The Hero In the Manger
As my daughter and I read about Aung San Suu Kyi — the State Counsellor Of Myanmar — my daughter said, “She doesn’t sound like a hero, but she was a protestor, so she must be a hero!”
When children ask you to explain things, you realize how little you actually know. Like so many people, Aung San Suu Kyi is neither a hero nor a villain. She fought for peace in her country and lead Myanmar from a military state to a partial democracy. But her silence — and potentially her collaboration — with the genocide of the Ryangho people is villainous.
But how do you explain that people cannot be reduced to fairytale notions to a four-year-old when most adults cannot comprehend the nuances of narratives themselves?
Looking For a Hero
This unending political season has highlighted our desire for a hero. For my fellow Democrats, we looked for Biden to be our salvation. Republicans did the same with Trump. I think comparing these two men is a false equivalency. I am not trying to argue for a political position, instead, I'm pointing out that our desire for a hero encourages us to create narratives around humans that are deceptive.
People are more complicated than we give them credit for. We often want the benefit of the doubt of our own complexity without affording the same to others. Paul's words, "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing," is a prayer of exasperation I often utter. I find myself doing the exact thing that I chide other of doing. While I desire those around me to understand my life's complexity, I rarely, if ever, afford others that same grace.
In the chapter The Storyteller, published in the book Uncommon Ground, Lecrae writes about how our narratives define how we experience a situation. He argues that our Christian worldview should show something different, "[Christian Worldview] shows that in the grand scheme, we are all guilty. We are all villains, the bad guys. The true evil is sin showing its face through broken humanity, and it touches every one of us. The one true hero is Jesus and his power to restore broken hearts and repair the infrastructures corrupted by sin."
I used to dream that I was a superhero, but I was also a bully to my little sister. I often went along with the crowd, desperately desiring people to like me. Despite my desires, I wasn't a hero, nor did my actions make me an antagonist.
All people have complex narratives making us secondary characters in the story. But the world's hero is clearly sin and our hero is Jesus.
Turning Us Against Each Other
There is a contingent of Christians in Athens who argue that Trump is our Country's and Church's savior. I am by no means objective. As I've stated, I have been a Democrat since I turned eighteen. Having come to faith at Emory University, I was unaware that there was a narrative in which Evangelicals could not be Democrats. This summer, when I read a flurry of Facebook messages claiming that Trump had a prophetic role and that Democrats were on the side of Satan, I was stunned. Friends who know my political convictions had begun posting that democrats are going to hell and that Donald Trump was the only one who could save the church.
It began to feel personal when I started to get phone calls and messages from friends worried about my political beliefs.
One of the dangers of lifting someone up as a hero is that there is usually a villain. Only in Marvel comic books are villains two dimensional. In the real world, the people painted as villains are image-bearers of God. They are like all people, both sinful and redeemable.
As the Church community has painted Democrats as villains, I've seen young Christians walk away from the faith. I've also seen Christians turn on their brothers and sisters, believing the lie that their brothers and sisters are the enemies.
Creating a hero out of a political figure divides the church along political lines, leaving God's children as sacrifices on the altar of American politics.
Furthering the Divide
I saw a Facebook post of a friend from church speaking out against anyone who had attended a Black Lives Matter Protest. I participated in the silent march led by Black Pastors in our town, which she referred to, and I have also been faithfully attending Black Lives Matter Protests for several years. Both my children have been carried in the Ergo Carrier as I’ve cried out for justice.
Any other year, I would have seen her at church. I would have seen the way you cared for her own children as well as for mine. I would have invited her out for lunch and invited her to share her views and then shared mine. I could have introduced her to friends, alumni, and students that have stories of police brutality. I would have shared how I believe racial justice is an issue that comes from God and that my cry for Black Lives Matter comes directly from my love of Jesus.
We might not have ended on the same page in this scenario. Still, we probably would have left the discussion friends, understanding that we have a common ground of our savior. And while we would, of course, have held our beliefs deeply, we could have seen each other as more than the enemy.
Instead, I slammed my laptop shut. I have not seen my friend. The lack of community led me to break relationships because I could reduce this sister in Christ to words on my screen. I dehumanized her.
Christine D. Pohl wrote, “A combination of grace, fidelity, and truth makes communities safe enough for people to take the risks that are necessary for growth and transformation. That same combination makes it possible for groups to handle disagreements without being torn apart and to minister to the world in ways that are far greater than some of the individuals involved.” A good community not only allows us to grow but fosters a place where we can disagree and still minister together.
COVID has taken away some of that community by making it easier to dehumanize one another because our only interaction is through a screen.
The dehumanizing of those on the other end of the political spectrum has led us to create villains out of our Christian brothers and sister. While a bit of this has happened every year I have voted, it seems intensified through both COVID and the elevation of Trump as the Christian hero.
The Danger of Heroes
I remember watching my two babies sleep. They were helpless. They depended on me for nourishment, safety, and comfort. Babies' dependency on their moms is why the first three months of a baby's life are called the fourth trimester.
Despite Jesus' helpless state as a baby, Simeon still saw the promise that "the Lord comforted his people, he redeemed Israel." Although Rome ruled the conquered Israel, Simeon's hope was in the promises of God. Not only was this baby Jerusalem's comfort, but he was also "a light for revelation to the gentiles and the glory of your people Israel." Simeon saw that God's story of bringing humanity into a relationship with him came as a baby.
When we make people our heroes, we miss the revelation of our true Hero — who chose to come as a helpless baby.
All of our human heroes are strong, powerful, or rich. Heroes need those attributes so that they can conquer their enemies through violence.
And while that narrative works in comic books, in real life, it leads to destruction. I believe Hitler is a pretty clear villain. And while he has his own narrative and is made in God's image and therefore was capable of repentance, his choices on earth were horrifically evil. Yet even though he murdered hundreds of thousands of people, the "heroes" who defeated him left dead bodies in their wake.
Heroes whose strength is their own abilities fight by destroying their enemies.
That is why our hero cannot be human. Our world does not need more death and destruction. We desperately need the hero that came as a baby and defeated death, not through conquering and killing, but by being slain.
When we find our hero in a human — even if that human is worthy — we miss the hero in the manger.
As the church we need to abandon teachers and leaders who ask us to follow human heroes and speak out against prophesies that vilify our neighbors. Our silence in complicity to idolatry.
Let's abandon any pretending heroes and instead focus on Jesus, who through his death conquered sin and reconciled us to his father and to one another.
