June 3, 2012 Proper 4
Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
Romans 8:14-17
14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Billy Graham has been, for most of the past 50 years, the exception to the rule of televangelist insanity. Most of the figures who promoted themselves on the national scene as great evangelists embarrassed themselves both in how they lived and in what they said but Billy Graham generally maintained an impeccable personal reputation and, even though his theology is distinctly evangelical, he made his messages seem somehow more sane and palatable than those of his peers.
But his children seem to have fallen pretty far from the tree. Though both have done some very laudable things as they have tried to establish themselves as national evangelical leaders, they also regularly appear to be a bit nuts if not downright mean.
I've had my picture taken shaking hands with Roy Blunt, though we both looked a bit shaken by the experience, I can tell you that I never want to stand that close to Franklin Graham! Billy Graham personally went and bailed Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail a couple of times but his kids appear to be on the other side of the fence.
The 94 year old advisor and friend to many presidents is now out of the spot light but his daughter, Anne, was recently interviewed about her views on who should be the next president.
Evangelicals have had to do a lot of theological contortions since they appear to have to now choose between a Mormon and an African born-Muslim-socialist in the fall election..... of course, President Obama is not a Muslim and is not African born nor a socialist but they are not known for letting facts get in their way and they sure aren't about to start now.
Anne Graham said that the number one thing she looks for in a presidential candidate is that they fear God. Let me let you hear her saying it herself on Meet the Press, (play clip of Graham saying, "The thing I think is so important is the Bible says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord......)
She is accurate in that the Bible does say this, in both Proverbs and more than once in the Psalms but, of course, the Bible also says, as appears in our lesson from Romans this morning, that as members of God's family, we have no reason to fear. And 1 John, chapter 4, says that "perfect love drives out fear."
Biblicists are fond of saying that you can't "pick and choose" from among the scriptures but, clearly, you have to because no one can take the Bible as a whole and give equal value to every verse. There is wisdom and insight in the pages of scripture but there is also prejudice, misogyny, and violence. As Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer puts it in his interesting little book, Jesus Against Christianity, the Pentateuch basically describes God as being a pathological land thief. And in spite of how many Zionists in the world continue to insist that God is in the real estate stealing business, I do not choose to believe in that god.
Though I long ago gave up a supernatural view of God that would have required adherence to any particular set of doctrines, I have often jokingly said that were it not for fear and guilt I wouldn't have a job.
But in spite of the potential career risk it may pose, I'm here to tell you that fearing God is not the beginning of wisdom, it is more like the first step towards a therapist's office.
Last Spring there was a fairly short flurry of news reports about pastors publicly saying that they don't believe in hell. A couple of small church pastors lost their jobs but then an evangelical mega-church pastor, Robert Bell, published a book entitled "Love Wins" in which he affirmed the same belief. And he was broadly denounced by evangelicals and Christian publishers from coast to coast because if you take away the fear of going to hell there might be a virtual stampede leaving evangelical churches and heading downtown for the gay bars.... Or as one Assemblies of God seminarian told me, "The dancing is so much more fun there."
The Ontario newspaper, The Globe and Mail, just reported yesterday that the Toronto Catholic archbishop had issued a long statement protesting the Liberal Ontario government for passing an anti-bullying ordinance that included language against bullying kids for being gay. Which is wrong in at least two very serious ways.... The first and most obvious being that an Archbishop protesting an anti-bullying bill is the height of religious hypocrisy but perhaps more seriously, an English speaking Toronto Bishop criticizing anything in French speaking Ontario is tantamount to a declaration of war....... What, you people don't follow Canadian politics? May I ask one of our Canadian viewers to send me an explanatory note that I can pass along to my Midwestern congregation?
The ancient Persians invented the concepts of heaven and hell because the constructs were useful to the royal class in controlling their slaves and peasants. Marx wasn't the first to realize that promising the suffering poor "pie in the sky in the bye and bye" might make them more cooperative with being abused. The Zoroastrians used it on their Jewish slaves in Babylon and they brought the idea back to Judah and infected both the post exilic expression of Judaism and early Christian communities with it.
I believe that the historical Jesus was concerned about alleviating the suffering of the poor, the sick and the marginalized in there here and now and if that is picking and choosing then let me be very clear about this, I do not choose to be afraid of God and I hope that you are not either.
I believe that fear was primarily and originally a form of government manipulation of the population and where religious fear doesn't work, I'm convinced that the government finds other tools to engender sufficient fear to keep us compliant.
So much has happened in the past decade in the name of protecting us from terrorists. George Orwell never dared to dream of the level of government spying on its own citizens that we now experience. Terrorism is the excuse used to place cameras and listening devices in public places and to eavesdrop on telephone conversations and read e-mails as if terrorists were likely to send one another emails about their activities..... "Hi, Jamal, the bomb factory is coming along nicely!"
Not that terrorists generally come straight out of the MENSA club.... I'm certain that Homeland Security has thwarted some serious terrorist plots but what we hear about is some guy who turns his car into an incendiary bomb and then locked himself out of his car and couldn't detonate it. Or the guy who wore an underwear bomb and succeeded only in setting his own private parts on fire.
We had a guest lecturer at Drury University a few years ago who was a strategist for Homeland Security and during the question and answer period I asked him, "Which poses the greatest threat to Americans, foreign terrorists or this winter's strain of the flu." He was red-faced and angry about the question but the answer is obvious..... if the government were really concerned about saving lives, they would pass out more Kleenex and anti-bacterial hand sanitizer but the flu doesn't require the construction of an office structure larger than the Pentagon and a budget bigger than education. And while the flu is something to be concerned about, it just doesn't have the sexy fear appeal of terrorism.
I must ask you to consider why people commit acts of terrorism in the first place? Isn't it to frighten large numbers of people at a small expense? Terrorism is sometimes called the warfare of the poor and oppressed. Terrorists can't field a navy or an air force, they don't have armies and tanks so they secretly do the most violently attention getting things that they can do in order to intimidate and threaten their enemies. So the single most effective counter terrorism measure we can take is to decide not to be terrorized.... To refuse to be afraid, to never make decisions based on fear.
Fear is not the beginning of wisdom. Fear doesn't cause you to make good decisions. And fear never inspires what we say that we want..... grace, forgiveness, peace, and certainly not love.
The public rhetoric asks you to be afraid of poor people who might get some of your money for something they didn't work for. It asks you to be afraid of sick people who might get health care that you might have to help pay for. You are asked to be afraid of criminals who are treated like royalty while in prison at your expense. And you are asked to be afraid enough to give up your rights to privacy and to accept outrageous expansions of government agencies and intrusions into your life to protect you from terrorists when lightening poses a much larger threat and the flu is a hundred times more likely to get you than anyone in Al-Qaida.
Apparently, fear makes us stupid and mean and those are two things that are contrary to who we say we want to be. It is the terrorist who wants you to be afraid, where that is a fanatic with a bomb, or a government that keeps exaggerating the threat of bombers, or religious wackos who make up tall tales about places of eternal punishment..... they are all terrorists and the best thing we can do is to ignore them and get busy being good at loving.
