What You Do Matters

Last week while in Washington D.C. for vacation, my spouse and I went to the Holocaust Museum. I wasn’t sure what to expect, really, I mean, how does one begin to tell the story of such horrors? I soon found out that the answer to that question was:  Gradually…just as it happened.

I remember learning about the Holocaust in school. It was always presented as a horrific occurrence. It was always presented as genocide and a failure of epic proportions. It was always presented, though, as something done by one man and his loyal generals. I wouldn’t understand until years later that nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is that such a massive atrocity could not have been carried out by just one person or even just a handful of them. And indeed it wasn’t. The Holocaust took time–even before the official start of WWII. It took time and many hands on deck–hands that would do the rounding up. Hands that would see that the mass deportations and the marches were carried out. Hands that would do the beating, the maiming, the killing. Hands that so effortlessly were raised in Sieg Heil salutes. Hands that would do nothing but stand idly by while it all unfolded. The horrors of the Holocaust may have been from the mind of one man–or a handful of them–but make no mistake, it couldn’t have happened without millions of hands along the way.

Outside of the Museum and at various places within the museum itself, there is a sign like the one in the picture above:  “The next time you see injustice. The next time you hear about genocide. The next time you witness hatred. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW.” In addition to this sign, another generally accompanied it:  “What you do matters.” 

It’s easy to think that what we do or don’t do has few or no consequences worth mentioning. That the stop sign we blew through while we were scrolling for a new podcast episode on our phones didn’t really matter. That the election we decided to sit out on principle or out of protest had no consequences. That the meme we re-posted certainly couldn’t do anything lasting, that the time we minded our own business when someone was treated poorly by another at the grocery store didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, or the laughter we shared at another’s expense was simply harmless. And perhaps, if we lived in a vacuum, none of it would amount to a hill of beans. And yet, over time, from enough people in enough places, such actions and inactions sow deep seeds of division and hate, and can do irreparable damage not just to one or two people, but millions.

We Christians often talk about Pilate and how he could have stopped Jesus’ execution along the way, and yet, we often fail to mention or acknowledge all of the people in all of the places that could have stopped Jesus’ execution before it even got to Pilate in the first place. Sure, there was the crowd who advocated for Barabbas’ release and Jesus’ imprisonment and execution, but there were also handfuls of Pharisees who tried to trip Jesus up along the way, and some Sadducees who sowed deep seeds of division along the way as well. There were countless communities in which Jesus could perform no miracles, where he could offer no teaching, and where he and his disciples could find no hospitality–what of them? What of the people who had ostracized those whom Jesus healed? Did they ever truly understand the power they had to create a different world right in their own backyard? Do we?

I’m not sharing this to bum anyone out, I’m actually sharing it to offer a morsel of hope in sometimes frightening and uncertain times. Because the truth that was reiterated for me in Washington D.C. last week is that we humans have a GREAT capacity for hate and injustice and horror. AND the only capacity we have that is greater than ALL of that, is our capacity to love. And I don’t mean love like a Hallmark movie, I mean love that makes simple, little choices every day for the common good. Love that takes a stand in the grocery store when someone is being treated badly. Love that not only sees a meme that laughs at another’s expense and just keeps scrolling, but a love that calls up the friend who posted the meme to talk about why it’s hurtful. In short, a love that DOES SOMETHING. 

I think this is the hard, messy, world-changing love that we are called to as followers of the Way. A love that is constantly scanning the landscape right in front of us, just looking for something to do–someone to love–not love them into our way of thinking or believing, but rather, loving them into wholeness and, in so doing, loving ourselves into wholeness too.

I’ll definitely keep thinking about what I saw in the Holocaust Museum, and I’ll keep working to make sure we never see such things in our world again. Join me, won’t you?

Our capacity for hate is great, our capacity for love is GREATER,
Pr. Melissa

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