The eCrozier

Advertizing executives and news producers know one thing: if they can make us afraid, then they can get us to act in ways that benefit them. If I can be made afraid of ring around the collar, shoe odor, or bad breath, or at least be afraid of what people will think of me if I have such awful things, then I will buy their product, which promises to relieve me of such fear. Likewise, y’all know the news adage: “if it bleeds, it leads,” which helps news producers decide what news to accentuate. Never mind that crime data actually show that most of our communities are a lot safer to live in than they were a generation ago. But if we listen to the news, we’d never get that idea. I noticed recently that my father was becoming more agitated when we’d talk on the phone. He told me his blood pressure was back up to dangerous levels. After asking him some questions, I suggested he stop watching Fox News for a week. His blood pressure has returned to normal.

This is not to suggest that there are not real things to fear or that some level of fear in certain contexts make sense. For example, when riding my bicycle I am always a little afraid of the car traffic around me. It makes sense and it helps me stay alert to real, potential danger from motorists who do not wish to share the road with bicyclists. But what fears make sense and what fears are simply manipulation by the buyers and sellers of the marketplace?

Fear affects our moral lives as it can form or deform our discernment, character and judgment. This is nothing new. How many times does Jesus in the Gospels address his disciples or the crowd with: “Do not be afraid.” Jesus recognized the corrosive capacity of fears that engage the reptilian part of a person’s brain and shuts out any higher functioning that would lead to such practices as hospitality or generosity. When we live in constant fear of real or imagined threats, we find it nearly impossible to practice the Christian virtues of discipleship.

One of our principle roles as clergy leaders is to help people develop the habits that correspond with following Jesus. We can only do so effectively if we are clear about what prevents our people from doing so. My hunch is that your people’s fears are on the top of the list. And I am not referring only to fears for their safety, although that is certainly one of them. I would also include the fear of rejection from their family or friends if they begin to take Jesus seriously about loving one’s enemies, forgiving seventy times seven, etc. We have to equip our people to handle such fears. It is at the heart of our leadership.

To better understand how powerful a force fear is in our culture, I recommend you read: Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear by Scott Bader-Saye. It is a wonderful book. He names what our culture of fear is all about and offers Christian leaders such as you and me ways to engage the culture. He writes: “Providence, at its heart, has to do with the conviction that our lives and our world constitute a coherent story, a drama, in which God and humankind, together, drive the story toward its proper conclusion.” If our fears are set in the context of God’s providence, then they will not have the power they seem to have over so many of us.

+Scott

“Imposters, yet true.”

There’s a phrase in today’s Epistle lesson that seems at first oxymoronic. St. Paul says that he and his companions are “treated as imposters, and yet are true.” St. Paul was speaking to a divided church in Corinth; one that had broken into factions. Each claimed the one true faith, while consigning all others to the status of fakes and imposters. So, St. Paul says that while some of his readers in Corinth think he is an imposter, he is in fact truly proclaiming to them the good news of God in Christ.

I want to take some liberty with this phrase today: “We are imposters, yet true.” Maybe more than St. Paul realized, he hit on a profound truth. We’re all in one way, shape, form, or another, imposters. We literally make “poses” that are not truthful. When we hit our knees in prayer, we’re not always penitent. When we stand to sing praises, we’re not always glorifying God. When we sit and hear God’s Word, we don’t always listen and heed its instruction. We make our poses hoping that someone will recognize us as Christians so we can maybe believe it ourselves. It’s like those commercials on TV where an actor looks into the camera and says: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” and then he gives us medical advice. In our moments of greatest honesty, we must admit that we at times must say: “I’m not a Christian, but I play one on Sundays.”

Our status as imposters is undeniable. A Rabbi friend of mine once said to me: “All we Jews ever want from you Christians is that you truly follow Jesus. If you did, we’d never fear for our safety again.” Yet even as imposters, we are true. What makes us a truthful people is our capacity and willingness to name who we are; to confess that as we pose as Christians, we are imposters. This is the beginning of a right relationship with God. For us to be a truthful people, we must learn to speak the language of truth about ourselves and the world around us.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has written on the differences between the three great monotheistic faiths: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. He said the greatest difference between them is that Christianity is full of irony and the others are not. At the heart of Christian irony is that God can die and that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, life in all its abundance is poured out to the world. Archbishop Williams has gone to the heart of the matter. It is ironic that a 1st Century Jewish Rabbi could be God’s son and through his death redeem the world from its sin and separation from God. Death bringing life to the world is not anything if it is not ironic.

So the irony in our own posing as Christians is oddly congruent. It is our confession of the pride and hypocrisy of our lives that leads us to our own truthfulness. It is the recognition of our own selfishness and exploitation of others that leads us to know that we need God’s forgiveness. It is the awareness that we have squandered so much of what God has blessed us with that leads us to our poverty before God. Our truthfulness comes from our confession that we are indeed imposters.

+Scott