“You’re done with that old life.”

By Rev. Melissa Krabbe

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People say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. But how many of us pick up a book because the cover caught our attention? This summer I read a book that’s been on my “want to read” list because of the title and the cover.

It’s by TJ Klune, and it’s called “The House in the Cerulean Sea.” It caught my attention because of the cover art, and because the title reminded me of another book, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea is a Jane Eyre prequel, and I wondered if Cerulean Sea might have similar literary connections.

It did not. But I enjoyed the story. It got me thinking.

The house in the Cerulean Sea sits on an island called Marsyas which one must reach by taking the train out of the city and all the way down the line to the very last stop, and then taking a ferry that’s piloted by a grumpy old man who often refuses to take people across. The house is an orphanage for magical children. They’ve been sent there because the government is afraid of them and has required that all magical people be registered and monitored and contained.

The man running the orphanage is supposed to be teaching the magical children how to survive in the “real” world. He’s supposed to help them hide who they are and respect the government. But instead he helps them enjoy who they are. He teaches them to be themselves and helps them heal from the abuse they’ve all experienced

These children are orphans because magical people are harassed and often killed. The children in orphanages are often mistreated. The heavy hopelessness in the book’s dystopian existence is a bit similar to the description of the world we get from the writer of Ecclesiastes:

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“…I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.” (Eccl. 4:1-2)

The iron grip of oppressors. Whenever someone has to hide who they are, that’s oppression. Whenever people use their social standing or political power or money to exploit or suppress or degrade other people, that’s oppression. Oppressors don’t care about people. Ironically, Solomon, who rabbinic tradition says was the writer of Ecclesiastes, was himself an oppressive king who used forced labor to build his palace and temple, and collected harsh taxes from his subjects. I wonder if Solomon saw his own oppressive ways and was feeling hopeless about being able to change them?

Oppression can be subtle. We might not realize we’re causing it or experiencing it, and yet it can have serious consequences for emotional and physical wellbeing.

In verse 3 Ecclesiastes captures the depth of despair that oppression and depression can cause:

“…luckier than the dead or the living is the person who has never even been, who has never seen the bad business that takes place on this earth.”

It’s like what Job says in his response to all the disasters that happen to him, “I wish I’d never been born.”

We often talk about how bad things are now, but we see in the Bible that violence and oppression have been happening since the beginning of time.

As if that weren’t depressing enough, the next section of Ecclesiastes 4 says that so much of what we do is meaningless:

“Then I observed all the work and ambition motivated by envy. What a waste! Smoke. And spitting into the wind.”

⁵ The fool sits back and takes it easy, His sloth is slow suicide.

⁶ One handful of peaceful repose Is better than two fistfuls of worried work—More spitting into the wind.

^7-8I turned my head and saw yet another wisp of smoke on its way to nothingness: a solitary person, completely alone—no children, no family, no friends—yet working obsessively late into the night, compulsively greedy for more and more, never bothering to ask, “Why am I working like a dog, never having any fun? And who cares?” More smoke. A bad business.

Work and ambition motivated by envy are meaningless. Working alone, obsessively, late into the night, compulsively greedy, never having any fun. Also meaningless.

So what’s the point? Our work and our lives have meaning through our relationships.

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So verse 9 says, “It’s better to have a partner than go it alone.”

What matters are the people in our lives, whether we know them well or just in passing, whether they are people we interact with in person, on the phone, or online. Our relationships are what matter. We impact people in more ways than we know.

Relationships happen one person at a time. What gets in the way is our tendency to generalize about people. For example, when we were traveling last week, my mom noticed the wide variety of reactions people had to my green hair. Some loved it and told me so. Some scowled when they saw it. Maybe they assumed that people with green hair are weird, or queer, or anarchists, or crazy. I don’t know what their scowls meant because they didn’t tell me, but whatever they thought about me, they missed out on finding out the truth because they believed a lie, an assumption.

What are we hearing or reading that we’re believing because it’s in print or on TV or on the internet that is actually a lie being used to get us to vote or shop or live a certain way? What lies might be motivated by greed or fear or envy?

There’s a lot of dehumanization getting tossed around in ads and speeches, people being called monsters, criminals, animals, devils. Those kinds of words make us think of people as less important, less human. And if people are subhuman, we don’t have to respect them or love them, even though Jesus said to love our neighbors – all our neighbors. Even those we think are our enemies. Maybe we even start to think that God doesn’t love them either.

This is what was happening in the book The House in the Cerulean Sea. If magical people were monsters, then they had to be killed, and if not killed, they at least needed to know their place. Sound familiar? It’s just like racism, Christian nationalism, homophobia, or anything else that makes us think one group of people is better or worse than another. Thinking we’re superior makes us oppressors.

Dehumanization is a handy tool for oppressors, and also for people who have jobs in which they have to remain clinical. [3]

In the series on Hulu called Bones, a group of scientists, technologists, and an anthropologist analyze the skeletal remains of crime victims to help the FBI solve cases. One of the team specializes in reconstructing the face of the victim, and sometimes she is overwhelmed by the horror of the victim’s death experience. Seeing the face makes it hard to view the case clinically. Usually the rest of the team are better at staying emotionally disconnected as they study the bones and other pieces of evidence. But when the victim is a child, it’s harder. So the head of the team has to remind them how to keep their emotional distance: don’t use the victim’s name, and focus on the clinical details.

When we know someone’s name, we have the beginnings of a relationship with that person. When someone knows our name we feel more connected to them.

Instead of dehumanizing and mistreating one another, Jesus tells us to love one another. He says this over and over again, and he demonstrates this by spending time with people that have been cast out and mistreated.

In the letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul tells us more about how to live like Jesus did, how to see ourselves and the people around us through Jesus’ eyes. Paul says:

Colossians 3:9-14 The Message

9-11 Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

Everyone is included in Christ. Everyone.

That passage starts off saying, “Don’t lie to one another.” What are some ways we lie to one another?

Whenever we pretend to be something we’re not, we lie to one another. Whenever we make someone think they have to be like us to be ok, we lie to one another.

Whenever we allow someone to think that they are unlovable or that God doesn’t love them, we lie to them.

So be yourself. God made you that way. Encourage others to be themselves. No one should have to hide who they are.

The passage we read from Ecclesiastes ends with some verses that are often read at weddings. I read them at my daughter Tabitha’s wedding last weekend.

^9-10 It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, But if there’s no one to help, tough! ¹¹ Two in a bed warm each other. Alone, you shiver all night. ¹² By yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.

What’s a three-stranded rope? A braid. We often think of this verse as being about two humans and the third strand being God. But I think God doesn’t have to be a separate strand. Can you braid with two strands? Yes!

I think we tend to underestimate the degree to which God is in us, working in and through us, not as a separate entity, but as part of us.

Colossians says, “So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.”

Compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline, forgiveness…these traits are in us, just as the Holy Spirit is in us.

We don’t put those on as falsehoods to cover up our real selves. We’re letting our real selves out.