lens through which we can build an ethical framework for our alives that aligns with our Creator’s intentions for us and our world.
In the last post I introduced a host of ethical questions, positing that the responsibility of determining right and wrong for each of these matters ultimately resides, not with institutions, but with each of us as individuals and families. Institutions have value in creating cultural norms, surely, but they can’t always be trusted as we’ve learned time and again from places like Germany, Rwanda, Russia, and these United States. Cultural ethical norms are malleable, and shift for a variety of reasons. Those of us old enough to remember John Edward’s candidacy know that there was a day when publicly known infidelity in one’s marriage was enough of an ethical breach to be disqualifying for a presidential candidate. There was also a time when it would have been unfathomable for a person of color to be president, and a time when slavery was seen as not only good, but the only acceptable way of treating people of color. Things change for better and worse at the cultural level all the time. It’s the job of the church collectively, and Christ followers individually, to rise above the shifting cultural winds of ethics by seeking and defending ethics derived from a higher source. I believe the singular value which gives us the best lens through which to consider these ethical issues is the value of shalom.
Shalom is a Hebrew word, used 236 times in the Old Testament, and is usually translated peace. But reducing shalom to peace is like calling the Grand Canyon a ‘crack in the earth’, its true, but it doesn’t begin to cover the depth and breadth of its true meaning.
One theologian begins to hint at this when he writes in this book…. persistent vision of joy, well-being, harmony and prosperity is not captured in any single word or idea in the Bible; a cluster of words is required to express its many dimensions and subtle nuances: love, loyalty, truth, grace, salvation, justice, blessings, righteousness. But the term that in recent discussions has been used to summarize that controlling vision is shalom. Both in such discussion and in the Bible itself, it bears tremendous freight — the freight of a dream of God that resists all our tendencies to division, hostility, fear, drivenness, and misery. Shalom is the substance of the biblical vision of one community embracing all creation. It refers to all those resources and factors that make communal harmony joyous and effective.
The vision for the planet is summarized by the word shalom because it encompasses the well being of all creation, and that, dear friends, must be a central consideration when we seek to discern the right and wrong, good and bad, that is an ethical construct. The same author continues… “The central vision of world history in the Bible is that all of creation is one, every creature in community with every other, living in harmony and security toward the joy and well-being of every other creature.”
All of this is wrapped up in the word shalom, so when we offer each other the benediction which reads, ‘the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you…the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace’ that peace is referring to much more than just your personal safety and well being, though it includes that. God’s wish is that humanity would experience the safety of interdependency and mutuality that moves us toward to the well being of all creation, every tribe, nation, social class, and even the ecosystem.
Though there’s much more to say about shalom, at its foundation, embracing shalom requires an abundance mentality, without which shalom cannot grow. Here’s what I mean:
Jesus declared that he came in order that people might have not just life, but life in abundance. This means not just enough to get by, each of us in our own individual pursuits. Rather, it means that God envisions a life in which we freely share because we deeply believe that we will continue to freely receive all we need to live a life of shalom and abundance.
Our problems begin right here. Even in the richest nation in the world, there's a prevailing scarcity mentality that is forever in search of more - land, money, power, market share, pleasure, physical security from outside threats. When 'more' becomes the lens through which we look at the world, then others often become adversaries, threats to our share of the pie. This leads to violence, oppression, theft, and excess consumerism for the winners, and hunger, homelessness, isolation, and abject poverty for those on the short end. What other path could there be? The answer is found in the abundance of shalom
As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her latest offering, ‘data tells us that there is enough food calories on the planet for all eight billion of us to be nourished.’ The problem isn’t whether there’s enough, its whether our ethics are built on a shalom model or a domination model. The latter is rooted in insecurity and scarcity, both of which incite the pursuit of ‘security’ and ‘abundance,’ often by any means necessary. Kimmerer encourages us to see that abundance is embedded in creation, and the same is reiterated in the creation narrative of scripture and the teachings of Jesus. If we have the faith to first believe it, we can then take practical steps towards making the abundance of shalom visible in our own lives, perhaps in families, faith communities, and even hints of it in cultures at large.
I’m writing these words cabin bound in a storm of freezing rain and because it's Christmas, there’s great music in the background heralding the glad news that the Prince of Shalom has been born and that because the author of Shalom loves all humanity, and all creation for that matter, we can embrace his vision and seek to make it real in our lives by framing our ethical choices around the pursuit of shalom, imparting it, preserving it, and seeking it. It seems like this would be good news for everyone.
But then I’ll remember that at the time of Christ's birth the people most threatened by the message of abundance offered by the prince of peace weren’t the impoverished shepherds. They received it with awe and gladness. It was the people who already had plenty of wealth and power, as exemplified by Herod, who embraced the scarcity belief there wasn’t enough room in this world for Jesus’ power and his. This scarcity mentality led to Herod’s plan: execute Jesus, even if it means killing all the infant boys in and around Bethlehem. Herod's actions made Jesus’ parents become asylum seekers in another land, where they were welcomed and sheltered until it was safe to return. The ideal of shalom, it appears, must be born in the midst of its opposites: violence, jealousy, deception, and lust for power.
As I consider how to give shalom more room in my life as a defining value, I think of Mary’s famous song in Luke 1. In it, she exalts God for lifting up the poor and sending the rich away empty handed. The song is very good news indeed, if you’re poor. But if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re not worried about your next meal or paying the rent, a good change that you have more, much more, in a world of many who don’t have enough. The observation isn’t intended to condemn, but to point out that even as the gospels have a good word for the poor in Luke 1, John the Baptist has a word for we who are wealthy, as does Jesus. Those of us given much have all the more reason to lean into shalom as a defining value.
But our abundance too often becomes our Achilles heal because the default value that seems to rise to the top for us is ‘preservation’ and behind this there are several flawed assumptions, which I’ll address in subsequent posts, and these are what prevent us from participating in the joyful adventure of seeking and imparting shalom, declaring 'shalom for all' to be at the heart of our Creator's desire for all people.
I’ll close by looping back to the Wicked musical because it reminds us that you can’t always determine who’s good and evil, or who’s on the right or wrong side of history by the color of their cape and hat, or their label (good and evil), or what doctrinal statement they adhere to, what church they attend, or whether they attend to institutional church at all. Jesus taught us this, of course, but its still deeply embedded within us to think that because we go to church, or because we represent the party against gun violence, or for life in the womb, that we are the good ones, we’re the ones on the right side of history and the others are the problem.
Wicked, and Jesus, and Paul, and most of the prophets of the Old Testament would say, 'Not so fast.' It was the religious leaders who knew their Bibles best who conspired with Rome to put Jesus to death. It was the religious leaders who killed one of the first Christians for daring to point out that perhaps God's mercy might be big enough to extend beyond the walls of the Jewish temple. That concept was enough to get him killed, praying forgiveness on his executors as he died in a pool of his own blood. We need, at the outset, to get unmoored from affiliations as the basis for ethics, especially including religious and political ones. When look at the color of the skin, and the affiliation of the party, and judge it as right or wrong we will miss shalom based values.... often.
As we look at ethics regarding economics, environmentalism, sexuality, and much more, know on the front end that the question of how our values and choices affect shalom should be a fundamental consideration for all Christ followers.
If you sing O Holy Night this Christmas season, you’ll likely sing ‘In his name all oppression shall cease’ and those are good words, and true. They’re code for ‘shalom’ and my prayer as you and I move into 2025 is that we will have the courage to stand with the oppressed and help them move toward justice, freedom, and shalom because if this becomes our passion and priority, our ethics will take care of themselves.
O God whose heart is for Shalom
Thanks be to you for this holy season
When darkness creates a longing for light
And when, by faith, we celebrate the coming of the light
Even though its darkness all around
For indeed, we believe it, against all odds
May the light of Christ’s shalom be our pursuit this Advent season
And having received and experience shalom in whatever measure
We ask you to make us heralds, givers, as peace like a river pours through us
To world full of people thirsting for justice, beauty, mercy,
…or maybe just a cup of cold water.
Amen
UP NEXT... what can you do to inject shalom into your life, and let its lens inform your ethics more fully?
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