Rights vs. Responsibility

I've been getting a lot of political e-mails lately. It's that time of year, I suppose. Most of the ones I'm getting have a lot to say about my rights. Specifically, about protecting my rights as a "Christian". The information I'm receiving tells me it is in my best interest to protect my right to be protected; to maintain distance between "others", with whom I disagree politically, in lifestyle philosophy, etc.

I had a conversation with a friend about one of these e-mails. She was concerned about a bill passed here in Colorado and felt that as an American citizen, a person should have the right to hire who he or she wanted. I wondered allowed what would have happened if we had that attitude when civil rights legislation passed. As I mulled over that conversation, I began thinking about my rights as an American citizen and my responsibilities as a person participating in the Kingdom of Heaven. I used to think that to participate in the Kingdom, it only made sense to do so within the political/social structure of the US. I don't think that anymore.


Well, quite frankly, I don't think it works. It doesn't seem to me that Jesus would be all that impressed with me, say as a business owner, only hiring people like me, who make me feel comfortable, happy and content. Or maybe, if I were renting a house, only renting to those I feel comfortable with (i.e. white, middle class, heterosexual). It seem to me that per Jesus' example, my concern should be much more about my responsibility to others rather than that of my personal rights. It is in his death and resurrection that I find reason to reach outside myself and what I "want" to a bigger picture of his Kingdom.

The problem for Christ-followers is that this approach is just a whole lot messier. It's rarely a cut and dried scenario. The safety of the known is so much more comfortable that the risk required as we take the responsibility of being messengers of the Kingdom, the ones who are to bring good news. How can we be those messengers if we've spent our time and energy protecting ourselves and our personal rights? I believe that it is necessary for the follower of Christ to step back from the American view of "rights" and fashion her life based on the responsibility given in the death and resurrection of the One we call Lord. It's a completely different scenario.