“Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.” Jesus concludes by addressing “loosing” what “binds” us.
It is difficult to be honest about faults, speaking to others about theirs, having others speak to us about ours. Even if done so one on one, it can be embarrassing. It is therefore understandably difficult to be honest about faults on the national level. For example, U.S. nationalists feel the loss of their believed 1st Place position in the world. It may be why Canada, in comparison, is assigned 2nd Place, and has an easier time when being honest about faults. Their humility and honesty are on display in a satirical tourism video. It starts by calling Canada “a land of beauty and home of countless vanishing wonders,” “home to an array of dangerous parasites” (some of them human), and upon finding out who is starting their wildfires is committed to “giving them billions in subsidies.” The video does identify Canada’s assets, which are many and include the virtue of “honesty.” When an individual or nation considers being honest about faults, we likely fear the loss of a perfect self. But in the denial of fault we experience the loss our whole self. Honesty and humility about our faults is more easily done if we relate as brothers and sisters to one another, members of one loving family in a circle of care. In our human family we learn how to apologize. We admit the harm we do. We say we are sorry for the hurt we cause. We live with the loss of who we thought we were by witnessing the best of who we truly are, human. Religion does not believe being human is the best of who we are. Religion believes not that we commit sins sometimes but that we are, by nature, sinners. Under the influence of religion, we will believe that humanity is in some manner inherently deficient. To believe that would be the true sin, the true fault in our magnificent selves. We would lose the truth that as human beings, we magnify creation.
Trabian Shorters is the founder of the BMe Community. He was raised in a family that believed in Jesus’ “Love Doctrine.” He also refers to it as “asset framing.” “It is defining people by their aspirations and contributions… (not) their worst experience or the worst potential.” Among people who are made poor and routinely discriminated against, the BMe Community “acknowledges the true person, the true spirit living in someone — that motivates them.” Shorters expands the perspective to the social level saying “asset-framing is a cultural hack.” As “a Black person, I’m taught to believe that I must deficit-frame my people… so that I can attract resources… define them by their worst… (within) injustices that are very real.” Asset framing changes that, “You want to magnify human life, you want people to live more fully.” The same asset framing is applicable with white people. They can benefit from our “loosing” their unconscious racial bias to practice their claimed value of equality. Shorter indicates we can get them thinking about the U.S. culture’s practice of “pattern mapping.” In this case it means being primed to discriminate against what we believe is the worst of us absent the truth of what is claimed to be the best of us, equality. We can raise them in the Love Doctrine. We can have people who discriminate attentive to their fault while being aspirational to their best.
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, move us to magnify human beings.
Question: How have I been influenced toward the worst in others and thus away from the best in them?
September 10, 2023 Gospel Matthew 18:15-20 Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time