‘Faith, hope and love abide’

Isabel Wilkerson’s book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, is a provocative treatment of race problems in the United States. Her book was received with appreciation by some and summarily rejected by others.

A year ago, Llano County in Texas considered shutting down the public library system after a federal judge ruled that county commissioners had violated the U.S. Constitution by removing a dozen books, including Wilkerson’s, and ordered the books returned to the shelves. 

In the ongoing struggle in race relations, some form of the comment “But I had nothing to do with what went on during slavery and following the Civil War. I wasn’t even alive then” is often expressed. Wilkerson offers a strong rebuttal to that thought with what I think is a positive challenge. She writes, “We are not personally responsible for what people who look like us did centuries ago. But we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today.” 

Next week Christians around the world will observe Holy Week, including the somber Good Friday when Jesus’s crucifixion is remembered. One could make the same comment about the crucifixion, “But I wasn’t there . . .” That is certainly true, but think about the haunting lyrics “Were you there when they crucified my Lord, nailed him to the cross, pierced him in the side, laid him in the tomb?” The question assumes a positive answer, but how can that be? In his book about how the cross still influences our lives today, theologian Roger Gench writes, “In short, we have been co-opted, hijacked, commandeered, gerrymandered, or, to use biblical imagery, exiled and enslaved, by the false promises of not-gods that warp and crucify us and that incite a ‘dog-eat-dog,’ mean-spirited existence.” 

Good Friday is God’s answer to that kind of existence that causes so many problems. In the crucifixion, the greatest human sin was met by the greatest divine love. We may not be personally responsible for what people did 2,000 years ago, “but we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today.” 

As we consider the meaning of God’s love expressed in the cross and what it means for how we are to treat one another, think on these words of Richard Rohr, writer on Christian spirituality, “Justice without love is legalism. Faith without love is idolatry. Hope without love is self-centeredness. Forgiveness without love is self-abasement. Fortitude without love is recklessness. Generosity without love is extravagance. Care without love is mere duty. Fidelity without love is servitude. Every virtue is an expression of love. No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated, or informed, by love.” 

Of course, the apostle Paul said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 13 and his conclusion about how to live and treat one another still holds today, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

Philip Gladden is a retired Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

minister who lives in Wallace, NC. He can be reached at gladdenphilip620@gmail.com.