Resident Aliens, Living in a Shredded
Civilization
Back in 2014, The New York Times published a story* about the Iraqi railway
system, or what was left of it. Just a few decades ago, it was possible and
common to travel from the central station in Baghdad to cities across much of
the Middle East. When the article was written, some of the signs pointing to
faraway locations were still hanging in the terminal, but there was just one
line still operating, from the capital to the port city of Basra. Years of war,
invasion, corruption, and neglect had destroyed most of the rail system and
much else in this long-suffering and deeply disunited country,
Ahmed Ali, a railroad employee for over
thirty years, remembered that he used to meet all sorts of people from Iraq and
elsewhere on the trains, but no more. He said, “Now, everything is gone.”
This story is a reminder of how easily
we can shred the fragile fabric of civilization. During much of the last
century, I’m sure that people in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East saw
their efficient and modern rail system as a powerful sign of progress. Wouldn’t
it be natural to assume that the trains would run forever? Yet, that was not to
be. And, if it’s even possible to weld the pieces back together, it will surely
take a very long time. (While not as dire as the situation in Iraq, riders of
NJ Transit trains have firsthand experience of just how quickly service can
decline due to neglect and a lack of political will.)
A few weeks ago, I began noticing that
we were no longer receiving mail every day and, in fact, now mail seems to get
delivered about twice a week. I’m sure you have heard the accusations that the
Postmaster General made a deliberate political decision to slow delivery,
dismantle sorting machines, and cart away mailboxes. He denies any such intent
but has pledged to stop these changes until after the election. (However, he
has refused to undo the changes already made.) No matter why this is happening,
the apparent end of daily mail delivery (a service dating back to the days of
Benjamin Franklin) and the images of chopped up sorting machines in dumpsters
and mailboxes piled like junk, remind me of the Baghdad terminal, haunted by
the memories of all those trains that no longer run.
How easily we can shred civilization.
And, unfortunately, it’s not just the US
Postal Service or NJ Transit. These past few months of pandemic and economic
collapse have revealed longstanding weaknesses and inequities in our country. We’ve
been told for years that we have the best health care in the world, yet many of
our hospitals turned out to be so poorly equipped, lacking even basic supplies.
No matter how much we want to get back to “normal,” it’s dangerous for children
and teachers to return to often overcrowded and antiquated schools. Many of the
most essential workers – the people who kept us going during the worst days of
fear, sickness, and death - are in fact some of the lowest paid and least
respected. Even with all the cries of “Black Lives Matter” and so much media
attention, even with all the videos made by frantic bystanders, unarmed Black
people continue to get shot by the police. White members of “militias” can
dress up in camouflage and arm themselves to the teeth and even shoot and kill
people, as we saw just a few days ago, while at least some in authority look
the other way or perhaps even approve. Gun violence, including right here in
Jersey City, continues to trap young and old in their homes. Bizarre conspiracy
theories run wild on the Internet and are starting to gain respectability from
some of our leaders. Each week seems to bring another environmental
catastrophe: record-breaking heat, wildfires, hurricanes, and more. And, the
gaps in wealth and incarceration between white people and Black people, especially
here in New Jersey, are astonishingly wide – so vast that it’s like we live in
two different worlds.
How should we Christians respond to the
shredding of our civilization?
Some might suggest circling the wagons,
retreating behind the church walls (even virtual walls), remaining silent about
the issues of the day, focused on looking after ourselves and our own as best
we can, kind of how monks enclosed in monasteries preserved as much of Western
Civilization as they could after the collapse of the Roman Empire, waiting and
hoping for better days. I get the appeal of that approach. I’ve been a
voracious consumer of news since I was a kid, but nowadays I mostly just flip
through the news sections of the paper and spend most of my time with the crossword.
Unfortunately, we may choose to tune out the news, but the reality is the
shredding of civilization’s fabric means suffering for countless people, especially
those already most vulnerable.
Christians are meant to be “resident
aliens,” people who live in the world but are not of the world. Getting
too cozy with worldly power, no matter who is in charge, is a sure sign that
the church has lost its way. Instead, we should be engaged in the issues of the
day but always with a critical eye, knowing that no politician or political
platform will perfectly align with our faith. And, as seems to be happening
more and more these days, when the world chooses hatred, cruelty, selfishness, and
destruction, we must choose a different way, the way of Jesus: the way of love,
compassion, generosity, and service. This is not an easy way – it would be far
easier to just go along with everybody else – but for us it is the only way.
Walking the way of Jesus looks a little
different for each of us, but there are some actions that we all can and should
do, including working together with other Christians and people of other faiths
or no particular faith, to not only sew our civilization back together, but
weave the pieces into a fabric even stronger and more beautiful than what was
before. That’s what New Jersey Together will be up to on Monday night at 7:30,
when something like 2,000 people from across the state will gather on Zoom to
press our leaders to stop shredding and to start sewing. I hope that all of us
resident aliens – all of us who try our best to walk the way of Jesus - will
attend: https://www.njtogether.org/action2020
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