14. Breaking the Spell
As a dog returns to his vomit, the fool returns to his
folly.
- Proverbs 26:11
Depending on who you are,
Historian Page Smith reports that when our fathers got off the boat 400 years ago, a certain Thomas Morton became the leader of some settlers described by the Pilgrim leader William Bradford as follows:
After they had got some goods into their hands, and got much by trading with the Indians, they spent it as vainly in quaffing and drinking both wine and strong liquors in great excess . . . They also set up a maypole, drinking and dancing about it many days together, inviting the Indian women for their consorts, dancing and frisking together like so many fairies, or furies, rather; and worse practices. As if they had anew revived and celebrated the feast of the Roman goddess Flora, or the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians.[2]
Morton saw it differently:
According to humane reason guided only by the light of nature, these people leades the more happy and freer life, beying voyde of care, which torments the minds of so many Christians: They are not delighted in baubles but in useful things . . . I have observed that they will not be troubled with superfluous commodities. Such things as they finds, they are taught by necessity to make use of . . . that their life is so voyd of care, and they are so loving also that they make use of those things they enjoy (the wife onely excepted) as common goods, and are therein so compassionate that rather than one should starve through want, they would starve all, thus doe they pass the time away merrily, not regarding our pompe (which they see dayly before their faces) but are better content with their owne, which some men esteem so meanly of.[3]
In the 400 years since, have Christians and non-Christians
in
How might we come to our senses?
Humble Ourselves
If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if
I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my
people, and my people over whom my name is called humble themselves and pray,
and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven,
will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
- 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
The call to humble ourselves and pray in 2 Chronicles 7:14, together with its promise of restoration, is a most popular Bible verse among evangelical Christian prayer groups. How can such humility be so completely absent - although counterfeited by unctuous religious arrogance - so that this healing does not happen, as non-Christians clearly see?
This problem arises directly from the wrong understanding of
American Christians concerning what is our land. The Christians understand the
When we get together to pray, we pray about the sins of the abortionists, the homosexuals, the people who don’t want state sponsored prayer in schools, and the other tax collectors and sinners who we have decided are bringing God’s land (America) to ruin - and we feel that we’re humbling themselves by praying about the sins of our people. Then we can send out fund-raising letters clamoring about how the enemies of God - now definitely not our people - are about to bring our great nation to ruin.
Of course we haven’t humbled ourselves at all. We’ve just exalted ourselves above those abortionists, homosexuals, and secularists - pointing our fingers at them and congratulating ourselves on how we’re not like them (Luke 18:9-14) - and calling that humbling ourselves! Does this pass the laugh test?
Christians can’t see how idolatrous and contrary to
Scripture it is to consider America their home because we are getting something
out of this blindness - the chance to vaunt ourselves as we pretend to humble
ourselves, to feel like we’re confessing our sins when we’re really
just accusing others of theirs. This
empty psychic reward blinds our eyes to the truth, just as the wise have said,
“A bribe destroys the heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:7), and, “A
bribe blinds the eyes of the wise” (Deut.
The cost of our self-deception is that having not humbled ourselves, and having not prayed, except with ourselves like the Pharisee in the temple (Luke 18:9-14), we receive nothing real - no healing either for ourselves or for the nation among whom God has called us to live as aliens.
What will work is for us indeed to humble ourselves. For the Pharisees that meant accepting the testimony of Jesus that the whores and tax-gatherers were in better shape than they were. For American Christians, it will mean accepting the same truth about many of the people we have despised in the same way that the scribes and Pharisees despised the whores and tax-gatherers. That will mean listening to them in order to learn our true condition, even though we’re sure that our understanding of God is better than theirs. That may be so, but even though the programmers in the software house where I work know the programs better than the customers do, the customers know better than we do whether they work! It’s our job, not theirs, to write and fix the code, but we need them to tell us how we’re doing.
In the same way, the people of this world among whom God has called us to live know how our teaching and way of living work. It’s our job, not theirs, to seek out, to practice, and to teach the word of God that Moses, the prophets, and Jesus have taught us. But we need their testimony to tell us how we’re doing, to save us from our self-deception.
The world has learned well from us the spiritual pride we
have taught them, just as happened in the days of Jeremiah (Jeremiah
If we really learn the way of the gospel in this matter and truly humble ourselves as the Bible teaches us; if we pray to God about our sins like the tax-gatherer instead of talking about the sins of others like the Pharisee; and if we turn away from our wicked ways - those specific to us as Christians, not the wicked ways of other people - then others too might learn from our example to humble themselves and listen. Who knows? They might even listen to us, and we won’t even need to seduce them with all the worldly tricks they see us use today.
Walk in the Truth
Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper
and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and
bore witness to your truth, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than these things, to
hear of my children walking in the truth.
3 John 2-4
As we have seen, the mark of the beast - the way of antichrist - is confidence in the sword and in enslaving others, so that the perseverance and faith of the saints is knowing that those who kill and enslave must reap what they sow (Revelation 13:10). This faith and perseverance of the saints is not simply confidence in a negative. The saints despise the power of the sword and captivity only because they are confident in the truth - whose worth the world despises. Despising the truth leaves us powerless to resist the seduction of violence and oppression. What else but the truth can turn us away from murdering or enslaving somebody when that’s the easier thing to do? At least in other people, this is clear.
The prophet Hosea says, “By a prophet the Lord brought
From this background Jesus said - having found freedom
himself – “If you continue
in my word, you will indeed be my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and
the truth shall set you free” (John
What kind of oppressor was Pharaoh?
First, as we also see in the kingdom of antichrist (Revelation
Pharaoh also believed in killing (Revelation
Finally, Pharaoh believed in deceit (Exodus
In short, Pharaoh was a forerunner of Antichrist, and so Paul certainly had him in mind when he wrote to the Thessalonian church:
Now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they may all be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
This passage is difficult if we ignore its background,
because Paul had the background in mind when he wrote it. Paul was a Jew, whose mental world was the
Hebrew Scriptures. Can we imagine such a
man writing these words without thinking of the central event of
What really stands out at the
Recognizing that those Egyptians were ruined because they
would not receive the love of the truth, Paul understood the
Truth here is not assenting to some religious doctrine. As Jesus warned, it’s perfectly
possible to call Jesus, “Lord, Lord,” and not do what he says, and
the result of that popular course is destruction (Matthew
This is the message which we heard from him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and the truth is not in us.
Like Esau and Pontius Pilate, we grossly underestimate the power of truth. What’s the use, we say in our hearts, if the bad guys can win or steal elections and remain in power, and if they keep on killing and robbing people while nobody cares? What will mere truth do to change that?
In answer, what else will?
Only lying allows them to do these things, and so truth alone will
restrain them. No one murdered or
enslaved anyone without first murdering and enslaving the truth (Romans
We disdain the power of naked truth for only one rather
unsettling reason - in our hearts we too believe that only the sword really
works in the world. The oppressor
dominates us through the doctrine of antichrist that dwells in our hearts. That’s exactly why truth is always the
whole issue, the only thing that matters.
As Gandhi put it, we must become the change we want to see. “Buy truth and do not sell”
(Proverbs
Recognize and Face
Survivor Guilt
“Come now, and let us reason together,”
says the Lord. ”Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as
snow. Thought they are red like crimson,
they will be like wool.”
- Isaiah 1:18
Guilt, especially when it’s vague, turns us into suckers. We feel dirty, so we fear the light, and so we stay away from reality which might expose our nakedness. We certainly stay away from God, because in His light we see light, and that’s just what we’re afraid to see - who knows what dreadful thing might come to light? Indeed, we stay away from anything that might cause straight thinking. This makes us putty in the hands of rulers, and that’s why they like for us to feel guilty. Go into nearly any church when they want to raise money, and you’ll see how pastors appreciate the value of guilt trips. Although their job is to free us from guilt through the truth, most fear the side effects of independent thought and clarity which threaten their power. For this reason religious authorities almost always betray their trust by actually cultivating guilt. They steer people away from God Himself into guilt-driven religious activity and devotion to themselves and their teachings (Isaiah 1:10-18, Ezekiel 34, Acts 20:30).
Guilt not only paralyzes clear thought - the capacity to see
that the emperor is naked. It also
prepares people to join crusades in order to expiate their guilt when the ruler
offers a way to be freed from their sins.
This is how churches get their people to give and to work on various
projects. It’s how Hitler led the
German people to avenge the imaginary “stab in the back” and prove
themselves good and strong after all.
It’s how an American President leads a nation laden with the blood
of the innocent and with the cries of the oppressed in a Crusade against people
who “hate us for our freedoms” - even as our careful refusal to
hear those people reveals our guilty understanding that they hate us for our
bloody crimes, not for our freedoms.
Just as the popes 900 years ago recruited crusaders by offering them
absolution from all their sins,
Survivor guilt is the guilt we feel when we escape disaster that devours others around us. This is especially intense when our own survival came about through another’s destruction, even when we did no wrong. We may be able to explain it away, but in the back of our heads remains the thought - however irrational - maybe it is my fault.
If the world thinks of this at all, it’s a
psychological problem that happens to survivors of tsunamis and bombings. But the Bible, especially in the gospels,
puts survivor guilt front and center for everybody. Indeed, survivor guilt is some of the vaguest
guilt there is, and so it works magnificently.
Consider the mother who tells her kid to eat because kids in
The gospel of Jesus Christ claims that we get life because
this innocent man died. We survive at
his expense. This man himself escaped
death as a baby only because his family was warned and fled, saying nothing to
anyone, and leaving all the other babies in town his age and younger to be
killed by Herod. Having had to face
survivor guilt in his own life, Jesus also had to force the issue on his disciples,
warning them that they all would forsake him in his death - and not because
they were guilty but just because they were not yet able (John
Far from being peculiar to the gospels, survivor guilt also confronted Abraham, Moses, and David.
When Abraham went down to
400 years later, Moses survived and indeed lived in luxury as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, while other babies equally innocent died. Pharaoh’s daughter pitied him in his basket among the reeds and decided to save him for herself. When Moses saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, Moses had to confront his own wealth and power in contrast to his powerless brother. Acknowledging that the Hebrew was his brother, he killed the Egyptian, along with his career in Pharaoh’s palace.
The act which finally broke the Egyptians was the killing of their first-born, not only those of Pharaoh and his officers but those of the prisoner in the dungeon and the slave girl in the kitchen, while Hebrews no more innocent than that slave girl’s son were spared. It is deep Jewish wisdom to grieve in the Passover Seder for the Egyptian babies that died in the tenth plague so that the people might escape.
When David escaped from King Saul, he came to Ahimelech the high priest and asked him for a sword and bread. But Doeg the Edomite, who witnessed this, would certainly tell Saul whatever he saw. David couldn’t tell Ahimelech anything that would involve him in David’s problem with Saul, since Ahimelech would then have to answer to the king for what he knew, but keeping Ahimelech out of it caused him to help David innocently, which still gave Doeg something to talk about. Although David had done nothing wrong, he later had to tell Ahimelech’s son Abiathar that he had brought about the death of Ahimelech and his entire family.
Jesus Christ and his cross force our survivor guilt to the surface. Even the possibility that this man actually died for us in this way is not a comfortable thought. And we meet him at this point in every hungry, thirsty, sick, or imprisoned person we meet, just as he said (Matthew 25:31-46). We can explain away the doctrine of the cross, but the crucified Jesus meets us anyway in the least of these his brothers. So we must try to resolve this crisis, and we generally pick one of two ways: we try to pay off our debt, or we brazenly deny it.
The former path shows itself in exaggerated devotion and self-flagellation, and expressions of religious self-contempt. Such guilt, coming from darkness, does nothing to bring about real obedience to God, but it prompts lots of sentimental concern for Jesus and his poor little hurt feelings because we don’t appreciate him enough. In more secular forms, we romanticize the poor and anxiously prove that everything that happens is the fault of the white man, the Zionists, or the Americans. Moses, as concerned for the poor and oppressed as anybody, speaks to this problem when he says, “You shall not be partial to a poor man in his suit” (Exodus 23:3).
The opposite path of denial and brazenness shows itself in denying any duty to the poor and oppressed because it’s their own fault, and putting the poor and oppressed out of sight, out of mind, and out of church. Christians of this persuasion talk about the cross of Christ as a doctrine, a “plan of salvation.” It could be a wiring diagram, or a blueprint. The cross happened to Jesus so it in no way has to happen to us. We may do nice things for the poor, but we don’t identify with them – we’re just sorry for them, if we’re not busy proving that they deserve it.
These opposite responses to survivor guilt reveal themselves quite transparently in our religious and political divisions, and the parties quite accurately identify what’s wrong with the other side’s thinking. But this is no help until we see the logs in our own eyes. Until we recognize that both these responses are evasions and bring no health to ourselves or anybody else, we simply cannot think straight and walk in the light. So how do we get there?
As Malcolm X reminds us, “Only guilt admitted accepts truth.”[4] This guilt is real, but not because we wronged the victims. The problem is as the Don Henley song states it, “Everybody knows it’s me or you.” Peter loved Jesus his friend and teacher, but he wanted Jesus on that cross before himself. He saw in himself that it is as Job said, “Every man mourns only for himself.” Calamity reveals to us that we really care about no one but ourselves, and so we are utterly alone, knowing that we have no right to be trusted by anyone. We are friends to no one and no one is really a friend to us.
This is the isolation that the torturers of this world seek to cultivate in us, proving that all our human relationships are a sham which we will betray to save ourselves, as George Orwell shows us in 1984. Well, there’s the problem. What do we do about it?
When John said, “If we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness,” he wasn’t kidding. The first and really only thing is to turn around and acknowledge the full scale of our problem. We must abandon the ambition to find approval by being better than somebody else – isn’t our desire to do that precisely the desire to squeeze into the last helicopter ahead of someone else who deserves it less? Fully admitting our complete faithlessness and self-concern, as Peter had to do, starts to loosen the chains.
Seeing ourselves and accepting the truth, we can identify with others. Knowing that we need mercy, we start to like the idea of mercy for others, instead of being so anxious to see that they don’t get away with something. Just abandoning the quest to be better than others really helps. When people aren’t rivals anymore, it just isn’t as hard to love them. But what really does the job is to realize that we are indeed members of one another. It’s no longer “me or you.” It’s me and you.
Now it makes sense to identify with those who suffer, because we really do suffer with them. We “remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since we ourselves are in the body,” not because we are virtuous spiritual giants. Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus were neither guilt-driven nor brazen. As we hear the truth and confess it, we learn our frailty and the frailty of others, but our guilt is purged, and we become able to think straight and to understand.
Love our Enemies
If a man has
beheld evil, he may know that it was shown to him in order that he learn his own
guilt and repent; for what is shown to him is also within him.
- The Baal Shem, founder of Hasidic Judaism, quoted by Abraham Joshua Heschel in 1943
“Love your enemies” does not necessarily make sense when we first hear it. Some of us read what Jesus said about this and figure we should do it, but without stopping to learn how much sense it makes. But Jesus knew to love his enemies because he saw the sense in doing so. We’re not better than he is, so let’s consider why it makes sense for us.
We need to start by thinking of nobody but ourselves. Only spiritual pride expects to begin with any motivation to love an enemy because that’s good for him, or even because that’s what God commands. Why is hating my enemy bad for me? Why is loving my enemy good for me? Until I can answer these questions like 2+2, no other question should distract me.
Why is hating my enemy bad for me?
1) They nailed Jesus to a cross and stoned the prophets because they considered them enemies. But they were wrong. When someone says something you don’t want to hear or opposes you on some issue, he may actually be your friend. He may be holding you back from destruction. Indeed God may have sent him to rescue you. “Behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, that upon you may fall all the righteous blood shed on earth” (Matthew 23:34-35). If you just don’t hate your enemies, you will never be able to do as Jesus says here. That’s insurance worth paying for.
2) Hatred blinds us
and causes bad judgment. We enjoy hatred
for the same reason we like drunkenness or other drug abuse: it blurs everything
and keeps us from seeing undisguised reality that we might not want to
see. But as with dope, this has its
downside. We misunderstand in order to
avoid painful self-knowledge, but then we also misunderstand our enemies. Even if they’re real enemies, such
ignorance leads to self-destruction.
American hatred since September 2001 has clearly led to many very
self-destructive actions. A cooler
spirit would have kept the
3) Hatred always
involves a kind of admiration. We hate
people because we envy them in some way, usually how they’re getting away
with something. Very often, we’re
somehow doing the same thing ourselves, and hating someone else for doing it
seems more pleasant than looking in the mirror (Romans 2:3). In these ways, hatred causes us to become the
worst we see or imagine in our enemy. As
we’ve seen already, this is how
Why is loving my enemy good for me?
1) Many times only one who hates me will want to hurt me enough to tell me the truth I need to hear. It doesn’t matter who tells me the truth, or why. It’s life, and it’s from God. Many times my enemy sees trouble in my life before it destroys me that no one else can or will tell me about. Maybe he means me harm. So what, if God has him do me good that he does not intend?
2) Loving my enemy protects me from becoming like him in his worst features.
3) If it turns out that I’m wrong and he has a point, that’s a lot easier to realize if I’m not blinded by hatred and the wish to prove I’m right. If I’m trying to love my enemy, I’ll be motivated to find ways to be more endurable to him, and that means I’ll be trying to get my own ways squared away.
4) Loving my enemy
will cause me to see what’s right about him. Unless I do that, I can’t see correctly
what’s wrong with him, and so I won’t know what to do about
him. If those oppressed by the
Solomon gives us better advice: “If one who hates you is hungry give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty give him water to drink. For you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you” (Proverbs 25:21-22). Sun Tzu in The Art of War advises us that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
When we sober up from hatred, do we really need vengeance or our enemy’s annihilation? What we really need is the defeat of whatever evil he is doing to us, nothing else. He himself is not the problem - only the evil that he does. So Solomon is quite right. To defeat an enemy, we need to find out just what he really needs and give it to him. This deprives him of any valid reason to fight us and leaves a clear path for the wrath of God and others if he does.
If Americans really want to defeat their enemies, the path is clear, so long as their aim is to get what they really need, which is food and drink, clothing and housing, and safety - instead of the present path of avenging themselves against those whom they have wronged enough already. They can see what their enemies really need, which is what Americans need - freedom from robbery, oppression, and humiliation.
Suppose that Americans do the following, none of which will cost anything, and which will actually save money, lives and friends:
1) Firmly renounce their imperial ambitions and prove their faith by withdrawing their occupying forces.
2) Stop wasting the
taxpayers’ money to subsidize
3) Acknowledge that American behavior has in fact been totally contrary to the words of Jesus and the apostles.
4) Tell the Israelis
to take a look at Moses and the prophets and start acting like Jews instead of
expecting
On that very day, everything will change in the Muslim and
Arab worlds, and in
If evangelical Christians would like to see Israelis believe
in Jesus, let them believe Jesus themselves. Jesus said that if people do not
believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe Jesus (Luke
For those in the path of American cruelty, the way to defeat American imperial ambitions is clear:
1) Make it plain to the American people that they can very easily eat and drink in safety. All they have to do is stop robbing and murdering people in the rest of the world. If we can gain security by ceasing to spend lives and treasure to do evil to others, isn’t that a good deal?
2) Expose their shame
when they do these things, demonstrating that their wickedness is serving no
purpose but domination and plunder and that this will cost them the security
that they seek, just as happened to imperial
3) Make American Christians understand what it costs to join in such evil deeds and to believe the lies by which they justify them – that they will be despised in the whole world as hypocrites and friends of this present world, just as Jesus said (Matthew 5:13), and bringing God’s opposition on themselves for loving this present world and its violent ways. But if they hear the truth and obey it, they will be heard themselves and find mercy. To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God certainly means to stop overseeing the business of others and murdering them, as Peter the apostle advised, and to stop supporting anyone who does, including the American military.
Notice that for both Americans and their opponents, success depends on loving their enemies - hearing their concerns, giving them their real needs instead of challenging their right to exist, and warning them against their aggressive, unjust, and self-destructive behavior. Isn’t this giving our enemies exactly what we all need ourselves? Truly, the way to defeat our enemies is to love them as we need to be loved ourselves.
Be Citizens, Not
Slaves
The crust presented by the life of lies is made of
strange stuff. As long as it seals off
hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one
place, when one person cries out, “The emperor is naked!” - when a single person breaks the rules of the
game, thus exposing it as a game - everything suddenly appears in another light
and the whole crust seems to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and
disintegrating uncontrollably.
- Vaclav Havel, 1978,
“The Power of the Powerless”
[5]
The Greek word translated "church" in the New Testament, "ekklesia," means assembly, and refers to the assembly of citizens in a Greek democratic city state which acted as its legislature, much like the New England town meeting. To belong to the church is to be a member of the assembly, a citizen-legislator. It means to accept responsibility for its government, for everything that is decided upon and done. Thus to be a member of the church, a disciple of Jesus, is to be a citizen of heaven, an active participant in its government.
This thought seems strange, because the whole Bible also makes it clear that God's government is an absolute monarchy, not a democracy. Most people don't associate absolute monarchy with a kingdom of free citizen-legislators, do they? But as the Bible sets forth the kingdom of God, that's just how it is. How exactly does God resolve this mystery?
A kingdom is when and where things happen the way the king says. The kingdom of God therefore is wherever God's word is heard and done. That means, as Micah sums it up, where we "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God" (Micah 6:8). But how does that happen? Hear the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 1:16-18):
Wash yourselves, make
yourselves clean;
Remove the evil of
your doings from my sight.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
"Come now, and
let us reason together," says the Lord;
Though your sins are
as scarlet, they will be as white as snow;
Though they are red
like crimson, they will be like wool.
This passage is designed to make you wonder - at least by the time you get to "plead for the widow" - just how we're actually going to do all these good things. Right then, the King replies "Come, let us reason together." We learn obedience to God - God's kingdom is established - when His subjects reason with Him about the many problems that arise as soon as we think of doing what He says. His kingdom - His authority - rest on His reasoning with us as friends. Otherwise we may indeed call Him "Lord, Lord," but we certainly will not do what He says, because we won't have the understanding to do so. Thus God’s absolute authority rests upon the complete freedom of his citizens, whom He serves (John 13:12-17, Luke 22:25-30).
The kingdom of God has no place for either man-made authority or rebellion. Both are arrogant self-exaltation, and they amount to the same thing (Isaiah 59:13). In the kingdom of truth, all that listen to truth may speak truth, and God will hear. He will openly reward us in the world (Matthew 6:5-15), and whoever is of His kingdom will hear and obey the truth, no matter who says it. In this way citizens of the kingdom of heaven may also be citizens in the world, not at the pleasure of its rulers but by the authority of their true King, executing His judgments upon them as Elijah did (Psalm 149:5-9, James 5:17-18).
Paul wrote not to submit again to a yoke of slavery. But who would want to? Well, in fact most people would - like those in the wilderness who wanted to go back to Egypt. Slaves can avert their eyes and say it’s none of their business to say no when everyone around them says yes. Slaves can claim that they have no voice, no power, no responsibility to resist the flow. Why should they see and hear what they can’t do anything about anyway? Why should they place themselves on the losing side, when the Lie is the winning side? It hurts to lose. But citizens are responsible to know, to speak, and to act - to be grieved, and to suffer loss and ridicule when evil is in fashion. And when is it not?
Fear has torment, as John the apostle wrote. So we stand aside to avoid being hated by the crowd for opposing the evil that it loves. But the most dangerous place in America on September 11th, 2001 was the remains of the World Trade Center, and the least fearful people in America were the ones working there to rescue people. The proverb rightly testifies, “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside; I shall be slain in the streets’” (Proverbs 22:13). Standing and watching when we belong in the fight turns us into cowards, and the coward dies a thousand deaths, but stepping up to dangerous duty shields us from fear and its torment.
We may well be powerless as the world counts power. Indeed, if we faithfully represent God, the world does not listen to us, just as it does not listen to Him (1 John 4:6, Matthew 5:1-12). The world did not listen to the prophets either, but they still speak, and where now is the world that did not listen to them? The Power of the Powerless is the truth alone. For the man or woman of truth, powerlessness is no excuse. Since worldly power is our adversary and not our friend (Ephesians 6:12), why should we be daunted if we don’t have it?
“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). Don’t believe Paul; just look around. Who in the history of the world has ever made a difference except that one who stands up in the truth without waiting for anyone else to agree? Even in secular politics, consider the American Populists, who never won a Presidential election but whose entire program was enacted within 50 years. The Bible is full of people who made a difference all by themselves - Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Sarah, Hannah, Ruth, Elijah, the little girl taken captive by the Syrians. Nobody else ever has. If you have a crowd with you, somebody else already did the heavy lifting, so if you want to do anything real, don’t wait until a crowd is with you.
We cop out of being citizens when we think big problems can only be fixed by big deeds and big people, and we see that those are far beyond us. But big problems don’t need big deeds and big people. Big problems need true deeds and true people, however small. What difference in the end if you build another big church, gain another imperial conquest, destroy another city, make another fortune, or give it away to the poor and receive the praise of men? The world is full of such things, and what difference does it make? But a woman who could not save Jesus from the cross anointed him and washed his feet with her tears. A woman looked worldly disgrace in the face and said, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” A woman threw two small copper coins into the treasury, her whole living, because her living came from above. A dying thief said, “We had it coming, but this man has done no wrong,” while the wise men of the world sneered. All these did the truth. Their small deeds changed their lives, and those of countless people ever since.
[1] Allister Sparks, The
Mind of
[2] Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), p.18.
[3] Ibid, p.18
[4] Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Random House, 1965), p.167
[5] May be read conveniently at Vaclav Havel’s official website, http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/index.php?sec=2&id=1