Discrediting What We Fear

 

Psalm 147:1-11

John 7:37-52

 

               Last week we talked about Jesus as the Bread of Life.  And this week we come to another metaphor for Jesus: Jesus as living water.  But this time, rather than seeing a ritual created out of it by the followers of Jesus, we see how those who don’t understand, don’t agree, don’t want the changes and vision that he brings, we see how they react.  And it’s the same as any people react to things that are new and that they don’t understand: they react with fear.  They wanted him seized, they wanted him cast out, they wanted him arrested.  And this was especially true when people around Jesus began to see him as prophet, as messiah.  This was an incredible threat to those in charge.  Remember that the vision and hope for a Messiah was one who would, in a military way, overthrow the oppressors, lift up the poor, bring down the rich and mighty.  So those in charge, who would have recognized themselves as the rich, powerful and mighty had every reason to feel threatened by someone others were calling Messiah.  They were afraid for the wrong reasons, since Jesus was not a military leader, was not going to create change through violence, but through love.  Jesus was about freeing both sides of the coin: and that meant healing and redemption for the rich as well as the poor.  But they did not understand.  And so they were afraid.

               Their response?  Well, their response was to discount what they heard.  They grabbed onto something that they could use to discredit the thing they feared and they wielded it with all the strength they could muster. “A prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared.  “The messiah does not come from Galilee”.  They declared this and held fast to it.  They held on to it because it helped them to feel safe: they could discount what they were hearing, what they were even experiencing, by hanging on to a thin, flimsy and inaccurate statement and making it the center of their belief system.  “a prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared as if this was the most important statement in scripture.  They stood on it as the proof they needed to hang onto their beliefs that Jesus was not a threat and could not change their world. 

               Those in charge, those in politics, have used fear and the discrediting that which they don’t want to accept, that which scares them, forever.  Bryan Stevenson who wrote, “Just Mercy” gave a wonderful speech in which he said that our NARRATIVES have to change.  As he said, the people in power preach “fear and anger” and use those to justify policies.  He went on to say that almost every policy decision at this point in time is based on fear and anger.  None are based on hope, or love, or joy.  It is all fear and anger.  And the thing is, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  I want to say that again, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  We use it, and always have used it, to justify extreme cruelty, to “forget” that all those people whom we label and discredit, those are our brothers, sisters and siblings.  All of them belong to us.  And rather than fear them, harm them, hurt them, we need to work with them, love them, and care for them.  But until we change the fear and anger narratives, we will never succeed in becoming the world united, the world as one, the world God calls us to create.  Bryan Stevenson talked about the ways we discredit that which we fear.  We discredit people struggling with addictions who need our help: we relabel drug addicts as “criminals”.  We relabel people who are struggling to find work and call them “lazy”.  We relabel people of color as “stupid” or “inferior”.  And we do this because we are afraid.  We are afraid of that which we don’t know so we discredit it.  We are afraid of losing our wealth, so we discredit and label the other.  We are afraid of losing our power, so we discredit and label. 

               When the news started coming out about the sexual abuse that had taken place at Cameron house in San Francisco, our Presbytery reacted with fear.  They tried to muzzle the information, they tried to discredit what people were saying.  They were afraid that the truth and that information would destroy the church in this area, would discredit the church.  So out of our great fear, we tried hard to discredit the voices sharing their vulnerable and horrible experiences.  As we know this doesn’t work.  It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.  In the process, they revictimized the victims by proclaiming their words as “lies”.  They revictimized the victims by shutting them down and shutting them out.  The church did not behave as a church, it did not act with love.  And as a result of THAT choice, we lost so many of our members.   

               I want to say this, fear is a feeling.  And as a feeling, it is a natural part of the human experience.  It can help us to see where there is danger, and it can help us to make good choices.  But it can also cause us to move into anger, hatred, violence towards others.  And while the feeling of fear is just that, a feeling, the reactions to fear are things we choose and have to choose with great care.  Do we run away, try to discount and discredit what scares us?  Or do we look at it full-on, try to understand and move through the fear into something better?  I remember a quote from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “We came here and we tried, all of us, in our different ways. Can we be blamed for feeling we are too old to change? Too scared of disappointment to start it all again? We get up in the morning, we do our best. Nothing else matters…But it’s also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said, everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, then trust me, it’s not yet the end."

               While it is deeply true that fear is a normal feeling, a part of being human, we have to choose what we will do with it.  Will we remain stuck in it?  Will we live it out by separating ourselves into “us” and “them?” Because when we do, we do great damage.  That’s when it can cause injustice, when we are reactionary to the fear and act it out.  And the deep truth is that Fear doesn’t leave room for anything else like purpose or beauty.  Or LIVING. 

I look at our playgrounds that no longer have the merry-go-rounds because they were too dangerous and are now beginning to remove even the swing sets as “too dangerous.”  And I feel sad for our children who cannot experience these things.  I remember reading an article when I was living in Ohio about an experiment some reporters had done.  They had gotten together and to see if someone could use the ice cream trucks to poison children.  So they got a truck, they never got a business license and they just went around seeing how long it would take for someone to report them as suspicious after they started selling ice cream to kids.  No one did.  No one even checked to make sure they were legitimate.  No one asked to see their business license, but if they had, the reporters had printed up a false one to show folk.  And they published this article, “Ice cream trucks could be poisoning your kids!”  The thing is, it hadn’t happened.  It had never happened.  They just made this up as a story they thought would sell.  Fear sells.  But it also prevents us from living.

               So, what is the opposite of fear?  The opposite of fear is, of course, love.  And love invites us to understand, to listen, to hear, to stay with the other in relationship, in connection.  It is what Nicodemus said today in this passage: “Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”  It invites us to look, to have curiosity, to explore.  It does not cut off or make fear-based assessments formed off of one side of the truth, one side of any story.  And it never makes decisions based on fear that limit, condemn, judge or harm others. 

               In today’s gospel story, fear was still ruling the day.  And so, the pharisees not only tried to discredit Jesus, but when Nicodemus was being rational about the situation, they responded by then accusing him, too, of being from Galilee and therefore to be discredited, discounted, ignored, unheard. 

               Fear invites us, in our wiser moments, not to run, but to listen more deeply.  Fear invites us to explore what it is we value that is feeling threatened.  And then fear invites us to look deeper, to open to other possibilities, and to act in love instead.  James Baldwin, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

               What do you most fear?  And who does your fear have the potential to harm?  What are you discrediting and discounting out of that fear?  And what limitations does that, then, put on YOU? 

               More importantly, what would it look like for you to let go of those fears and instead put yourself in the position of considering the possibility of ideas that you have discredited and rejected out of that fear?  What would it look like for you to put aside that which you fear most to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, with someone else’s view points and beliefs?  What would it look like to stop discrediting those we don’t understand?  Maybe that fast driver on the freeway is not a maniac but is someone with a loved one in the hospital.  Maybe that person who was mean and angry with you in the grocery story was just fired from their job or had a loved one die.  What would it mean to reframe our fears and choose to listen instead, without judgment or condemnation?  What would it mean to recognize that there is always more to be learned, always others to understand, always new ways of living and being in the world?

               I want to end by sharing with you a story.  Once there were two brothers who shared a farm. The older brother had several children and the younger brother had none, but each year they would gather the grain and divide it evenly, each taking half to his own granary.

After a while, though, the younger brother got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, his brother had all of those children to feed while he had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

At about the same time, the older brother also got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, he had all of those children – to look after him in his old age – while his brother had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

Eventually, of course, what had to happen happened. The two of them met there in the middle of the night – and what could they do but fall upon each other, and embrace, and count their blessings for the love in the family?

 

This story shows the opposite of fear: this is a choosing not to live in the fear of not having enough for one self, but the love of seeing the other’s point of view, embracing it, and seeking to care for the other, despite cost to oneself, despite fear. 

It is not easy to let go of fear, especially when the powers that be are constantly using it to their own advantage.  But I invite you to move deeper, to embrace love.  I invite you to remember that fear caused the pharisees to try to discredit even Jesus, even God.  And that fear as a weapon is powerful, but dishonest.  I invite you to remember that LOVE is the opposite of fear, and it is love we are called to embrace and to live out.  I invite you to remember that Jesus overcame fear not with more fear, but with love.  For that we have been created.  And for that we are called.  Amen.