If any think they are religious and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
And who are the orphans and widows in their distress? Every single person who stands before you in need of hope. And who is in need of hope? All those who stand before you. Therefore do not defile God by unbridling your tongue to lash out, belittle, antagonize, and condemn others when you yourself, who cannot cast stones lest you shatter your own house, has received the forgiveness and mercy of God.
“Thank God I’m not like one of those wretched tax collectors” we like to think. That terrible driver. That lazy salesperson or leader. On and on the list could go. This kind of judgement we have of others is not particularly innocent. I was recently reading about the cold war. One narrative suggests that the cold war began with the US’s dropping bombs on Japan, mounting popular support to do this by depicting the Japanese people as subhuman. Yet it is claimed that the US’s true goal was to threaten the Russians and prevent their expansion of an empire into the far East.
What the US saw in Russians, I’d suggest, was themselves; just themselves gone wrong requiring correction by any means necessary to bring control, security and certainty. When asked if “a campaign of genocide or slavery requires … an ideology that dehumanizes the victims and a massive bureaucracy,” Paul Bloom, a psychologist who studies social violence replies, “I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I disagree that those things are “required” … a lot of the cruelty we do to one another, the real savage, rotten terrible things we do to one another, are in fact because we recognize the humanity of the other person. We see other people as blameworthy, as morally responsible, as themselves cruel, as not giving us what we deserve, as taking more than they deserve. And so we treat them horribly precisely because we see them as moral human beings.” (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/14/16687388/cruelty-border-immigration-psychology-human-nature)
We see them as moral human beings who ought to conform to our ways, who ought to fulfill our needs, who ought to have our way of thinking, acting and living. And so we feel justified in condemning them if they do not fit our ideals. Sometimes we are willing to bring to bear on them not just our own judgment, but rather we seek to amass popular support to eliminate, or terrify others into conforming to what we desire. We saw this with Hitler, with Stalin, with the United States, we saw it in medieval Europe and the early modern period. We saw it in ancient civilizations. We see the Saducees and Pharisees using it to justify murdering God come in the Person of Christ and so many of his early followers. We saw it in Christians murdering one another in religious wars. In fact, we have seen it in every culture, in every religion, and in atheistic cultures, across the entire existence of human history.
As I was reading about the cold war and watching documentaries about the way the war progressed, I was introduced to Stanislav Petrov. He was an engineer who was on duty at the Russian missile defense centre in 1983 when he received warnings on his computer screen that 5 US ICBMs had been launched (this turned out to be a false warning. The system was triggered by reflections off of clouds). Regulations dictated that he inform the Russian president. And why wouldn't he? President Regan put missiles in West Germany capable of striking Russia and had threatened Russia with the ability to shoot down their missiles and return fire. Had Petrov succumbed to justifiable fear, misplaced nationalism, arrogance, hatred, or any of the things so many people in power are now demonstrating for all their followers to soak in, Russia would have retaliated by launching. Somewhere between 136-288 million people would have died. But Petrov chose not to report it. He reasoned that there was a glitch, that the US would attack with all their weapons, not just a few. And yet he wasn't sure. He didn't base his decision in certainty, but in probability. An act of courage. A willingness to be comfortable in tremendous discomfort that would last a lifetime. A sacrificial act to be sure. Indeed, Petrov suffered for doing this. His career ended. A commentator reflecting on Petrov’s actions said something profound: "it's the individuals that have the courage to stand up and make the call; not the system, necessarily, that works,"
This came as a sharp reminder of what real truth looks like. It doesn't come in the form of institutions or policies or isms. While these things certainly can be valuable, they can also be developed, sustained and used to justify actions that harm others when they do not conform to our ways, our desires, and our expectations. They - nationalism, law, religion, the church - can all be used to perpetuate our fears and restrict our thinking to a most basic protective instinct that lashes out and destroys anything that is perceived as a threat.
But in Christ we know that Truth is given to us by God. We see it in the form of individuals who have the courage to endure hardship, to bear hardship, to take risks in uncertain circumstances as Petrov did; in standing up to actions that grow out of people's fear and their need to control their circumstances, and so other people's lives. That is what Jesus did because this is who God is. You can see these little seeds of truth that contain fragments of hope all over the place in the midst of this purgatory we've made for ourselves. From Petrov to Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, Ruth, Naomi, Mary, Jesus, Paul, all of these are these little seeds of hope sprinkled through this world and they’re everywhere if we’re brave enough to lift our heads from our fears and subsequent self-protective judgements to look and see what God has planted.
Hope isn't in our institutions themselves, or our countries, our political parties, or our ideas or policies or laws, our conservative or liberal ideals or even, my friends, in our churches. Hope is in Christ’s body of followers, some who are not even aware they are followers. Hope is discovered and shared by God's followers whose individual acts of enduring and persevering, engaging others with patience, with gentleness, with charity and self control; in being silent instead of rushing to express an opinion intended, really, to control their own fear of uncertainty; hope is discovered in the life of such individuals because they make space for God's love to take hold of their own, and the other's heart and soul, to soothe, heal, and reform in Christ's image. Courage isn't about speaking the truth. Courage is about acting and speaking or refraining from speech so that God's truth - not our own shadow version of it - can be encountered by those who are seeking in their own peculiar ways. AMEN
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