Any Jackass Can Burn Down a Barn

When I was in high school, our communications teacher attempted to introduce a film class.  It was the first time one had ever been offered in our school district and outside of NYC or LA there were very few in any public schools.  The result was a pretty free and open environment for us to create the class.  We watched and critiqued great films, learned about some filming techniques and, using the second hand VHS hand held camera the budget would allow, we made our own films.   

Compared to the footage available online of the now infamous film “The Innocence of Muslims,” our 7 minute zero-dollar budget high school production is “Citizen Kane” or Hitchcock’s “Rope.”  If the rest of the film is even close to as bad as the trailer footage, it ranks among the worst films ever made.  (Think Ed Wood makes the “10 Commandments.”)  Yet despite its lacking of any narrative or artistic merit, this little film has sparked a tragic string of circumstances.

On Tuesday, protestors fueled by anger and lacking any sense of moral restraint, attacked the United States embassy in Cairo breaching the walls and desecrating the American flag.  In a related event, attacks on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Lybia left the US Ambassador and two other embassy staff dead and several others injured.  These attacks certainly did not materialize simply because the trailer for this film was released, but there is little question that the film was one precipitating issue.

As someone who makes his living getting up in front of a room (partially) full of people and who leans heavily on both an ethic of professional freedom and the benefit of political freedom, I have an acute appreciation and love for our nearly absolute freedom of speech.  I like that I can get in the pulpit and condemn my government without fear of reprisal and praise it without fear of becoming its puppet.  The freedom of expression we enjoy as nation is perhaps our greatest blessing and the greatest gift to the world that American constitutional democracy has given.

With that great freedom, however, comes even greater responsibility.  As a pastor, I am also acutely aware that just because I may say something does not always mean that I should say it or that it is wise to say it.  That is a lesson lost on too many in our culture today.

The makers of this movie have every right to make a bad film.  A right they have availed themselves of spectacularly.  I for one make no claim that what they have done should somehow be outlawed or banned.   Free speech that is wise and helpful depends on the freedom of speech that is insipid and stupid.  Still, I think the filmmakers deserve a heavy dose of criticism for choosing to make a film that has the obvious purpose of making fun of and inciting anger from a group they do not like.  The only reason the film has not been more roundly condemned is that its subject matter involves a politically and socially unpopular group- the Islamic community.  A similar film that made fun of African-Americans, women, Christians or Jews would not be tolerated.  So taking advantage of the political environment, the filmmakers offer their warped perspective on 1/5 of the world’s population.

The problem with this film is not that it is bad.  It is not that it was not their right to make it.  The problem is that the film represents one of the most reprehensible and craven characteristics of our contemporary culture-“no one matters but me.” 

According to this radical individualism and radical libertarianism, my right to say whatever the hell I want trumps any consequence of my words.

• My vitriol and bigotry leads a classmate to take his or her own life?  Tough, free speech.

• My political rhetoric demeans a whole group of people and incites others to do violence to them?  Tough, free speech.

• My film defames and ridicules another’s religion and risks reprisals in the midst of a tense and polarized global political culture?  Tough, free speech.

Free speech is a blessing and a right of every person who lives in this nation and, God willing, will one day be a basic human right enjoyed by every one of God’s children.  That right is diminished and demeaned when it is used by fools in their folly and when speech is not accompanied by wisdom and humanity.  But wisdom and humanity take work. 

Any jackass can burn down a barn.  And the world never has a shortage of jackasses willing to do just that.  It takes wisdom to build up rather than tear down.  As with so many things, the role the church has to play in this whole political mess is the enduring word of love and universal human dignity.  Central to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the dignity of all people.  Not Christian people.  Not American people.  Not people I like or approve of but ALL people.  ALL of God's children. 

Free speech falls rapidly from blessing to curse when it is used to diminish rather than celebrate the place of a brother or sister as a child of God. 

There is no excuse for the violence in Cairo or Benghazi.  There is also no excuse for the abuse and misuse of a blessed right like the freedom to speak.  Hopefully, “The Innocence of Muslims” will fade rapidly from our collective memory.  With any luck, the lessons we learn from its narcissistic misuse of a cherished right and its foolish attempt to dehumanize a whole religion will not.

Moving the Pillar of Cloud and Smoke: A 9/11 Anniversary Sermon

It Took Its Place Behind Them

Exodus 14:19-31

A Service of Prayer and Remembrance

Commemorating the 10^th Anniversary of the September 11, 2011 Terrorist Attacks

A Joint Service of Worship of

 St. Paul Episcopal Church and First Presbyterian Church of Batesville, AR

 

September 11, 2011

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

                Let me begin this evening by thanking Fr. John and the congregation of St. Paul for the opportunity to be with you tonight and for your hospitality.  To paraphrase the Psalmist, how good and now pleasant it is when friends dwell together in unity.  This continues a good friendship between our two congregations and that truly is a good and holy thing.

            I take as my text this evening a portion of the reading from Exodus we heard just moments ago. 

            The people of Israel are fleeing from the hand of pharaoh through the Egyptian wilderness.  The Lord commands Moses to raise up his staff and extend his and over the waters of the sea so that they may part.  He follows God’s command, and as the waters part, in the words of the writer of Exodus,

            “ the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.”

            Let us pray.

            Almighty God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you our rock and our redeemer.  Should it please you to speak through the words of this unworthy servant, then speak.  And in this and all times, speak to us as only you can, in the silence of our hearts.  Amen.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

            Imagine what it must have been like.

            I guess in truth, we don’t actually have to imagine.  In his final monumental undertaking, legendary filmmaker Cecil B. deMille paints a vivid, if not entirely accurate, picture of the exodus from Egypt.  Whenever I read or hear this text, that image is my mental picture. 

            The great cloud that looms above the people moves so that it is stationed firmly between the people of Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner’s army.  The billowing smoke, the occasional glimpses of fire, the flashing lightening all combine to make Hollywood magic.

            At the moment these events were unfolding for the people of Israel, I doubt it was quite the popcorn moment.  I imagine it what must have been an awesome almost terrifying sight.

            In that moment, the pillar of fire and smoke that led them through the Egyptian desert gives way to the corridor of dry land bordered by the two great walls of water inviting the people to cross the sea and enter into the Promised Land.

            It is an epic, emotional, dramatic scene.  In all it’s 1950’s technicolory Hollywood majesty, the climactic scene of one of the climactic movies of the last century invites us to know what it was to stand there that day in the shadow of the pillar of cloud and smoke and fire.

            In the end of course, the people escape, Pharoah’s army is engulfed by the sea, God’s promise is fulfilled and all Pharoah can do… is go home to Anne Baxter.

            The story of the people of Israel crossing from slavery in Egypt into the freedom of God’s Promised Land is one of the great narratives in human history and one of the pivotal ones in the greater story of the people of God.   When the people first set foot on the bed of the sea, a new day dawned. 

            And the turning point was when the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

            I am hardly the first preacher to draw a parallel between the pillar of cloud in the book of Exodus and the pillar of fire and smoke that erupted on lower Manhattan a decade ago this morning.

            What began as a beautiful autumn morning with a big blue sky and perfect fall weather quickly became a picture of darkness and destruction and death.  The misguided and misdirected anger and hate of 18 young men would ignite a fire that would burn even when the flames were put down and the rubble carted off.

            I recalled in my sermon this morning the landing in Newark Airport on September 13 the day air traffic resumed.  When the airplane banked over northern New Jersey and began to fly down the Hudson toward Newark’s runway, I had a clear view of lower Manhattan out my window.  I remember the skyline of lower Manhattan with a void where two great towers of concrete and steel had stood just three days before.  I remember the plumes of smoke and steam that, though of a lesser magnitude than they had been days before, still billowed into the sky like the exhalations of some great beast dwelling beneath the streets and struggling to be let loose on the world.

            That pillar of fire and smoke would remain firmly fixed in our minds eye long after it disappeared from our view.  I would wager to say that for many of us it would be easy to conjure up a vision of it right now.

            It remains fixed before us defining everything else in our line of sight.  It has become the measuring stick by which world events are now measured.

            It is almost as if that day was the restarting point of time.  Pre-9/11 and post-9/11 are our new cultural BC and AD.

            Late last week, a friend who is a stringer for NPR called to interview me for a piece he was working on that was broadcast on Saturday.  I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to his story.  He and several other reporters around the country were interviewing people about what they were doing on September 10, 2001.  When he asked me, I searched my memory trying to think of what it might have been.  In the end, all I could remember was that it was a sunny Monday in Shreveport and I took the dog for a walk down by the river before substitute coaching pee-wee football in the afternoon. 

            That was it. 

            Nothing else stands out. 

            It was just a plain old Monday.

            Had he asked me about the next day, I could give him moment by moment details.  It is still vivid and at times feels ever present.  As a colleague commented to me the other day, it is almost as if one September day has lasted for ten years.

            I wonder if perhaps tonight, with ten years between those tragic events and this Lord’s Day, it might not be time to let it be a new day.  Perhaps it is time that the pillar of cloud moves from in front of us and takes its place behind us.

            Like most things, that is easier said than done.

            When the Israelites stood on the banks of the Red Sea and Moses hurried them along to journey across to the Promised Land, there must have been at least a moment when the people thought better of that suggestion.  There must have been a moment when someone said, “you know that pillar of cloud back there got us this far, maybe we need to stick with it.  Maybe we should keep it out front.”

            With the unknown horizon across the sea in front of them, I imagine that it was tempting to turn around, put their backs to the unknown and set their eyes and expectations on the familiar; the pillar of cloud that had led them thus far.

            Given the option between the known and the unknown, most of us will choose the former every time. 

            The problem with sticking with the familiar for the Israelites was that the pillar had moved.  It was no longer in front of them pointing the way to freedom and the Promised Land.  Now it was behind them.  To turn and face it now meant to turn away from freedom and direct themselves, once again, toward Egypt; toward Pharaoh; toward captivity.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

             None of us will forget the events of that September morning. 

            Nor should we.  It will rightly remain a part of our collective memory and shade our perspective of the world for generations to come. 

            The image of that pillar of fire and smoke that came from lower Manhattan, from the outer ring of the Pentagon and from a lonely field in rural Pennsylvania will remain ever present in the narrative of our nation and our world.

            Nonetheless, it is, perhaps, time that we posed a question to ourselves.  Where does that pillar of fire and smoke belong?  Shall it remain in front of us, continuing to give direction and shape to our lives; shall that pillar of fire and smoke remain our true north or shall it take its place behind us?  Not as a forgotten chapter but as a reminder of where we have been and where, in the mercy and grace of God, we hope to never return. 

            Today we remember the lives not only of the nearly 3000 who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, but also the more than 4000 who, since that day lost their lives in Iraq and the more than 1800 who lost their lives in Afghanistan, 80 as recently as this morning, along with countless civilians caught in the middle of a war of other’s making.

            As we look back in mourning on those who are lost, we must have the courage to also look forward in hope to the tomorrow that God has promised.   If we linger too long on the past, if we allow our world to be measured not by the promise of God’s tomorrow but by yesterday’s tragedies, we fail to do honor to their memories by wasting the future of which they have been deprived. 

            If we do indeed have that courage to look into the horizon of tomorrow, we will never forget what came before nor will we enslave ourselves to it as we cross over into God’s promise.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. 

            May it be so for us and for our world.

            Sola Deo Gloria!  To God alone be the Glory.  Amen.

             

Child of God, Child of God, Child of God

As we enter the fools carnival that masquerades as presidential politics in this country, the rhetoric about parties, personalities and platforms (and other things that do not start with "p") will heat up beyond the usual levels.  The scorched earth politics of 21st century America will leave few unscathed.  As things progress, it gets tempting for people of deep belief and passion to join in the mud and word slinging.  When those moments come and that temptation is upon us, I hope that we can all take a moment and do one thing.  Look across the political landscape at your "target" and remember that that person (or that whole group of people) is a child of God.

One of the lessons I have learned in my ministry is to respond in frustration or anger only after looking at the person with whom I am angry and saying to myself a few times "child of God, child of God, child of God."  It helps to put things into perspective.  I wish I could say that it has saved me from ever uttering words I would later regret.  Unfortunately, this little trick is not quite that effective.  But it does remind me that the object of my anger or frustration is also the object of the love and care of God.

Our political vocabulary has been hijacked by the vocabulary of division.  The other side of the aisle has become the enemy of all that is good and right.  It is not enough to oppose a candidate, you have to hate him or despise her in order to show your own loyalty to party and country.  In a culture that defines those with whom we disagree as quite nearly less than human, it is no wonder that we use the sort of language that we use.

As a Christian, I am called to remember that we are all part of the family of God.  In our vocabulary of faith, we are brothers and sisters united by God's love for us.  So to demean or dehumanize someone with whom I have a political disagreement is to demean or dehumanize my brother or sister in Christ. 

There are certainly times when we need to speak up against a position a particular person takes or take a stand against a policy or ideal that tends to diminish or dehumanize a person or group of people.  Those prophetic moments are important to our growth as a community striving for greater and wider justice for all.  But when we do that, perhaps we can do it without casting aspersions on the motives of our political opponents.  It is one thing to oppose abortion, another to call those who support choice "baby-killers."  It is one thing to oppose cuts in social programs , another to call those who propose those cuts "uncaring" or "unChristian." 

There are very real issues and very real problems that we need to address as a nation in this election year.   Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that disagreement on policy is not the same as disqualification from the human race.  Perhaps we need to remember that reasonable people can and do disagree and that even in the midst of our passionate disagreements, we need to disagree reasonably.

When in doubt, just remember...child of God, child of God, child of God.