In my ministry I have attempted to be a pastor to all, whether a member of my church, or a member of the community. Whether they were agreeable or disagreeable. Whether their opinions were mine or not. Whether they were rich or poor. In other words, I tried to offer grace and respect to everyone. The theology of pastoral work is the recognition that each person is formed in the image of God. Or, coming at this from a different angle, each individual is someone for whom Christ died. As an ordained minister, or as a lay person, we are to acknowledge the reflection of God in each person. As one popular folk song put it, “The Christ in me greets the Christ in thee.”
To be honest, this has been hard work. But fruitful. To love someone who is ornery, or whose opinions are repulsive, is difficult. But in seeking to understand, or empathize, with someone has helped me to come at issues from different perspectives. I have learned that someone’s present anger and hostility might be rooted in some past pain and grievance that has never been resolved. I have discovered that a bully may have not been loved as a child. Typically, the reason someone may be a difficult character in the present is because they have endured some kind of suffering in the past. Through my experiences I have learned to be tolerant of others, to sympathize with their weaknesses, and to attempt to love them into wholeness - not always successfully, but worth the effort.
But one of the hardest obstacles to my capacity to love another has been their ignorance. I used to think that ignorance was something that people couldn’t help - that it was a failure in their education, in their upbringing - a sociological problem. And though it is anecdotal, my experience has taught me that ignorance is in many ways more intractable, like sin itself. How else can one explain that ignorance exists not only in the poorly educated, but also in the Ivy League graduate? Why else would otherwise rational individuals hold opinions that are counter to their own interests? As one example, who in their right mind would deny the historic efficacy of vaccination in public health, and yet scores of educated people refuse to have their children vaccinated. Another example, glaciers are retreating at unprecedented rates and polar regions are becoming navigable, yet supposedly intelligent politicians and lobbyists refuse to acknowledge that this might be a problem.
In the criminal justice system, ignorance of the law has never been an excuse leading to acquittal. Yet in civic affairs, in the running of government, in every day human interaction, ignorance is a constant source of conflict and dispute. Don’t confuse us with the facts. Opinions rule the day. People cut off their noses to spite their faces. As Bruce Hornsby once sang, “Hey, old man, how can you stand to think that way?”
As a pastor I have tried to offer grace to the ignorant. My model for this is Jesus, of course. As he was being crucified, Jesus extended grace to his killers, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.” To forgive is a recognition that a sin has been committed. In other words, ignorance is a sin. A sin that can only be redeemed by grace. What sticks in my craw, however, is that ignorance leads to suffering for others. Jesus suffered because of ignorance. People continue to suffer because of ignorance. To me, this fact is appalling. Even infuriating. But no amount of education or reasoned argument is able to correct ignorance, it seems. Only grace. Only forgiveness.
May God grant me mercy in the presence of ignorance that I may respond with grace. And may I, unaware of my own ignorance, be more like the repentant Pharisee, asking, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
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