That was not very nice…

       

       From kindergarten to the fifth grade I was the undisputed champion and recipient of an award called “citizenship”.  Five consecutive years I was given awards for my capacity to comply with classroom rules. There were no quantitative metrics for this award, no guidelines that one had to follow ; Citizenship was awarded by a purely subjective evaluation of the teacher. The Citizenship award did not take into account a student’s intelligence or ingenuity; the award was given to students just for showing up and not causing a disturbance.

               

       For five years I socialized to believe that being compliant, nice, and docile were measures by which I would be acknowledged and rewarded. From school to church the ideas of what it meant to be a good citizen/ person were reduced to simply “be nice”. We were told that if you could only “be nice” than you have meet your quotient and contribution toward the collective good of society.  In church our Sunday school lessons were less interested in developing people who were faithful the Gospel of Jesus Christ but rather interested in producing people that were compliant to the rules in place. Our lessons revolved around what it meant to be obedient even if that obedience makes one complicit in oppressive systems and to oppressive ideas.

               

       With such a pedagogy in place it becomes okay to use religious rhetoric to espouse bigotry because we were nice. It becomes acceptable to pervert the gospel of liberation in order to suit our prejudices; because we were nice. It becomes permissible to demonize people for who they are because we were nice.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ in this framework is reduced to “if you want to please God just be nice”.

            

        But I am of the mind that being nice is simply not enough. I am of the mind that following Christ in a way that is faithful cannot simply be conflated to “be nice”.  That being a good Christian is not rooted in simple asceticism or compliance. I am of the mind that our twisted sense of goodness is evil in better clothes. The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to the sanctification of liberation. And that liberation is not just for people who share our orientation, affiliation or station in life but to all of God’s creation.

              

   We are not good Christians just because we can follow the rules of oppressive systems and ideologies. We are not good Christians when God’s love and compassion is legislated in bathrooms. We are not good Christians when bandy about “love the sinner, hate the sin” theologies. We are not good Christians for calling those who God has created sinners to begin with. We may be nice in our delivery but we are not good. We may look like portraits for functional normality but we are not good. We may uplift ourselves as the models of respectability and the panacea of personal behavior but we are not good. Yes it might look good and may sound good but it is not good.

 The gospel calls us to a greater goodness; one that is well past the compliance necessary to get awards for citizenship. It may be that we have become so invested in compliance to systemic evil that we have lost our capacity to be prophetic.  The goal of the Christian is not to be sweet, it’s not to be nice, it’s not to docile but we have been called to be prophetic witness to God’s revolutionary love. And that prophetic voice must be resolute in declaring that God has called us to tear down walls of hate. That prophetic voice must be resounding to love those who have been “othered”. That prophetic voice must reverberate even in the walls of our own churches to declare that God has not called us to a gospel of hate and harm but rather a gospel of liberation and love.

Such an articulation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not nice, but it is good. This pronouncement is not compliant but it is salvific. Such a declaration is not docile but it is life giving. This announcement maybe uncomfortable but we have not been called to comfort we have been called to do that which is good.  It may be that in the pursuit of awards for being “Good Christian Citizens” we have lost sight of the reward for being the prophetic people of God.