Baptism: Do You Accept the Freedom and Power...

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 4:1-11:

Last week I noted that in the ancient church, Easter was the only day on which people could be baptized. Part of the reason Lent was established was to use these 40 days for final preparation in receiving instruction about what it mean to be a Christian and what it meant to be a member of the church. And so, we are spending the Sundays of Lent looking at the baptismal questions that we ask people before they are baptized into the church in preparation for doing the baptisms we have scheduled for this Easter. And another reminder that if you are interested in being baptized, or having someone else baptized, please speak with me. Last week we talked about the first question that gets asked and it is “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” Now as part of that I said that portion of answering this is to be able to say that evil exists in the world and to be able to name it. I read this week that in response to his interview with Vladimir Putin, who at best is an authoritarian despot and whose chief opponents keep dying suspiciously, Tucker Carlson was asked how he responds to accusation that Putin had his latest opponent killed. And his response was, and I quote, “Leadership requires killing people.” Now we just finished a series on leadership, and never did I think that I had to say that, because I don’t think it’s required. And he wasn’t talking about tough decisions that some leaders have to make, like presidents ordering military strikes, or generals, and others, sending troops into harms way. He was talking about just ordinary politicians and leaders. And so, I’m good to be bold enough here to say that that is evil, or at least excuse making to cover evil. That doesn’t mean that Tucker Carlson is evil, but that he is giving into what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil. Justifying the ordinary terrible things that we can do to each other.

Because if you can justify the killing of one innocent person, then you can also justify the killing of many more. And so, while yes there are some things that may require leaders to take life, those are the extremes and never taken lightly by those who do them, or at least not taken lightly by those with a conscience and there are plenty of presidents and generals who have talked about the terrible cost that decision takes on their very being, but that is not what leadership itself requires. And so, I think that leads well into the second question we ask because it has direct relevance, and that question is “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”

Of those three, I think we’re better positioned to talk about oppression, which typically is about trying to keep someone else down, usually involving cruel or unjust treatment and control. Usually, but not always, this is done by a dominant group, or person, against someone else, judging them to be less than, or perhaps not even human, but certainly not due the rights given to others, and this is usually accompanied by the use of dehumanizing language. Think of apartheid, or Jim Crow. And notice that oppression is part of being unjust, or therefore part of injustice, that lack of fairness by treating others differently because of who they are, and judgments, usually superficial and derogatory, that have been made against them. And so, there is definitely a direct correlation between oppression and injustice, and some of that is being able to identify it and name it, and there can be difficulties in that. Sometimes this happens simply because we aren’t aware of it, we have blinders on. Sometimes those blinders are intentionally because if we name it then we have to do something about it. That’s one of the reasons the US government is extremely hesitant to name things as being genocide, because then we are obligated to respond, and so we pretend as if it’s not happening. Or we simply don’t know everything that’s going on behind the scenes. We like inexpensive items but don’t usually know how they get to our shelves. For that matter most of us don’t know how the expensive things get to our shelves either, although they are often in the same ways and at the same low wages.

But a question then for me is that while I think we can say that evil things also include oppression and injustice, does oppression and injustice therefore make them necessarily evil? I’m not sure. But this baptismal question does seem to imply that they are separate things, although not without significant overlap. Or at the least it wants us to be mindful of all of them as things to be aware of and work against. But here is where the hard work begins and that is being willing and able to open our eyes not just to see the evil, injustice or oppression done by others, especially those with whom we disagree, but also to call out that done by people with whom we agree, especially if it benefits us. That’s where I would most especially call out Carlson, and others of his ilk, because he is very quick to justify and support those who he thinks are in his tribe, or who he wants to be in his tribe, but is also very quick to call out and denigrate the same behavior, or even lesser behavior, from people he considers to be opposite of him. And we see this all the time. But this is nothing new, and scripture calls it out as well. The prophet Isaiah warns against calling what is evil good, or that which is good evil; do make justifications for bad things simply because they are on your side. If it’s wrong for the other side, then it needs to be wrong for your side. If it’s evil for others, then it’s evil for us. And I will also add that Isaiah, and the other prophets, also expand what falls into the category, which includes, among other things, the wealthy taking advantage of the poor. So, several years ago there was the scandal with wealthy parents paying bribes to get their children into elite schools, although what wasn’t really talked about was the fact that they could have done exactly the same thing through easily legal ways by simply giving large donations to the school for the same purpose which happens all the time. And so, do we call that unjust, or maybe just stupid, or do we name it as evil? At that leads us to the gospel passage today and what is at the heart of this question.

In the Disney move The Lion King, while there are other evil characters in the film, or at least those who go along with the evil like the hyenas, the main villain, the personification of evil, is Scar the brother of the king. That is the evil is not different from the other lions, it resides in them. I always think that’s important because as I said last week, I don’t think we need to have Satan or the devil in order to have evil in the world, because it’s within all of us. The word Satan appears 53 times in scripture, and devil appears 36 times, and those are not necessarily the same person. Additionally, most of what we think about the devil or Satan has nothing to do with scripture, but much later developments, in particular from John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Divine Comedy, which also impacts our understanding of the afterlife. More often in scripture this character is playing, for lack of a better term, the devil’s advocate. Giving voice to another side, sometimes in a prosecutorial role. We can even see this in the temptation story today. The devil tempts Jesus, although I don’t think that’s the right word, to do things, that Jesus will in all intense and purposes do, but we also know that the devil doesn’t have the power he claims to have. But it certainly seems attractive, which is where we also go wrong with our understanding of the devil. In medieval art, and still today, pictures of the devil portray him as ugly and evil looking. But, earlier imagery showed him as a gorgeous hunk, and that makes a difference. It’s easier to say no to something ugly, or unappealing, but when it’s attractive then it’s harder to resist. Just think of the fruit that Adam and Eve eat, which seems to be attractive to them. So, in answering the question if we will resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, we have to know that that evil is in us first, and that it is within others as well, and that many times it is much more attractive than the alternatives, and we can think of many places where that is true.

But here is how we work on overcoming those things and where the beginning of the question is important, and that is do we accept the freedom and power that God has given us to do these things? That freedom comes through Jesus who freed us from our slavery to sin and death. But we are granted that freedom, not so that we can go off and do anything, although that is a possible choice because of free will. But we are instead granted that freedom with the hope that we will then make the conscious choice to follow Christ, to become slaves to righteousness, not because we have to, but because we get to. It is a decision made freely, not out of fear of punishment, but out of faith in reward for what God has already given to us, freedom in Christ. And that leads to the second thing and that is power. When we are baptized we believe that we receive the Holy Spirit, and when we receive the Spirit we receive what? Power. So, God is not asking us to go out and do something that is impossible, something beyond our means or our capabilities. Instead God is saying “I want you to resist evil, injustice and oppression, and I am giving you the ability to do that, because I am giving you the freedom and the power to do it, because you have no obligations, no other allegiances, no other loyalties then to me.” And so, this should be easier for us.

God gives us the freedom and power to resist. Now resistance often has the connotation of actively doing something, and there is certainly a strong piece to this vow. Of calling out evil, injustice and oppression when we see it happening, and then doing something about it. But resistance can take other forms as well. Prayer can be a form of resistance, because if we are praying for peace, or justice or for the end to hunger, we are saying we believe that such things are possible and that the things that bring them about are not the ways of God. Praying for our enemies says that we are not going to allow people to divide us, and in fact we are going to work hard at not even having enemies, which also means that the practice of reconciliation is a form of resistance. But the biggest form of resistance? Love. It’s also how I think we determine what is evil or not, and that is how does it relate to love. If it treats people as less than, as a means to an end, if it sees others as “the other” rather than a brother or sister, it’s probably moving, or could move to evil. It’s why Jesus says that to have anger in your heart is equivalent to murder, because it’s a step in that direction. And so, we judge actions based on the idea of love, and we resist by offering love. Think of all of the things that we think of as being evil, is there a single one of them in which they saw the other person as an equal, as a brother and sister, as a beloved child of God? The answer is an affirmative no.

And so, the final piece of resistance, as part of our power and freedom, is to also resist these things in ourselves. To be aware when we become too assured that we are correct and everyone else is wrong, because that sense of assurance, especially when wrapped in religion, can lead to dangerous things. As I’ve said, what if I am wrong is a powerful question? Also asking if what we are doing truly represent the good news of God’s love, not just to some, not just to me, but to all, and especially the least, the last and the lost? We are called to bring the Kingdom, the love of God to the world, and so on behalf of the whole church, I ask you: ““Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.