Hiding in Sentiment

“And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10: 29b NRSVUE)

Where are we hiding? What are we hiding from? The scribe who asked this question tried hiding in nuances.

We often hear that we are 6 or 7 people removed from knowing everyone in the world. The 6 degrees of separation principle may be true. I do not know. The recent deaths in the Texas floods brought up this idea when I learned that I knew someone who knew someone whose daughter was among the missing campers of Camp Mystic in central Texas.

Days passed waiting to hear some news. After a week of searching the family now has her remains. I am sad for her family. It is appropriate to be sad for them.

Hiding as Avoidance Strategy

A meme appears on my social media walls. It was a picture of girls in Camp Mystic T-shirts running to Jesus in Heaven. Jesus is hugging one of the campers.

Presumably the artist intended the work to help families overcome grief. Sending as a meme on social media had a different effect, however. It gave everyone else a way to change our focus away from the sadness. The picture is means of hiding from the ugly truth of the deaths of those girls, camp staffers, and other victims of the flood.

Hiding from Hard Questions

The picture of Jesus with the drowning girls downplays their terror and suffering – some things about which we should grieve. It keeps us away from the tough questions about the terror of suffering children. Christian believers of all brands were provided a strategy to avoid these questions. It also gave us a means to escape the question, “Was it avoidable?”

Angry Responses

Another meme I only saw one time changed the faces of the smiling faces of the children to very angry kids calling out the Secretary of Homeland Security. Jesus looks shocked in the picture. There is room for the anger of victims even in Heaven according to Revelation 6:10. “And they cried out, ‘Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?'”

While first responders were moving from rescue to recovery in their mission, political leaders and their disinformation specialists began blaming each other for the tragedy. Did the National Weather Service give good information? Were the DOGE cuts to blame? What about the responsibility of local authorities to use money provided years ago? Did the Federal Emergency Management Agency respond quickly enough, or were they being held back?

While there is definitely room for anger and blame to be assigned, leaders should not seek hiding from responsibility by conjuring whole scenarios of blame. Anger becomes unproductive rage.

My Hiding Place

I thought about my 2 degrees of separation from a victim of the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas. Why am I closer to knowing someone who died in the floods in Texas but not one of the drowning victims who worked for Impact Plastics in Tennessee which is much closer to where I live? Who is my neighbor? It was not an immigrant worker who spoke a language different than mine.

Despite striving to live in the Kingdom of God, I am very deeply rooted in the middle-class-dom of Mammon. A Christian Camp for middle class children in Texas is closer to me socially than poor low wage workers in East Tennessee. I am caught hiding in my vision of God’s Kingdom. I cannot allow it to become mere sentiment anymore.