Calamity...

 

Calamity

Proverbs 22:1-2; 8-9; 22-23

  A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
    and favor is better than silver or gold.
² The rich and the poor have this in common:
    the Lord is the maker of them all.

⁸ Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
    and the rod of anger will fail.
⁹ Those who are generous are blessed,
    for they share their bread with the poor.

²² Do not rob the poor because they are poor,
    or crush the afflicted at the gate;
²³ for the Lord pleads their cause
    and despoils of life those who despoil them.

 

Over my years as an active Christian believer (and certainly my 36 years as a pastor), I have observed that people who desire to “take the Bible literally” do so as selectively—if not more so—than those of us who believe it needs to be studied carefully and appropriate tools used to properly contextualize its messages for each age. The “literalists” often take the passages literally that make their point about a given controversy, but hem haw around other passages that could be damning to their cause. Liberals (or “progressives” as some like to call themselves today) can be quite guilty of this, too, but we generally are more amenable to a wider discussion of “what the Bible says.” Either way, over-spiritualizing the message of the Bible may cause its message to be obscured, as well. As we mentioned last week in our discussion of the Song of Songs, forcing a passage to be “spiritual” when it is at least initially talking about concrete things like sexual love causes the reader to miss both the message and the freedom offered by the text.

 

Today is another case-in-point. Proverbs is teeming with snippets of wisdom pretty much meant to be taken at face value and not “converted” into some high-falutin’ theology. Let’s start with verse 8 of today’s lection passage:

 

  ⁸ Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
    and the rod of anger will fail.

The central message of this pearl is that injustice leads to calamity, and no amount of angry response to the calamity will slow its progress. We are living this now, in 2021 in so many, many ways: 

 

·      Systemic racism continues to deny persons of color the same opportunities, resources, and safety white Americans enjoy. That’s a fact, not an opinion, as some would assert. When I get pulled over by a police officer, the last thing on my mind is, “Will I live through this encounter?” Not so with black people, who have to have “The Talk” with their driving-age children about how to respond to police in a similar situation. Racism is behind the myriad “voter fraud” bills being passed in state legislatures throughout the land, aiming at making it harder for persons of color (and the poor, whom we’ll get to later) to vote, because of their tendency to favor the “other” party. Racism is rampant in the housing market. Ask a successful African American person what it was like for them to try to rent an apartment or, God-forbid, buy a home in a white suburb. Their experience is almost universally different than that of the white majority. (In the interest of some measure of brevity, I will end this point here, but the evidence for the reality of systemic racism could fill several libraries.)

 

·      Our country has joined the world at large in suffering through a horrible pandemic caused by the Coronavirus. The injustices abound, including: spending more time finding someone to blame, rather than defeating the virus. Some have fought to point the finger at China for letting the virus escape from a lab. So what, even if someday this is shown to be the origin (although medical experts don’t support this assertion)? How will this “fix” what this virus has done? Will it bring back the millions of lives lost (over 600,000 here in the USA)? And what would be the remedy? Closing the labs that also create the CURES by studying these deadly viruses? No, much of the suffering and most of the calamity has been caused by those who have perpetrated injustices: unequal distribution of life-saving vaccines, nation to nation, rich to poor, etc.; the poor and more diverse groups getting sicker and experiencing more deaths than more prosperous populations; the refusal by many to wear masks to help prevent the spread of the virus and its variants, all under the guise of “freedom”; and the overall politicizing of a public health crisis. The calamity this has bred include more sickness and deaths, passengers beating up on flight attendants on airlines, parents literally shouting down and shutting down school board meetings (including here in the North Allegheny School District, one of the most privileged and prosperous in the country); and “conservative” governors banning—BANNING—a requirement that masks be worn in schools! Calamity, thy name is ignorance!

 

·      Injustice has come to our democratic republic. Thanks to unproven accusations of “fraud” by the losers of recent elections, our whole system of voting, vote-counting, and accountability has come under fire. “Conservative” state legislatures have begun changing the systems that have protected our elections for over two hundred years, in the name of “election security,” and taking elections out of the hands of those who have long safeguarded them, and placing them in the mitts of partisans. All because their “side” lost a close election. We have only begun to see the calamity this will cause—look at the “audit” that was conducted by a fanatical group in Arizona. It will get worse—much worse. 

 

·      Grave injustices have been committed by all of us against the environment and our home planet, but the top of the list has to go to corporations and their legislative and political minions who have resisted reasonable regulations and environmental policies that might have stemmed at least some of the tide of human-exacerbated climate change. The calamity that is beginning to emerge due to this is frightening: 100-year storms happening two or three times a year; torrential rains replacing seasonal showers; and wildfires destroying far more than what would be “natural” for them, would it not be for the alterations to winds, temperatures, and excess dryness from droughts amplified greatly by the injustice human-exacerbated climate change. 

 

I’ve only cited a few examples here. Read your newspaper and fill in a few of your own. Oh, and calamity is not an exclusively American phenomenon, either. Witness what the religious fundamentalists who call themselves the “Taliban” are doing in Afghanistan against women and reason, or what political authoritarians like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping are doing to their own citizens who don’t accept their rule. Also, note that I put “conservative” in quotes most of the time. I have many good friends and quite a few family members who are (or were) conservative—politically, theologically, fiscally. But the new conservatism taking root is an extremism that turns most of what conservatives used to believe and support on its head. This is a group that was strongly patriotic, believed in our fair process of elections and the peaceful transition of power, and would never have tolerated a mob attacking the Capitol of the United States. Look at the calamity that has resulted from the injustice of true conservative values being eschewed in favor of staunch, rabid partisanship.

 

It’s hard to “spiritualize” the simple message of verse 8, especially when we see so much obvious evidence of its truth all around us. My advice is: don’t try. Of course, we also have seen what the second half of this verse means, as well. Rather than having conversations aimed at “meeting in the middle” on these issues, and working to “fix” the issues, we, as a society, have substituted blaming and out-of-control anger for problem solving. And the “rod of anger” is indeed failing. I was watching one of the final movies in the Harry Potter series the other day, and in this episode, the protagonists were taking turns wearing a necklace that was one of the “horcruxes” of the story’s villain. Whichever of the characters was wearing the cursed thing turned dark and angry, blaming the others for the maladies they all faced. How do we get rid of this damn “necklace” we all seem to be wearing today? Proverbs 22:8 reminds us what the secret potion is: systematically attack and end the injustices we are perpetrating against each other, against our system of government, against our planet, and against the people of the church.

 

Yep, the church. As long as the church supports these injustices, and especially ones against other children of God, we will continue to suffer calamity, one of the greatest of which is the cascading decline of the Christian church in our own nation. While historically we have neverbeen a “Christian” nation, as is the assertion of some, we have been a “churched” nation. That is ending. Just a few weeks ago, fresh polling shows that for the first time in American history, more people DO NOT have a religious affiliation than DO, and the majority of Americans have ceased going to “church,” whatever this looks like for those polled. “The world” sees our conflict over race, sexual orientation, human culpability of climate change, and incessant arguments over theology and which “view” of the Bible is “right,” and they have begun, en masse, to opt out. It’s a good thing that Jesus came to save the church, because right now, it’s the church that needs saving!

 

The rest of the verses of Proverbs 22 cited in this week’s lectionary passage are just as powerful, by the way. God’s “bias” toward the poor and disdain for those who aren’t generous is clearly stated. And what of a good name? What IS a “good name”? I have been accused of besmirching my own “good name” by being “too political.” I could not live with myself as a person, let alone one who believes in the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, if I did not speak out against injustice and speak for justice. I have had to live with the fact that some don’t see social justice advocacy as being “spiritual” enough for a pastor. And I felt it hypocritical to eschew the work of justice until the “safety” of retirement, although I admit that being retired has provided a measure of freedom to speak out with a bit less chance of being criticized for it. And, part of the apologetic I hope to amplify in retirement is a better defense of social justice work AS central to the Christian faith. I also wish to redeem the label of “liberal” for use in the lexicon of biblical Christianity. My problem with the more acceptable “progressive” is that it seems to imply, “I’M progressive and you’re NOT” as a message, which I simply do not believe. A balanced, healthy society is made up of legitimate conservatives and legitimate liberals meeting at table to converse, worship, feed, and collaborate on how to make life better and more just for all. I don’t know if we can get the current “genie” of calamity back into the bottle, but if we can, I will be a proud liberal at that table.

 

Years ago, I heard the phrase “If you want peace, work for justice.” At the time, it sounded overly challenging to me. Could I not have peace, personally, if I wasn’t engaged in the work of social justice? Earlier in my ministry, I preached that having a relationship with Jesus Christ could give me this “personal” peace, and then I could listen for God’s calling to see what else I should be doing as a believer. I fear this message has spawned a sea of “believers” who live in their spiritual “peace bubble,” praising Jesus, worshiping together joyously, and holding to opinions about social issues that serve their own interests, especially in maintaining their “peace bubble.” I have come to believe, over the years of what I hope is a maturing faith, that the predominant role of the gospel is to keep drawing the “bubble” larger and larger until all of God’s children experience peace. Proverbs 22:8 reminds us of what will happen when we eschew the bubble-enlarging work of justice: calamity, not calm.

I have often cited something a friend once said about missions: Successful mission work needs PRAYERS, PAYERS, and PLAYERS. Until all of us in Christendom finds our place in at least ONE of these same three roles regarding social justice, we will find peace a distant goal. This is your challenge for the week: Will you be a prayer, a payer, or a player in the pursuit of JUSTICE, that calamity may begin to fade into history? Amen.