Responsibility

I'm learning a slew of crazy history reading about how Wonder Woman was born. The development of the polygraph test, the fight for women's right to vote, and the campaign for sex ed and birth control are all woven together in her story. 

I knew women were arrested for protesting for the right to vote, but I had no idea the persecution of women who tried to teach other women how not to have children. 

A hundred years ago, it was illegal to tell a woman how to prevent pregnancy. 

That kind of blows my mind. It also raises my blood pressure  as Alaska tries to put restrictions on teaching youth about sex. Knowledge does not make people run out and engage risky behavior; it actually allows us to make choices.

I'm thankful for knowing how to prevent pregnancy, but I also grieve that eugenics came as part of the birth control package. Some of the most progressive and liberal folks started to advocate for a better society through selective breeding. I can't help but wonder with all the research into DNA and genetic makeup whether we saddle new couples with too much information about how their children might be and engage a new kind of eugenics.

So eugenics sounded like a good idea in theory. I like the idea of breeding out whining or talking on cell phones in public bathrooms. And like most good ideas it turned into a way of brutalizing people. 

Helpful hint: Always suspect ideas proposed by those with power to take responsibility for and fix those we consider a mess. 

My brother and I illustrate well why eugenics doesn't work in practice either. We have the same genetic material and we are radically different, but my folks love us both. We play very different roles in society. My brother fixes computers and frightens workers into not opening attachments. I have a job that produces good conversation, but not a lot of measurable outcome. We approach the world in contrasting ways and there are times I think about fixing him.

Then I remember this great story in the Bible about brothers. Cain and Abel go for a walk and only Cain comes back. Another helpful hint: If your sibling asks you to go for a walk in the Bible, it doesn't turn out well.

Cain kills Abel out of jealousy, out of trying to make himself right, out of boredom. Who knows. It seems pretty drastic, but RISK almost brought Mike and I to that point more than once. The part of the story that sticks out is when God is questioning Cain and Cain responds with "Am I my brother's keeper?" 

He just killed his brother. The irony is pretty thick and God gets it, but not us. We pull out this line and make it a motto. Good Christian folks think "keeping our brothers" is a righteous thing.

It's not. We are never called to keep people, we are called to love them. Taking responsibility for people, unless they truly are incapable, is not Jesus' call to us. The definition of responsibility is: the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.

That's a far cry from love. It's control and as fun as control is, I'm pretty sure it's not a fruit of the spirit.

We've had lots of children come through so far this summer with the lunches and they all seem like such good little projects to get working on. But then I remember people aren't projects.

I had a line in my last sermon about the demoniac at Gerasene that I thought was brilliant.  

Demons make us see other people as tools for our pleasure or problems to fix or pests to ignore instead of mysteries to encounter and love.

Brilliant moments are rare this summer so I have to hold onto them. 

I'm not responsible. 

I'm not my brother's keeper. 

I'm called to encounter and love the mystery in my brothers and sisters.