Shaking the Dust Off Our Feet
By Jenn P. Sims, Ph.D., Contributing Writer
According to Luke, when the people in Jesus’ hometown rejected his teachings and tried to hurl him off a hill, he left. Mark adds that he taught his disciples to do the same, saying that if the people of a town refuse to accept them then they should leave and shake the dust off their feet.
Modern secular discourse, however, literally preaches the opposite. For example, in his first speech as the official President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden called for the divided US public to “give each other a chance” and “listen to each other.” Similar messages were circulating on social media in the form of pictures of red and blue stick figures holding hands and text exclaiming that “real adults” do not let political opinions get in the way of friendship.
As I have written before, these messages ignore the fact that contemporary rifts are not petty minutia but instead relate to the ethical question of who deserves human rights. In contrast to Jesus’ message, modern secular discourse encourages us to stay with people who have demonstrated—via their voting, social media posting, or in one-on-one conversations—that they would support throwing us off a hill for the color of our skin or who we love. Although I have previously explained my distaste for most comparisons of the present moment to Nazi Germany, the dominance of Eurocentrism means that at present the most effective way to demonstrate the ludicrousness of this messaging is to ask if you would expect a Jewish person during the Holocaust to be friends with a Nazi supporter?
Given the horrors of the Holocaust, most people find this proposition absurd. It is absurd to suggest that Anne Frank’s father, for example, should happily go golfing with a neighbor who supports imprisoning men like him in concentration camps. It is also absurd to suggest that Mrs. Frank should respectfully give a neighbor a chance to explain why she thinks it is fine for doctors to perform forced gynecological surgeries on women like her and her daughters.
Similar abuses are happening right now to minorities in the United States and they have happened throughout our nation’s history too. Yet, we are repeatedly told that people’s support for this abuse against us is simply a difference of opinion that should not matter because we’re all Americans. An even more insidious aspect of oppression here is the development of rhetoric that frames being friends with people who support abusive policies against U.S. minorities in positive and aspirational terms such as being an “adult,” a “good Christian,” “putting politics aside,” and “not judging.”
As we prepare for what may come in 2021, let us reject the twisted claim that it is graceful to be complicit in our own dehumanization. In instructing his disciples, Jesus was clear that we should give people an initial chance but then should walk away if they unequivocally demonstrate their disregard for us. In 2021, let us unapologetically shake the dust off our feet and walk away with Jesus.
