(Scriptures: Exodus 1:8-2:10; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20)
Many of you know I traveled to Cuba three times, in 2008,
2009, and 2012, all with church groups.
It’s ironic, considering that Cuba is supposedly a country run by
godless communists, that church groups are one of the few categories of tourists
allowed to travel to Cuba. After our
plane landed at Jose Marti airport – named after the Cuban poet who is
considered the father of Cuban independence – and after I got through their
customs check, a van from the Cuban
churches picked us up. As we exited the
airport, our group saw that surrounding the airport were signs – government propaganda
signs. “!Socialismo si!” – Socialism
yes!” “50 years of revolutions and
victories!” on and on. Pictures of Fidel Castro, of Che Guevara and
other leaders in the revolution that led to the downfall of the widely-hated
Batista regime and the installation of Fidel Castro as Cuba’s leader. All a reminder that, as Dorothy said in the
Wizard of Oz, on landing in the Emerald City - “I don’t think we’re in Kansas
anymore.” The propaganda is everywhere –
even in relatively unpopulated areas, I saw occasional billboards proclaiming,
“50 years of revolutions and victories” – that seemed to be a popular slogan,
at least to those putting up the billboards.
To me, as an American, of course it seemed overbearing, over the top,
obvious blatant government propaganda.
But then, as I pondered, I wondered how it seemed to those who live in
Cuba – especially the younger generations, those born since the 1959
revolution, for whom the government billboards have always been there, as much
part of their surroundings as sunshine and air and water. And
then I had a really dangerous thought……when folks from other countries come to the United States, are
there parts of our culture that seemed just as contrived, just as much
over-the-top obvious blatant government or corporate propaganda, only this time
emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes instead of the Cuban flag. Of course, we as Americans, since it’s the
only environment we know, can’t generally see it. It often takes an outsider, one who has not
been immersed since childhood with our culture, to point out our culture’s
oddities and foibles.
A few years ago, I also visited Rome. And as I looked at the ancient archeological
sites and ruins, I saw that ancient Rome likewise had its own propaganda. On most of the public works projects I could
find the letters “SPQR”. These letters
stand for “Senatus Populus, que Romanus” –
“the Senate and People of Rome”.
Every monument or public work so stamped was essentially dedicated to
the glory of the Senate and People of Rome, that is to say, to the Roman republic. Even after the Republic transitioned to an
Empire, these letters were used, to preserve the tradition that Rome was a
republic, even if in fact that was no longer true. Again, if,
like me, you’re not from Rome, it seems a bit odd. But those living in ancient Rome likely never
questioned why these letters appeared on government projects. Outsiders can often see things about our
culture than insiders never question.
It is from this “outsider perspective” that Paul writes in
our reading today. In his letter to the
church at Rome, Paul writes: “I appeal
to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your
bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship. Do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you
may discern the will of God.” “Do not be
conformed to this world” – the phrase “be conformed to” gives us the picture of
jello being poured into a mold, or a cookie cutter coming down on a sheet of
dough, or widgets going through an assembly line – one size fits all, all the
same. Paul is saying, “When in Rome, don’t
do as the Romans do.” Paul is, in
effect, urging us to dare to be different, but in a specific way – by
presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God – in effect, offering our
lives – our time, our talents, our treasure – to God’s service.
“Do not be conformed…but be transformed by the renewing of
our minds.” What does it look like not
to conform, but to be transformed. We
may think of the Amish, with their plain clothes and broad-brimmed straw hats
and horses and buggies and their dedication to rural life. And that is one example. The Amish know perfectly well that the wider
society thinks them odd, and basically irrelevant – except when we go to the
Reading Terminal market to get fresh vegetables; then we like having them
around. But they have consciously chosen
a way of life different from their neighbors – less dependent on technology, more
committed to strong families and to a sense of community, certainly much more
environmentally sustainable – they were on the cutting edge of environmentalism
long before Greenpeace and the Sierra Club came around - and utterly pacifist,
utterly opposed to weapons of war. The
wider world saw their strong ethic of forgiveness in 2006 when a gunman shot
and killed a number of children at an Amish one-room school, and after the
gunman’s suicide, the Amish community reached out with forgiveness for the gunman and reconciliation to the
family.
But we live in Bridesburg, and I don’t think any of us are
ready to sign up to move to Lancaster County and live down on the farm with the
Amish. But we can make a conscious
decision not to just go with the flow, not to be conformed, but to be
transformed by the renewing of our minds.
When we think of being transformed, we tend to think on an
individual level – quitting bad habits, going on a diet, getting into better
shape physically, seeing a therapist, reading self-help books and such. Churches have traditionally encouraged such
personal transformation along some of these lines, for example, in years past,
telling young people “don’t drink, smoke, or chew, or date guys or gals who
do”. And indeed, the transformation of which Paul
writes is an inside job, beginning on a personal level. As we spend time reading and meditating on
Scripture and spend time in prayer and meditation, as we seek God’s help in
ending addictions, as we spend less time on the couch in front of the TV and
more time out in God’s fresh air and sunshine, in God’s creation, we not only
become more physically and mentally fit, we become more fit for service to God,
just able to do more, to last longer, to endure more in God’s service.
The transformation of which Paul writes begins on an
individual level, but it doesn’t end there – because ultimately while it’s
about us, it’s not all about us, but about God and God’s reign, God’s
kingdom. And as we spend time in God’s
word and time in prayer, we may find that we can’t go along with some of what
our society asks of us. Remember our
reading from Exodus, with those chilling words about the new Pharaoh, the new
king, the new boss, who didn’t know Joseph the Israelite and didn’t appreciate
all Joseph the Israelite had done for Egypt – and feared the large and growing
population of Israelites who had settled in Egypt. This Pharaoh planned what we today would call
a genocide, the extinction of a people, by ordering the midwives among the
Hebrews to kill all the baby boys. And
here’s where I’d ask us to listen up:
we’re told, “But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of
Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.” The Hebrew midwives knew where their
loyalties lay – with God and with the Israelites, and not with the political
power of the day, the king of Egypt.
This was a personal decision, but with very real political consequences
– they acted to save their people, not to go along with what the people in
charge wanted. Today we would call this
an act of civil disobedience, disobedience to an unjust man-made law in order
to follow a higher obedience to God’s law.
And, of course, the Pharaoh called them on the carpet for disobeying
him, and in response the women tell him this lame story about the Hebrew women
– it’s really funny in reading it – “We’re sorry, Mr. Pharaoh, but the Hebrew
women are not like the Egyptian women; the Hebrew women are vigorous and the
babies just pop out of them so fast we can’t keep up!” Of course we know they’re fibbing to the Pharaoh
– but in so doing, they’re being faithful and true to their own people and to
their God.
“Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your minds, so that you may discern the will of God.” To discern the will of God may mean
questioning long-held opinions. It may
mean, in the words of a phrase popular some years back, “Question
Authority”. “Question authority!” Push back!
When the government – under Republican or Democratic leadership – tells
us that we just had to drop bombs on this country or send arms that country, we
had no choice – don’t just accept it blindly, but ask questions. When, here in Pennsylvania, our state
government tells us, “sorry, no more money for schools, you’ll just have to do
with less” - and our schools are once
again opening in September with yet fewer teachers, and with communities having
to hold special fundraisers for basic school supplies - but then somehow finds
the money to build a spanking new $400 million dollar prison – for heavens
sake, ask questions! Literally, for God’s sake, push back! These are our children we’re talking
about! Especially since the United
States by far leads the world in our rate of incarcerating young people – and
according to an article by the Annie E. Casey foundation, Pennsylvania is one
of just five states in the country to see an increase in the number of youth
incarcerated between 1997 and 2010[1] –
and in 2009, two judges in Luzerne County were convicted of accepting cash
payoffs in exchange for jailing kids for relatively minor offenses – in one
case, stealing pocket change in order to buy soda and chips.[2] In Egypt, Pharaoh wanted baby boys tossed in
the river; in Pennsylvania, we wait a little longer and then lock ‘em up. So question governmental authority!
Question the corporate propaganda – Is bigger better? Does he who dies with the most toys win? Do we really need all the stuff our society
is selling us? For example, we all know
about the weed killer Roundup, made by Monsanto. Roundup is very effective – you want a weed
gone, Roundup will make it gone, and right quick - but it’s nasty stuff when it gets into the
water supply. The active ingredient in
Roundup, glyphosate, has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, infertility, and
cancer. A while ago on Facebook, someone
posted a question asking for a recipe for a home-made, non-toxic weed
killer. Here’s what I found online: 1 gallon apple cider vinegar, a cup of salt,
and 1 tablespoon of liquid dish soap – one recipe specified Dawn liquid dish
soap. Mix thoroughly so that the salt
dissolves, and spray – supposedly it works especially well if you spray it on a
hot day. One website said that after the
weeds die, cover the area with corn meal to prevent new weeds from sprouting –
though likely the salt alone will accomplish that, so be careful using anyplace
you think you may want to plant something later. (A homework assignment for those willing: If someone wants to try it, let me know if it
actually works….) But, anyway, so we
don’t necessarily need to buy Roundup and risk the human side effects – and
that’s just tiny example of resisting corporate propaganda.
And question the news media.
According to a 2012 article in Business Insider, 90% of media in America
is owned by six corporations. In 1983,
there were 50 corporations, but in the past 30 years, with mergers and
consolidations, just six corporations – GE (which, among others, controls
Comcast and NBC), News Corp (which controls Fox News and the Wall Street
Journal), Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS - control 90% of our news
sources.[3] And now, of course, there’s an attempt at a
merger between Comcast and Time- Warner.
These large corporations are in business to sell advertising, to
increase shareholder value, not necessarily to keep Americans well-informed. [If you really want to know what’s going on,
to quote a phrase from the Watergate era, “Follow the money”.] I’ve certainly noticed, and maybe you have
too, that over the past 10 years, much of what is presented as news is
celebrity gossip – who’s dating whom, who’s cheating on whom, who’s breaking up
with whom. Who cares! This used to be stuff for the tabloids –
National Enquirer garbage - but now it makes up a disturbingly large share of what
we find in the mainstream newspapers.
Meanwhile a lot of information on what our government does and what the
larger corporations do is left out – not accidentally, but very much on
purpose. For those of us online, we may
need to go to alternative media or even (God forbid) to media in other
countries to fill in the gaps in our domestic news coverage. For example, I’ve often gone to the Guardian –
a British news source – to pick up on international news and even sometimes American
domestic news that never quite makes the Philadelphia Inquirer. For
Middle East news, the English-language version of the Israeli website ‘Haaretz’
is of course pro-Israel, but still provides some balance, including critique of Israel's actions. And Al Jazeera, which was demonized during the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has an English edition, with surprisingly comprehensive coverage of world events. Of
course, these media have their own slant as well….but if you know that going
in, you can pick up on some interesting information about the world. So, again, “be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern the
will of God” – the will of God, which is very often opposed to the will of
those in charge, even those in charge who present themselves as devout
Christians. Be not conformed. Question authority. Push back.
And why do all this?
So that we may discern the will of God – what is good and acceptable and
perfect….so that we can be faithful disciples of Jesus, so that God’s will may
be done, as we pray every Sunday, on earth as it is in heaven. So we can live, really live, the lives God
has for us. Those of you who watched the
1999 movie “The Matrix” remember that Neo, the hero, was given a choice between
taking the blue pill, which would keep him blissfully ignorant within the
Matrix’s world of illusion, or the red pill, which would allow him to
disconnect from the Matrix and see reality as it is. Of course, disconnecting
from the Matrix bought the hero a world of trouble – enough for multiple Matrix
movie sequels. Contrary to Karl Marx, who wrote that religion
is the opiate of the people – and in truth, religion often has been used that
way, as a kind of “blue pill” to keep the oppressed unblissfully ignorant – to be
faithful to the Gospel, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, is to
take the red pill, to disconnect from the Matrix – the powers that be that
would enslave us – and to live in the ultimate reality, within the reign of
God. Taking the red pill – being
transformed by the renewing of our mind – will certainly complicate our lives,
as we’ll have to say no to things our society readily accepts. We may not win any popularity contests. But, God promises that, in the end, the gates
of Hell will not prevail against the faithful.
May we at Emanuel Church be among those who are faithful to the
end. Amen.
[1] http://blog.papartnerships.org/index.cfm/2013/2/27/PA-heading-in-wrong-direction-on-youth-incarceration
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/23/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges/index.html?_s=PM:CRIME
[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
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