Stephen
Terry, Director
I
Will Arise
Commentary
for the February 10, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked." Psalm 82:3-4, NIV
While some have turned their
back on God because they perceive that he is an indifferent, genocidal maniac
as portrayed in portions of scripture, they lose sight of the fact that
scripture is nothing more than humanity's perception of God. As I have said
before, God created man in his image per Genesis, chapter 1, and man has been
repaying the favor ever since. Humankind tends to use fear to wield power over
their fellows. We do so even with the animals in creation, relying upon the
fear we can invoke to control them. We do not realize that when we manipulate
others through fear, we are in effect saying that they are little more than
animals to us as well. We also fail to understand that fear can blossom into
rage and given the perfect storm of fear and rage, it can result in our own
demise. When we rule others by inducing fear in their hearts, we are also
teaching them to do the same to us should they ever get the upper hand. We
understand this and this instills fear in our hearts also, escalating the cycle
of rage, intimidation, and manipulation until both sides are too weak to
continue the fight. If they do not learn the futility of fear-based power, they
will resume the battle when they become stronger. This cycle will continue until
the demise of one or the other, or until another sees in their weakness an
opportunity to control both through a new fear-based manipulation by that third
party.
So much of history is like a
never-ending cycle of fear and violence, but instead of recognizing our own
complicity in this debacle, we blame God. Since we see him as a fear-based
manipulator like us, we want him to place us back on top by eliminating our
enemies, so we can resume rule by fear as we impose our will, conflated as God's
will, on those who fail to submit to our control. Repeatedly, God is portrayed in
the Psalms as being this thundering, vengeful being who will do exactly that.
It must be frustrating for God to look down upon humanity and see all this
bloody squabbling. A few hoard resources, and when those
who are deprived rightly ask for justice and equity, they are given bullets and
bombs to eat and a poisonous pesthole to live in. There was a time in the
Middle Ages when a hungry peasant might lose their head for stealing a loaf of
bread. Now we are more efficient and when the poor are driven
to desperation for survival, we mow them down by the thousands when their fear
of us alone is not enough to intimidate them.
Yes, God could easily wipe evil from
the face of the earth. And since we are all sinners,[i]
that would be an extinction level event. The Bible even takes that idea into
account in the flood narrative in Genesis, placing God in the role of
exterminating all evil, and surprise! It did not work. Evil is still with us.
Humanity sees it as an operational necessity to eliminate opposition, all opposition,
if possible, despite this demonstration of its infeasibility. If there were
only two human beings left alive, they would eventually disagree on some
matter. To our way of thinking, when that impasse occurs, we should be like
Cain, who slew his brother Abel, and render so much shock and awe as to eliminate
any opposition. But this is no less a failure for us than it was for Cain.
Instead of making him feel more secure because of slaying his brother, fear
filled his heart that others would do to him what he had just done to Abel.[ii]
Wiping out evil does not appear to be a solution, as it only results in more
fear that sheds ever increasing amounts of blood in a vicious spiral of death
and destruction.
God has shown us a better path,
but we have been so wound up in this Sisyphean struggle to overcome evil
through our own might and a belief in our ability to instill submissive fear in
others that we have become either too blind to see it, or if we do see it our
fear of the other leads us to believe that failure to beat them into submission
will result in the destruction of everything we hold dear. Jesus taught us to
love our enemies. He did not mean for us to smack them around and tell them
that we were doing it out of love. It is hard to believe that some get that
from his sermon. However, his statement was deeper and more profound than just the
words he spoke. To love our enemies, we must stop fearing them first. It is
fear that feeds all the evil in the world. That is why love and fear cannot
coexist. We cannot continue to feed evil and be loving at the same time. It is
hard to break that cycle because we are inundated with
reminders of all we need to fear. We are told to fear politically, militarily, and
economically. Others will rule us if we are not careful, and even though we are
all sinners, they are worse. Be afraid. We are told that others will conquer us
if we do not conquer them first. Be afraid. We are told others are out to ruin
our economy and we will lose all we have struggled to accumulate. Be afraid. We
stockpile guns and ammunition because we fear others are coming for us and our
families to take all we have and even kill us. Little wonder that our fears
keep us awake at night. The sleep of peace comes only to those who fear no
loss, because they have nothing to lose.
So how does God's better way
work? Jesus showed us. When the people were hungry, he did not hoard what
little he had. He fed them. When they were sick, he did not tell them to come
back at a better time. He healed them, even on the Sabbath. When they were
physically or spiritually blind, he opened their eyes so they could read the
beautiful teachings of God and see the vistas of his creation. These are things
that Jesus said we should teach all nations, exactly as he has taught us. We
are not to buy our way into positions of ecclesiastical or secular power to
wield control over others that we might compel them to accept and obey the
image of God we have created after our own ideas. Humble service is what Jesus
modeled. We can heal the people, but not chide them for becoming ill in the first
place. We can provide for the needs of the poor, but not from the perspective
that they are lazy and useless. We can feed the hungry and make sure the food reaches
them. Jesus is the light of the world. We are lights also and are not to be hidden.
We have the privilege of shining the light of love into the lives of others, just
as Jesus did. It does not take much. The children in the picture accompanying
this commentary, despite the squalor in their lives doubtless feel blessed by
the person who gave them a blanket to keep warm. This act of love by another
may be the first step in their realizing that God is love and that they are cared for.
While so many have given up on
God, he has not given up on us. He has over eight billion people he has brought
into existence on this planet in the hope that some will be vehicles for his love
for humanity and the rest of creation. Unfortunately, because of our widespread
sell out to fear, when a child is born, learning about fear comes early on. If
our hungry wails are not answered rapidly, anxiety escalates, sometimes to a
deafening level. When our parents leave us at home while they go out, or when
they leave us for that first day of school, fear of abandonment occurs. As we
accumulate material things like favorite toys, fear of material loss is learned.
Even in this childhood, these fears can be acted out violently, especially if
the parents model violent reactions to fear. Children can be
taught to displace fear with love, but this is difficult to do if the
parents raising the child have not learned how. This is why we end up with so
much multi-generational trauma. No one has taught them love as a solution.
Violent solutions to fear are played out all day every day on the media through
fictional programming and news reports. But love does not speak with such
bombast. Love does not seek to glorify itself by parading its deeds in the
public square but by countless small acts of kindness perpetrated quietly in
heart-to-heart charities and blessings shared. Love is not about earning points
to get to heaven, so it keeps no record of kindnesses. It is simply the wafting
of a loving breeze sent from God to whisper through our hearts and into the
lives of others. We do not love others by beating up the wicked. We love by
being lights in the darkness, for darkness cannot overcome light. That is where
love's victory lies.