Us and them

In 1973 Pink Floyd released the Album “Dark Side of the Moon.” On it is a song with the title “Us and Them.” It’s about war. It’s about people being divided and seeing themselves as “us” and others as “them.” It wasn’t a new concept. Sadly it’s happened all the way through human history. It’s why wars happen. It’s happening now. Us and them. It’s tragic. Russians and Ukranians. Depending on whose side you are determines who is “us” and who is “them.” Perhaps, if we put the blame in one place or another, we perpetuate “us” and “them”. We do it all the time don’t we? We’re always making the “us” and “them” judgement. We do it when we support one team and not another, when we like some people but not others, when we know our theology is right and someone else’s theology is wrong. Not all these things will lead us to war, although history tells us it has often been theology that has done exactly that. Maybe, today, the issue is sexuality:” us” and “them”. Jesus had strong words to say to the Pharisees who, it seems, were very much into us and them: they knew who was saved and who wasn’t. Jesus told them God saw it differently. At a picnic on a hill (Matthew 14:13-21) Jesus took bread and broke it and gave it to the massive crowd that had gathered. When he broke bread he was telling them they were welcome in his Kingdom, something very different to what the Pharisees said. Paul, writing to the church in Galatia, who were struggling with just how Jewish you had to be to be a Christian, said that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ.” (Gal. 3:28) God, it seems isn’t into “us” and “them”. It seems to me we spot it when it happens somewhere else, but perhaps we are not so good at spotting it when we do it ourselves. Perhaps we are too quick to judge. I know I am. And watching the terror of the invasion of the Ukraine has made me think about just where “us” and “them” thinking gets us. All of us. Any if us. Me included. And I’ve realised just how easily I can find myself thinking of “us” and “them”. I’m going to try to do better, because that brings me closer to God’s bigger and better story.