by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Joshua 1:1-9, Ezra 9:2, Leviticus 19:33-34, Jeremiah 29:7, Romans 3:22-24, 2 Corinthians 6:14, Luke 6:27-31
Transcribed from the sermon preached on FEBRUARY 6 2022
The first time I experienced surf localism was as a sophomore in high school. A friend and I had gone to Oceanside jetty to surf. A crew of local surfers came by and said, “Hey you pencil neck geeks, go back to the valley.” In LA, if you lived anywhere East of Highway 5, you were a valley dude, and were not welcome. From my perspective, there was a bit of classism involved too, since generally, the closer you live to the beach, the more privileged and wealthy you are. It was the rich kids telling the poor kids they didn’t want them in their neighborhood.
When I mentioned surf localism the other day someone said, 'what is that?' Basically, it is the attitude that the people who live near a particular wave don’t want other people coming to crowd up the place. In general, most of the time at most places there is not much of a problem. But in general, the higher the quality and difficulty of the surf spot, the tougher the crowd gets. As the value of the surf goes up, so does the competition for the waves.
For most people who are used to sports with clearly defined boundaries and rules, on land where ownership and access is controlled well ahead of the sporting event, this kind of edginess and animosity just seems like macho BS. But there is more to it than that.
A bunch of surfers around a surf break is a social system with many things in common with other social systems, especially social systems with competition, life, and culture around a common, highly valued limited resource. Now most land is privately owned. The ocean remains open and common. There may not be written laws or rules, but there are unwritten rules that regulate social interactions, namely who is favored and who is marginal, who gets a break when, who is included when. But how one unwritten rule applies depends on the other unwritten rules. It is dynamic and situational, and as with anywhere, we tend to favor ourselves and our friends.
The scriptures included today should make us feel uncomfortable. There is contradiction. God is giving permission to Joshua to colonize. In Ezra we are told the Israelites were not to intermarry. In Leviticus we hear to be nice to strangers and in Jeremiah to seek the welfare of the city you are in. There in the Christian scriptures, Paul says on the one hand, there is no distinction between believers since we are all sinners, and on the other, watch out for hanging out with folks who are accustomed to doing wrong. Finally, Jesus tells us to “do unto others, as you would have them do to you.”
It is well known that one can use scripture to confirm almost any position you want to take. And we have to say that scripture is written by human beings who try their best to discern what is the will of God for their lives. And, they use the terms and tools of discernment they have available to them through their culture, history, and events and experiences of the moment. Of course, these people who brought us our scriptures were like all the rest of us, living in a sinful world, less than perfect and less than all knowing. The reverse is also true, and worthy of remembering, in all our effort to know and do what is right, in our looking back at how we have progressed and moved beyond some of the more vulgar and unjust of the past, we still have our blind spots and biases. Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. That has not changed.
Now as Christians we give priority to Jesus, who we call the Word with a capital W. So we interpret the words of scripture through the lens of the life and teachings of Jesus, and through the grace we need and receive from Him. Knowledge comes to an end; prophecy comes to an end. Love never ends.
Reinhold Niebuhr was the best I know at pointing out the blind spots and biases of everybody, especially in social systems. Niebuhr was quite critical of Utopian visions and liberals who thought society could be run without sin, without inequality or injustice. Unchecked power grows more corrupt, and people push for their self-interest even when it is counter to the common good. Yet, at the same time, being made in the image of God, humans have the capacity to recognize and do good, to act in creative and loving ways.
Niebuhr argued, “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
Niebuhr also argued that this Christian understanding of human nature, which includes sin, meant that politics should be understood not in terms of purity or perfection, but as the search for “proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”
“The hard work of finding proximate solutions to complex problems requires compromise, rather than ideological purity, and leaders with humility, rather than self-aggrandizement. It requires a weighing of competing claims, a concern with means as well as ends; and seeks procedural justice in addition to lofty ideals.” (London Review of Books Vol. 30 No. 20·23 October 2008, Self-Deceptions of Empire, David Bromwich. )
So, for instance, for a Christian politician, the rules of an election are not tossed out because you are losing. But we are all inclined to toss out the rules or change them for our benefit, especially nations, especially if we have the power, or can do it without getting caught. I’m going to share this paragraph on how unselfishness of an individual for a nation transforms into selfishness of a nation, but the premise also applies to other groups like our family, school clicks, local surfers our political party, our church or religion and especially business and corporations. It applies to all, but it seems that patriotism and nationalism are the most dangerous. Niebuhr writes.
“Patriotism transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism. Loyalty to the nation is a high form of altruism when compared with lesser loyalties and more parochial interests. It therefore becomes the vehicle of all the altruistic impulses and expresses itself, on occasion, with such fervor that the critical attitude of the individual toward the nation and its enterprises is almost completely destroyed. The unqualified character of this devotion is the very basis of the nation’s power and of the freedom to use the power without moral restraint. Thus the unselfishness of individuals makes for the selfishness of nations.”
So, we dedicate ourselves to the god of the nation and then God says we can take this land occupied by other peoples, so we unselfishly risk our lives for the nation so the nation can selfishly take land from others. But Niebuhr is also critical of those who think they can live and work within a social system and not have to choose between two less than sin free choices, the lesser of two evils. We have to have the courage and the grace to admit we can only create “proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”
To show the point that what at first looks like selfish meanness of surf localism is a little more complicated than it may at first appear. No doubt there is some simple animalness to it, like the grumpiness of the lion pride chewing on a wildebeest, but there is more to it than that.
In general, the surfer who is closest to the peak, or the breaking part of the wave gets the right of way and everyone else has to back off and let them go. When one goes the next one in line moves up and takes his or her turn. In principle everyone should be equal and have an equal opportunity. But some people are more equal than others.
While it is supposed to be equal, every social system develops hierarchy, so I wrote a list of what I think the hierarchy consist of at Pipeline. This would also be similar at many surf breaks, or any place where many people want a piece of a valuable but limited resource.
From top to bottom,
You are indigenous Hawaiian
You are local
You have demonstrated competence or are a highly skilled athlete and have earned the respect of the locals
You are friends or family of the locals and highly skilled
You are a Veteran, legend, or saint
You are The Enforcers – Hawaiian tough guys who may not be that good, but they keep others in line
This is the cut line.
You have desire or hunger
You are tough enough to put up with some abuse
You are determined and resilient
You are crazy
You are stupid
Except for stupidity, if you fit in more than one category the better it is for you. So, if you are highly talented local Hawaiian, you are at the tip-top.
Every hotshot pro in the world hopes and dreams of doing well in Hawaii. These young pro kids have gone most of their lives being the best, hottest, coolest surfer they know, but if they think they are going to paddle out into that lineup and show off, they have another thing coming. They will get the scraps, which means they will have to take the waves that the locals don’t want, which means they will probably get a little crummy wave or get pounded in a horrible wipe out. Luck and patience and talent play a part, but for someone like me, an experienced novice, the chance of getting a good wave is slim to none; paddling out at Pipe would not be a good idea at all especially given that I have lost the hunger and craziness.
But there is still more to it than that. The Hawaiians had their islands colonized and taken from them by the United States. Now the economy depends on tourism, but there are so many tourists and many who come without respect for the locals. The ugly American. Hawaiians depend on tourism but don’t like it.
Not long after arriving I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a car that said, “Keep the country the country.” The surfers of Moss Landing think the same thing about Santa Cruz encroaching. While the North Shore of Oahu is the most famous surfing in the world, it still has a country feel. There are country houses passed down through generations, along with chickens, bananas, avocados, and pineapple. There is only one big fancy hotel on the North Shore, charging a couple thousand dollars a night. There is significant concern that large corporations and rich tourists will buy up property and price out local Hawaiians. Thankfully, in American law you can’t own the ocean, so that is the place where local Hawaiians continue to exert dominance and demand respect.
Now so many years after colonization, immigrants have come from the mainland US and from Asia to find work in the fields, hotels or live the island life. Over time, the old folks get to know the new folks and their kids grow up and go to school together. There is trouble in the schools too, but the local crew is a mix of races. The terms indigenous, native, and local each have slightly different meaning, but what they have in common is they are not strangers.
Now while there is no shortage of surfers who are poor, from a surfers perspective, anyone who lives on the North Shore is privileged, no matter the number of dollars in their bank account. There is more than one way to measure wealth. Obviously, extreme natural beauty with perfect weather and glorious ocean are highly valued far beyond any monetary value that might be placed on it. An added ingredient to the complexity is that Christian missionaries almost killed the sport. It was considered pagan because you can’t surf with your clothes on, and surf doesn’t follow the capitalist time clock.
Surf was unequally yoked with running down to the docks to work when a ship came in. It took a while for Christians to decide body positive, healthy exercise and fun in God’s creation was a good thing. It didn’t hurt that capital decided there was money to be made in tourism.
But here is the question that comes to mind: When do you become a local and how is a local defined? When does your love for your family and neighbors, culture and land make it necessary to resist further encroachment, further immigration? What if you and your people are escaping slavery, or repression, corruption, or poverty? Once the Sioux mastered horse riding they immigrated and colonized the great plains, forcing multiple tribes to flee to new lands. While they had the greater technology of the horse, they were also fleeing Europeans. And many Europeans thought they were fleeing poverty and oppression in Europe. There are no easy answers, but roads lean toward Jesus – do onto others.
My point today is just this: we live in a sinful world where the bad and the good mix and keep mixing. Someone who acts selfish and greedy may be protecting their home after most of it has already been taken. A nice friendly visitor may not know or respect the local culture and descend from the people who stole the land. And many people rise in hierarchy because they have exceptional talent. On the other hand, outsider talent is not equal to insider talent. That is the same on the basketball court in the inner city of Houston, or a board room, as it is in the water.
Now Jesus, who was quite adept at walking on water during high surf, would say, if someone asks for a wave, give them two. Do unto others as you would have them do to you. The one who would be first must be the servant of all.
Now we have to work within cultures that are less than perfect, and we know that every human is highly likely to be biased in favor of themselves, their family and their group however defined. The Church does this too. We want to be kind to the homeless, so we make them food. But when the children come in for school in the morning, we have to boot them off the property. The parents and schools and we ourselves are concerned about the children’s safety, so we have to make “proximate solutions to insoluble problems.”
So even we must be saved by grace. And the key is this, as Christians it is our intention to be loving, to make decisions to be as best we can for everyone. We highly favor equality. Even if we have to have boundaries, we don’t have to have enemies. When we make a decision, we should always ask ourselves, what might I feel if I were in their shoes?
Lord, give us the courage to change the things that can and should be changed, the grace to accept those things that cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.