A Bloodstained Lens

By Rev. George F. Borghardt

As Southerners, we taught our kids to be polite and respectful to all adults. They weren’t just to say, “Yeah” or “Nah” to the adults around them but rather, “Yes, ma’am,” or “No, sir.” This is how we were raised. That’s how we raised our sons in Texas. After I took a call to Illinois, my youngest son found himself in detention for responding to one of his teachers with, “Yes, ma’am.” You see, his Midwest teacher took his show of respect as being disrespectful. The lens with which she interpreted “Yes, ma’am” was different than the lens my son had and it caused misunderstanding.

We all see the world from a certain perspective or through a particular lens. Our senses take in information from the world and people around us and we filter it or interpret it based on our life experiences and culture. It’s how we “see” and “hear” things. If we put on green glasses the world will look green; in the same way we see the world through certain cultural and experiential lenses.

The world around you has a completely different culture than the one of your Christian faith. It’s not just a matter of a difference in morality (Second Table of the Law). It centers around God (First Table of the Law). You were taught to see everything in the universe in the context of God sending His Son to suffer and die for your sins and the sins of the whole world. God is working all things out—good and bad—for your good in Christ. He is with you in the waters of your Baptism. He’s forgiving you in the words of your pastor and his feeding you His Body and Blood in the Sacrament.

That’s Christian faith! Your faith in Jesus is what is totally different from the world! You see the world through Jesus-colored glasses! There are no accidents or serendipities in your world. When something happens it is going to work out for you. When it doesn’t, that’s going to work out for you, too. You know and you trust that God is making everything work in the universe and He’s making it work out for you (Romans 8:28). How could you not? He gave up His Son.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world. It is what it is. It’s survival of the fittest. You gotta do unto others before they do unto you. It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.” That’s the world’s creed. It’s not only godless—its faithless. Everything is accidental. Evolution teaches the world that everything is about death not life. To the world, morality and gender are not set, they are fluid. There is no black and white morality because there is no higher power. There is life and then there is death and “you can’t fight death and taxes.”

It would be easy if the only lens you ever looked through in life is the one you received at your Baptism. The problem is that you have your foot in both cultures and so you try to wear both lenses. You want to see the world through the lens watermarked with Jesus. (See what I did there?) But you live in a world where you pick up things, expressions, and ways to see the world that influence your worldview. They fog your Good-Friday-Jesus-for-me lens. Before you know it, this results in minor changes to how you see the world occur even without your realizing it. In the same way my son picked up a Midwestern accent from our time living near Chicago, you tend to pick up worldviews that don’t fit with your Christian faith.

The Lord’s words call you to repentance. They clean your lens, washing it with baptismal grace. You are repented by God. When you confess your sins, the Lord forgives you and sets you out to see and experience the world through His Word and promise. But how do you live in this world and keep your lens clean?

The answer is not to completely separate yourself from the world and live in the wilderness like St. Francis of Assisi. He left his wealth and the civilization he lived in and surrounded himself with nature, hoping to be free of the trappings of the world. Many have done this and have become nuns and monks, separating themselves from the lens of the world. That might help you in some way but it doesn’t help the person God loves in Christ, too: your neighbor.

God wants to save you. He also wants to save your neighbor. He’s doing good to you. He’s doing good to those around you, too, through you. Since your neighbor is in the world, God has put you in the world to love and serve those in the world with you. You do this in the world but not wearing the world’s lens. Your lens has been washed in the blood of the Lamb. You see things, you perceive things, experience things in the context of Jesus Christ and Him crucified for you.

You are in the world, but not of the world. How does that look? How are you in the world but not of the world? How do you see the world in Jesus—as a baptized child of God—while still living in this world? This issue of the Higher Things magazine is going to explore how to answer these questions. You see the world through His Word taught to you in church. My job has been to point out to you the only lens that matters to you and say, “You are of Christ and Christ is of God” (1 Corinthians 3:23). Jesus FOR YOU, as taught to you from the sacred Scriptures within the Church, is the only lens you need.

Rev. George F. Borghardt is the pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bossier City, Louisiana and serves as the President of Higher Things.