The Myth of Objectivity

If you remove the yoke from among you,

The pointing of the finger and the speaking of evil,

if you offer food to the hungry 

and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

Then your light shall rise in the darkness

and your gloom shall be like noonday.

-Isaiah 58: 9b-10

I was thinking about politics this morning, and then I came in to the office and started to read through the lectionary passages for three weeks down the road, because I'm going on a trip to the United Kingdom for two weeks.  Before I left for the Camino, I read the Pentecost texts that would be my first sermon back, and lo and behold, as I walked with those particular texts, I got a sermon that practically wrote itself.  Same idea, but I actually doubt that I'm going to preach on the Isaiah text for proper 16, because the Gospel story seems more pressing for where we are now.

What I was specifically thinking about this morning is the idea of objectivity, particularly the way in which we perceive the bias of those who do not agree with us, while largely ignoring our own.  Now, a word of warning, I have had theological education, and so the consideration of objectivity and subjectivity is not, in fact, virgin territory to me.  I offer you the above passage of Isaiah and would like to point out that how you read it, specifically what part of it really resonates with you, probably says a little something about your political disposition.  If for instance, you focus on "remove the yoke from among you," you are probably a conservative or a libertarian.  If you focus on "the pointing of the finger and the speaking of evil," you may be one of those people who feels a little cut loose by the whole process in this election, between what you consider to be two bad choices.  If you gravitate to the part about feeding the hungry and satisfying the needs of the afflicted, you may be a progressive, or at least liberal-ish.  Everyone probably likes the promise at the end, but unless we focus on the whole set of conditions, not just the one we're most at home with, we're probably not going to get there.

This is the difficulty with trying to live a truly biblical faith, and when I say biblical I probably mean something rather different than many others who use that word.  I am one who believes that the Scriptures are a living word, and that their interpretation is not fixed, in other words, there is not really a fundamentally objective way to read the Bible.  There are, however, right and wrong ways to read the Bible, there are also levels of interpretation for any given text depending on the perspective of the reader/interpreter.  Trying to read the Bible as though your particular interpretation is the true, objective, correct, best interpretation out there, is arrogant, idolatrous and probably sets you on the road to evil.  And no, I'm not being hyperbolic.

The same can be said for how we read the news.  If you only accept as true, the things that jive with your particular opinions, you will quickly come to the determination that a large number of people: journalists, TV talking heads, pundits, and probably a good number of your friends and neighbors, are probably delusional, or as Bill O'Reilly says, "they have drunk the Kool-Aid.".  It is, in fact possible, that Fox News (gag sound), does, in fact, tell the truth occasionally.  It is also possible that the "liberal media" they are always so fond of disparaging, is also telling some part of the truth.

As the X-files used to say, "the truth is out there," but it may be rather difficult to hear over all the shouting. These days we're so distrustful of "the media" that Donald Trump can say whatever hateful thing he wants to say and then claim to have had his words twisted. We're even getting to the point where people mistrust fact-checking websites like Snopes and Politi-fact.  These sites stake their reputation on what journalistic principles define as truth and objectivity, and they have increasingly learned to nuance there fact finding by putting truth on a continuum from "pants on fire" (politi-fact) to "true," with various shades of mostly true, mostly false and such in between,  The "pants on fire" rating of a lie is usually reserved for an untruth that is not only demonstrably false, but also malicious and/or self serving.  The other shades of truth or falsehood offer explanations of how reality can be shaded depending on your point of view (I hear Obi Wan Kenobi's ghost).

To read the little snippet from Isaiah's prophecy in the best way humanly possible, one would need to look past their own particular bias and also understand the historical context. This is from the section of Isaiah that represents the teaching of a prophet to people who have returned from exile and are trying to restore themselves and their place in the world.  In other words, he is not warning people bound for doom, nor trying to comfort the persecuted exiles and give them hope, he is trying to help people learn how to stand on their own two feet, to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly (I know that' s Micah, but it applies).  

But it's not just about knowing what it meant then, it's about letting it breathe the Spirit of God into your world now.  Don't neglect the parts you don't like, take it all, let it all speak to you, let it show you the yoke of anger and mistrust you have been carrying, let it convict you of all the finger pointing and speaking of evil you have done, or you have heard, or you have voted for, let it draw you into compassion for the poor and the hungry and the afflicted.  "Then your light will rise in the darkness, and your gloom will be like noonday."

Monday morning sermon, done.