The "Ugly American"





A looooong rant. If you haven't got the time, scroll on. 😊 But the more intrepid, or foolhardy, among you may glean some meaningful tidbit out of it....

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The "Ugly American"

Two stories. 

On one of the anniversaries of 9/11, at Ground Zero, a crowd of Americans was approaching the memorial, all of them carrying large bouquets of flowers to place at the site. One of them noticed an Asian woman likewise approaching the site, but she had a single rose in her hand. This particular American found that offensive. He approached her and began to berate her for the meagerness of her expression of sympathy, calling it an insult to the United States and all the innocents who perished on 9/11. The woman, who was in fact a tourist and knew almost no English, and who had seen in her single rose an expression of simple, humble sympathy, was confused and mortified as other people began to stare, and the American only went on yelling at her louder and louder. 

How does that make you feel about Americans? 

Actually...it  didn't happen. I made it up. Here, the second story, is what really happened. 

(Note: this story is NO reflection on the Armenian people. I love my "Armenian" life and the many people who are dear to me there. But in Armenia like everywhere, as the old saying goes, "it takes all kinds"....)

I was in Armenia on their Remembrance Day, when thousands and thousands of Armenians stream to the Genocide Memorial, bouquets in hand to lay at the site in honor of the million or more souls who perished under the Turkish genocide. I'd been invited to go along with my students that day. Classes were cancelled after lunch for the event. I was fairly in the blue as to what was going on and the picture came into focus only gradually as we were approaching the site. it was a blazing hot day, which wilts me to the point of disorientation, and I was enveloped by a sea of thousands, which is precisely the environment I avoid as if my life depended on it, so I was doubly out of sorts. And it took hours to reach the memorial, so make that triply. As I realized what this was all about, and noticed everybody with flowers, and I had none, I asked one of my students to hand me a flower from his bouquet, which he did. Suddenly some man, not part of my immediate company, noticed me with my one flower and started yelling at me. He yelled in Russian (I'm plainly, at a mere glance, not an Armenian, so his default conclusion was "Russian"), so I understood everything. He berated me for insulting his country, and "Would you bring just one flower to your loved one's funeral?" ("I might," I thought.)  I argued something back to him, though I don't remember precisely what. I think, in essence, I told him he was being very rude to a foreigner who was sincerely trying to show sympathy. Thankfully my kind students intervened and shooed the belligerent fellow away. 

Now let's say that, instead of starting with my made-up story about the ugly American yelling at the poor well-meaning Asian lady, I had kicked this off with "A Story," about "An American" (you don't know who), who went to Armenia and, on their great day of public mourning when everybody brings a bouquet to the memorial, this boorish, ugly American sauntered up to the site with a single, pathetic, peremptory, drooping rose. And then asked, "How does that make you feel about Americans?" 

Your answer would likely have been the same as it was to my made-up story about the nasty American mortifying the Asian lady at the 9/11 memorial: "Boy, Americans are just the worst, aren't they...."

In other words, for the "ugly American", whether he's the yell-ER or the yell-EE, it's a lose-lose proposition. He's just "the worst."  If he's yelling at a foreigner in America, he's a boorish imperialist dolt, and if he's getting yelled at AS the foreigner elsewhere, it's because he's a boorish, imperialist dolt. 

Either way he's the ugly American, and "don't it just go to show ya...." (Which, if I understand correctly, would be what they call "bias confirmation.") 

In all cases the default conclusion is, he's the guilty party. Not because it's based in objective reality but because the Ugly American is central to a polemical-demagogic myth at the core of a calculated political philosophy. That myth has been so popularized and "orthodox-ized" by entrenched, invested, power-wielders that to question it is to call the Maelstrom down upon your head. 

In my case, the reality is that I was "the Asian lady", but the only way you (or, if not you, then many) could possibly have heard, or heard out, my story without a presumption of my ugliness was to hear it disguised, a parable, with me as the Asian lady accosted by an American at the World Trade Center. Then, you were full of unfiltered, unguarded ("Am I rooting for the politically correct person?") sympathy. 

How dreadfully rare it is that we're not guarded. 

The Myth has hard-wired us NOT to sympathize with the American. The Myth has predisposed us, in fact, to view the world through a grossly warped, fantastical lens. 

Anybody with even a modicum of international, cross-cultural experience, unless he/she is so viscerally devoted to the Myth as to have attained consummate myopia, knows very well that Americans haven't anything remotely like a monopoly on xenophobia, ethnocentrism or insularity. People are, in fact, the same everywhere. They are conditioned and adapted to their social, cultural, psychological and physical environments with their particular assumptions and rules and in those environments they scramble to...survive. At least that. At the outside, maybe to be happy. They cope, they navigate, they "stuff it" when they have to, and on rare occasions they cautiously buck a local norm. (And there's always things about their own cultures they hate.) 

But mostly they want to give their children a good life. That's a universal. Probably THE universal. 

And 99% of humanity has no time to be ethnologists. So they aren't. 

And even when they and their neighbors speak two or three languages, it's not that they are endowed with a naturally superior humanitarian sophistication. It's because those two or three languages are, taken together, "the local language" and you can't FUNCTION in that neighborhood without them. 

(How tiresome the snooty aspersions get, about the benighted state of American "Anglos" who only know one language "unlike the REST of the world"...though I have done a fair amount of travel in my time and have yet to bump into this monolithic-polyglottic "rest of the world." Odd, considering how vast it's purported to be.) 

No. In point of fact, everybody does what they must to survive and not, in most cases, considerably more than that.  "Survive" encompasses physical and, conditions permitting, psychological and emotional needs (love, intellect, aesthetics, sport, etc.). Under lavish circumstances, "survive" includes a lot of what one would like to think one needs but, existentially speaking, doesn't.  Under catastrophic circumstances, everything but the scramble for physical survival is jettisoned. 

Another story. Or parable, if you like. 

Imagine: it's eve-of-Hitlerian Germany, say around 1929, 1930. The monstrosity hasn't fully bloomed yet, but its budding is unmistakable. Among the society's leading classes and élite, in industry, the arts, education, science, medicine, commerce, the word is out: "Jews are the enemy. Don't ask why, they're just the enemy. If you have to ask why, then you're the enemy, too. Toe the line or be cast out along with them." 

And imagine some grand cultural event in a massive hall in Berlin, with hundreds of the ruling class, the beautiful people, in attendance. Maybe the Monster is there, too, not that it matters to the story. And some honored figure, say a great violinist, is eagerly urged by the audience: "Speech! Speech!" He steps up to the microphone, takes a breath and utters: "I want to say that in my experience I have found the Jewish people to be no different than any of us, indeed I have found them to be noble and honorable people of good will." 

Knees are jerking, breath is arrested, armrests gripped, eyes bulging and pulses racing, horror has seized the  hall. That is NOT Beautiful People Speak. The Official Line that a political-philosophical monolith banks on for conceptual coherence--its "glue"--has been slandered, because someone dared to say something...well, true. Even on the merest level of his personal experience it's true. But that doesn't matter. True or not, it's heresy. It's a slander against the Line, the Speak, therefore...hateful. When the Maelstrom comes down on the violinist's head, it will have nothing to do with truth. It will be the Urge to Power sweeping him out into oblivion along with everything else it has marked for elimination. 

It strikes me that, albeit it on a thankfully lower scale and intensity (so far), this same Urge to Power has, today, in our present sociocultural conflict, marked out for elimination every utterance, and utter-ER, that runs athwart the Elite Line, the Official Narrative, the Polemical Myth, The Speak. The concentration camps aren't up and running...yet...but you'll be screeched and hollered off college campuses, banished from social media, exiled from public forums, news and entertainment industries, slandered and smeared with the most vile filth (I offer Alan Dershowitz and Jordan Peterson as recent objects of such frenzied rabidity), by the masters and guardians of the sociocultural plantation whose portfolios and bank accounts depend on the Myth's ascendancy. Truth hasn't the least to do with it.  

It sure does seem very...mmm...1930s-Germany-ish.

"We're the beautiful, the serene, until you violate our Speak." 

Among many other truths, the particular one I'm addressing here, i.e., that the "Ugly American" vs. a world of intrinsically superior and more HUMAN human beings is a myth and a fraud, is one guaranteed to set off the jerking knees and racing pulses. It violates the Speak. The hardwired response is "Eliminate!" 

In this Snark-Adoring Age, when infantile mockery is bizarrely exalted as substance, argument, weight and wit (likely because fewer and fewer people are capable of coming up with better, hence the mass scurry to the dreggy bottom), I easily anticipate a sneering attempt (probably not here among Facebook friends, but you know how it would go elsewhere) to dismiss everything I've said with a nasal: "Awww, your widdle Amewican feewings are hurt because people tell you just how bad you are--boo, hoo, hoo...." (I feel ridiculous writing that, but you have to admit it IS the caliber of "argument" that turns online comment threads into such fetid swamps.) 

Which of course is no argument or position but a mindless FLIGHT from argument, from thought itself. A knee-jerk, vacuous attempt to stifle and kill dialogue (the polar opposite of classic liberalism) and, thus, keep on perpetuating the Myth in pursuit of political domination. 

(It's ALL about power and the illusory self-authentication it tantalizingly dangles in front of you. Which is why "empowered" is the Holy Grail of our day.)

No, it's not hurt feelings. It's a Declaration of Independence (something Americans historically have a yen for). It's all the same to me what others think. But what I think--!  Ah hah, THAT is my own, sovereign territory and responsibility, just as what you think is yours. So my point is that, in my humble opinion, each and every one of us has an absolute right to dismiss, reject and conclusively refuse to buy into, or bear on our shoulders, the Myth. It's a lie that shouldn't color our world, predispose our reactions, prejudice our choices, skew our relationships or inhibit our self-expression, no matter how many sneering snarkers, propelled by core maladjustments and a projection of their inadequacies, try to intimidate and...SHAPE us. 

To ruthlessly reject their "shaping" is something quantum-ly transcendent to hurt feelings. Their snark is a pathetic attempt to keep you from knowing the difference. But, you do. 

Declarations of Independence first lay out what the independence is to be FROM (as Mr. Jefferson eloquently detailed), then they announce, in so many words, "No, not swallowing it anymore." (I'm not sure Jefferson put it exactly like that, but that was the gist.) 

"Declaration of Independence" is just one side of this conceptual coin. The other side is this: as a Christian, my priority here isn't to defend America; it's to reject a lie. And to help others shuck false burdens and specious guilt imposed by a barren worldview and political philosophy. God knows, we all have enough real guilt to handle in life, we don't need others getting in our heads to indoctrinate us what we're honor-bound to feel miserable about in the service of their ephemeral political-philosophical fiefdoms. 

Forget THAT. Really!

We Americans aren't the worst people in the world, nor is America the guiltiest country in history. (And the hall went silent in horror.) 

Even if, to speculate fantastically, America WERE the guiltiest country in history--somewhere, some time, we may suppose there is a winner in that competition--it still wouldn't make YOU "the worst." (And the Beautiful People clutched their pearls and gnashed their teeth.) 

No, everybody around the globe is pretty bad, actually. "All have sinned and fallen short...." (And a stampede for the exits ensued.) 

As Christians, with a breathtakingly short span to live out on terra firma, our debt is a spiritual one. It's not the suffocating, intentionally IMPOSSIBLE debt to make up for what "we," as defined by self-seeking plantation-masters of one stripe or another, have "done" to others by dint of our being ___________ (fill in the blank...as you know they will!). 

Instead, our debt is the supreme, yet POSSIBLE one. It's paid off with every act of grace and love in Christ's Name. We keep on "paying it off," not to extinguish it but for the joy of it. It's not the debt of our guilt but the debt of Love. 

Neither of the two debts can ever be paid off, but the one is a bondage while the other is freedom. The one is a fraud and the other is the Way, the Truth and the Life. 

The debts the world's plantation-masters want to lay on your shoulders are scams, and they never MEAN for you to pay them off--they mean for you to take them on, psychologically, emotionally, socially, as permanent stigmas, because their whole show depends on it. 

The happy news is, you are free in Christ to respond, with respect: "Phthphthpppp!" 

Our real debt as Christians is defined by the word "Christian", not by the word "American." This is what we have in common with His Church all around the world. The resources available to us may well determine our fitting responses ("To whom much is given..."), but it remains true all the same that our spiritual debts, our opportunities to "do good to all men," are first and last Christian ones, not "American" ones. 

As for our guilt, it has been nailed to the Cross in Him. And life is simply too short to expiate any other kind in the sanctuary of our own spirits. It's a sacrifice God Himself hasn't asked of us, truly a fool's errand. And we weren't called to be fools. 

"I Am With You Always", an Easter season sermon, 2020

"I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS"

(Read Matthew 28:18-20)

The simple thing I want to do in this sermon is to ask two questions about the Lord's promise to be with us always.  They are: 

1. In what sense?

2. What guarantees the fulfillment of this promise?

Let's start with the second question. Why? Because as soon as w've understand what guarantees that the promise is fulfilled, it will automatically become clear in what sense the promise is being fulfilled. 

So, what guarantees the promise? 

I'll answer with three words: life, love, and might. 

The LIFE of the Risen Christ guarantees that He is with us: He lives! Nothing can limit Him now. 

John 5:21--  For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

John 5:26-- For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

Conquering death itself, God's Son is now, for those who've entrusted themselves to Him, the continual, inexhaustible source of life. "I am with you always"--yes, for He's always alive, and will eternally remain the incarnation of that Life that has given us new birth by God's love. 

And that, it just so happens, is the second component of the answer to my question: what guarantees this promise? The first part was Life; the second is Love. 

God is love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." "I am with you always." Yes, because He loves us, created us, redeemed us, gave us a second birth into His kingdom, and why? Out of love--pure, divine, original, all-preceding, holy, eternal love. It's God's love that draws us to repentance and then keeps us in covenant with Him. 

Philippians 1:6-- Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

In that love, precisely, that in the unfathomable depth of timeless eternity abounds between the Father and Son. In that very love the Risen Son is working to present us to His Father for the joy of His beloved Father. 

I think the apostle Paul, in the Spirit of Christ, deeply partook of this desire, and expressed this feeling when he wrote: 

Colossians 1:28-29-- He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.  To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

Ephesians 5:27-- And to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

"I am with you always", says the Lord. He declared it in the might of conquering Life, in the might of unquenchable Love. The Lord said these words in Might. That's the third component of the guarantee.

God keeps, maintains, realizes His promise because He is God Almighty. "Who then can be saved?", the disciples asked Jesus one day in bewilderment. And the Lord answered, "With man it is impossible, but with God everything is possible." 

And mark well that the Lord, at the very moment He pronounced those words, already knew with fearsome lucidity what would be demanded of Him so that His Father could consummate, for us, this with-God-possible impossible.... 

Possible, but not easy. Possible, but not without cost. Possible, but demanding the Lamb of God's very last drop of love, might and love. 

And we? We're the recipients of this gift, the gift confirmed by Christ's resurrection, the resurrection by which, in the words of the apostle Peter, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to magnificent mercy, gave us new birth." 

His unconquerable Life, His unquenchable Love, and His indomitable might guarantee and comprise the force and power of these majestic words: "To me is given all authority in heaven and on earth...and, behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." 

All that remains here is to answer the first question that I asked: in what sense is Christ with us? In other words, what does this promise mean in our daily life? Well, in one word: MUCH! So much that I can't possibly sum it all up in one, or even a thousand sermons. But particularly during this time of quarantine, a time of isolation, maybe loneliness and melancholy, an anxious time full of concern for those near and dear to us, and not only, at such a time the Promise of Christ--that is, the personal word of assurance to us from the Risen, Returning King of kings Jesus--means that our isolation is filled with His presence, and not only His presence but His appointment, providence and fruitfulness. 

The prophet Isaiah summoned the nation of his day: "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near." 

Who then, in Isaiah's day, could have imagined the unfathomable way in which God would make Himself Immanuel, God-with-us, always near, faithfully keeping His people, in the face of the Only-Begotten Son Jesus Christ? 

We, however, don't have to "imagine" but abide--abide in the power of His promise, ceaselessly trusting ourselves to Him with that same confidence that rings in the words of the apostle: "I know Him Whom I have believed, and I am confident that He is able to keep that which I have entrusted to Him against that day." 

Our God lives! Christ is risen! 

GOSSIP

(This brief reflection on the nature of gossip, and "why not", was delivered online, during Covid-19 quarantine, at an evening service for youth conducted by my church. It was composed and delivered in Russian. This is a translation from my notes, which doesn't of course match perfectly what I may have said, including spontaneous digressions, at the service. But on the whole it's what I conveyed.) 

When they asked me to talk about gossip this evening, I almost joked, "For or against?" 

Well, of course, "against."

Yet, in point of fact, why "against"? 

It isn't murder, adultery, stealing, it isn't even lying....

"After all I'm telling the truth! Well...probably. Well, okay, there's a commandment against false witness, but if I'm 100% sure about everything I'm passing on, then what's to stop me?"

But what if the gossip is about you? 

"Ah well, that's a different story." 

No, it's not a different story. It's the very same story. But we'll come to this later. 

I told another friend that I'd be talking on this subject today, about how gossip is bad, and my friend, joking, said, "But if it's interesting?" 

Well, yeah, uh--duhhh. 

That's the whole point of the matter. It's easier than easy to reject gossip when it's not interesting. It tempts precisely because you want to find out--there's something delectable in it. 

The Irish writer and satirist Oscar Wilde said, "I can resist anything except temptation." 

I think you catch the meaning of that humor. 

"I can reject all gossip, except the interesting kind." 

Similar humor. 

And though we chuckle at it, the humor itself exposes just what sort of trap this temptation conceals. 

Why is gossip tempting? How does it entice us? .

Maybe you'll find it interesting that the English word [remember, reader, that I preached this in Russian!] for "gossip" is "gossip." And the origin of this word says a lot about the notion itself. 

The first part of the word "gossip" derives from the same ancient root from which we get the Russian word "Gospod'." [Gospod' is the Russian for "Lord."]

"Gos-" connotes mutual relationship, between a host and guest. Both [English] "host" and "guest" derive from this root, since they represent the two sides of the same relationship. 

And the second part of the English word is -sip, which derives from the same ancient root as the Russian words sebe [self], svoi [one's own], sobstvenniy [proper, one's very own]. The English word "siblings" comes from this same root; it means one's own brothers and sisters. 

So "gossip", according to the English term, is an attempt to assert power and superiority, via exposé--yet secret exposé ("strictly between us!")--over those whom I consider for some reason not entirely worthy of my full respect, or, let's say, love. I want to own them, like property. 

And this impulse, this pull, this tug, emerges from our own sense of inadequacy, insecurity, failing of some sort, a certain vulnerability and fear. We fear that others will control, possess, us, and to fend this off we attempt to take control of them first, and with what? 

With a surreptitious exchange of information, news, intelligence, as if through our  knowing everything about them they have been reduced to pieces on our chessboard. 

You could sum up that impulse like this: "Do to the other before he can do it to you." 

But what principle asserted by the Lord does that contradict? 

Matthew 7:12: "And so, whatever you want others to do to you, you do the same to them, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." 

Allow me, in the present context, to lightly paraphrase this principle: 

"Concerning gossip, do to all people what you would do to your closest friend." 

Now, right there in your head, imagine the one person in your life about whom you know, 100%, unconditionally, you would never, with anyone, under any circumstances, gossip; no matter WHAT you knew about this beloved friend, you would rather DIE than say to somebody else about them, "You know what I heard about...?" Even to think about doing so horrifies your soul. So, yes, go ahead, picture that person. Hold that image right there on movie screen of your mind. Do you see them? Okay, now ask yourself this question: 

"WHY would I never gossip about him, about her?" 

Go ahead, ask. And now, answer.... 

You answered? Good. Now, ask yourself another question: 

"Why then would I gossip about anybody else?" 

....

"Concerning gossip, do to all people what you would to your most precious friend."

A high standard? 

Well, what kind of standard are we called to by Christ if not to a high one? 

I said that the pull of this temptation derives from our inner insufficiency. We feel vulnerable, helpless, insignificant, maybe ignored and neglected, and gossip affords us an illusory sensation of power. However much I possess information about others, that much do I own them. Knowledge is power, and power is security. 

That's the essence of the temptation and its trap. It's an utter lie. 

It's not power, it's not even "knowledge" in the positive, fruitful sense, and it isn't remotely security. On the contrary, it's the degeneration of love and defilement of truth. 

And we all know this, because there is always somebody in our life whom we would never hurt with gossip, otherwise we would feel like the most despicable traitor in the world and couldn't live with ourselves. 

We all understand this. 

Which raises the question: How much are we called by God  to cherish, not one, not two, but all our brothers and sisters in Christ?" 

Answer the question for yourselves. 

Every temptation appeals to some need in us that, in fact, is not a sinful need. But sin is the fulfillment of that need by means that contradict and reject God's love, holiness and truth. 

God knows us. He knows our deepest, most crying needs, worries, and feelings of inadequacy and insignificance, and He offers to meet those needs through the wholeness of love, in purity of conscience, and in fully authentic relationships between all God's children. 

Turn to Him for the answer to your needs. His answer will always rest in love. 

We Walk By Faith, Not By Sight

Sermon

 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:7

We Walk by Faith, Not By Sight

The first word that we read here is “Therefore”, which means that Paul is saying, “In light of the foregoing....”, or “The upshot of everything I have already is....” And what is this upshot? That we do not lose heart. If I told you, my friend, I have a secret medicine that, if you take it, will make it so that you never again lose heart, wouldn’t you want that medicine? Of course you would. 

And so, when Paul says “Therefore, we do not lose heart”, we naturally want to see what he wrote before this, to find out what leads to this wonderful outcome, that we do not lose heart. 

And what precisely did the apostle say, to lead to this wonderful outcome? 

V. 14 (read) 

V. 11 (read) 

V. 6 (read) 

3:18 (read) 

3:3 (read) 

2:14 (read)

1:21 (read)

1:5-7 (read)

In light of all these things, which depict the spiritual horizon and eschatological vision of the apostle, he says with confidence, from the depths of his soul, “Therefore we do not lost heart.” 

You and I need that same spiritual horizon and eschatological vision, always, so that we not lose heart. 

Everything else ultimate disappoints, but this horizon only compels us forward, with alacrity and vibrant zeal, in the life of God’s Spirit and the love of His Son. Though we age physically, this horizon, this vision, renews our soul and spirit always. Which is what Paul is talking about when he writes further: 

Read 16b-17. 

The apostle Paul endured and suffered much, and I don’t think any of us would consider such sufferings “light and momentary”. In this same epistle, by the way, he mentions those sufferings: 

Read 11:23-28. 

But Paul considers these sufferings “light and momentary.” How can that be? There is only one way: to keep the Horizon of Christ always starkly in view. In short, to live by this. With open eyes, focused always on the approaching horizon. 

We cannot see that horizon without faith in Christ. “Faith” means we trust Him completely, we believe His word to us about Who He is, what He means for us, what He is going to do, and how we should respond to Him. In all of this, we believe Him and commit our life to Him.  Vot shto znachit “vera”. And by this faith we walk, t.e., we live day to day. And if we do so, then, yes, we do “see” His horizon, by faith. We see what the world does not see. 

This is what Paul is talking about when he writes further: v.18. 

“We fix our eyes”. This doesn’t mean we don’t see what is temporary; of course, we see it, but our most inward and lasting gaze is fixed on the what doesn’t change, on the unchanging truth that stands behind and under and over everything, and from this we derive the strength and wisdom to deal with the temporary, passing things of this world. 

In chapter 5 the apostle, in fact, addresses the biggest, and the most obvious change that time brings, i.e., we grow old and we die. The fear of death holds the whole world in captivity. But the apostle says, “We know.” We know...(read 5:1-4)

(Note on 2: “Meanwhile we groan”—“meanwhile” is where you and I are right now, we live in this “meanwhile”, and “we groan”—has anyone here ever groaned; I think we all know what this means.) 

“...so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” That is the great consummation promised to us and awaiting us on His horizon, and it gives us strength to continue, step by step, here and now, even if sometimes we groan. 

And then the apostle emphasizes this critical point: all of this is God’s idea. This wasn’t Paul’s idea. It isn’t the idea of some organization called “The Church.” This is an idea—but so much more than an idea, it’s a purpose and striving—that is birthed in the very will of the living God. He is doing this. To Paul, it is critical that the Corinthians understand this. Perhaps if they grasp this, truly, the fact that they have been swept up into something transcending their capacity to shape, mold, or direct, and if they are truly ready to surrender themselves wholly to this magnificent movement of God’s grace revealed in Christ, then maybe they won’t have so many problems and divisions among themselves! We all want to be part of something that is bigger than us, like members of a vast choir, where you can’t hear one person singing as a soloist, yet every person in the choir exults over being a small part in something great. That is how it looks with us in the Kingdom of God. The glory and joy of God’s kingdom is shared among us all as His subjects, but among His subjects there are soloists. The idea, and the purpose, and power, and the osuschestvleniye, are His! Paul wants the Corinthians to SEE this. I believe God wants us all to SEE this.

When we see this, we don’t lose hope. (Read vv. 6-7)

If everything depends on me, I give up. But if I’m walking in the stream of God’s great idea and power, I can be full of courage. I can take what the world perceives as a risk, if I know that this is really the Lord’s command. The world doesn’t see the one commanding, but by faith I see. This is what Paul is talking about here.

When I first read these verses as a new Christian, the way verse 6 was formulated, in English, seemed incorrect to me. In English it sounds like this: “We are always full of courage, knowing that as long as we are in the body we are absent from the Lord.” Grammatically, the sentence is saying “We are full of courage because we are absent from the Lord.” But of course, what the apostle means here is, we are full of courage because the only thing that separates us from the Lord is this body, and that’s all! That is so little. And so temporary. We are on the way THERE.

It’s like when you are on the way to see your most beloved friend or relative, and only three kilometers remain until you see each other. You rejoice that it is only three kilometers. Paul rejoices that it is nothing but this thin film of our mortal life in this fallen world that, for now, separates us from the open presence of Christ. It is so close that the apostle already foretastes it.

And that, I am sure, was what got the apostle out of bed every morning…if he had a bed. I’m sure he often didn’t have a bed. You and I need that same driving confidence, and we will not find it in anything that this world offers. When we face dangers, and threats, and opposition, when we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, when we don’t know whether Russian tanks will roll through the streets of Zaporozhye in a week, and maybe everything we are doing for the Lord, in our churches and other ministries, will be taken away and collapse in a moment, maybe tomorrow, it is very easy to think, “Then why should I do anything today?” What is it worth, to start a ministry today, to take a step of faith today, if it can all blow up tomorrow?

What is it worth? It’s worth the joy of the Father when you take the step of faith today that He tells you to take today. Tomorrow is His affair. The faith you show today is a treasure that will last for eternity, and nothing that happens tomorrow will change that. THAT’S how we continue to get out of bed in the morning, like brother Paul, and go forward with courage.

For, says Paul, we walk by faith, not by sight.

If the apostle says we don’t walk by sight, samo soboi razumeetsa, there is something we don’t see. Otherwise we would walk by sight. And so, the Bible tells us that we don’t see. But doesn’t the Bible elsewhere say, from the lips of the Lord Himself, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”? (John 8:12) That means that we do see.

And so, the Bible tells us that we see, and that we don’t see. Which is it? Of course, it is both. The Bible would not tell us it is both if it were not both. In one way we see, in another way we don’t see.

Some years ago, I either thought up or found, or a mixture of both, a mental image that helped me to make sense of this seeming contradiction. This picture contains three parts.

First, imagine yourself in a forest on a pitch black night. There is no moonlight, no starlight, no civilization around. It is the kind of darkness in which you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. However, you can see your hand, and more, because, for some reason, there is a pool of light encircling you, illuminating everything within, let’s say, a three-meter radius. You see enough so that you can take five or six steps confidently. That is “the light of the world”, given to us so that we should not stumble in the darkness.

But beyond that pool of light, it’s dark. You can’t see anything beyond that border. You don’t know what bogs and ditches and fallen logs and wild animals and twists and turns and valleys and mountains are awaiting you on the path ahead. You don’t even know whether the path ahead goes for five kilometers or a hundred! In that respect, yes, we definitely walk by faith, not by sight. Though you don’t know what awaits you beyond the pool of light the Lord is giving you, it is enough that He knows. And all that counts at this very moment is that you take the next step where the Light of the world tells you. That might mean starting a new ministry, or witnessing to somebody, or attending seminary, or making other major life-decisions, when the Lord gives you the light to know this is the right step. But to what will your step of faith lead, out there beyond your pool of light where you cannot see? It is not given you to know. It is enough that He knows. Your step of faith, NOW, glorifies the Father. Your step of faith NOW is fruit that will remain and also the seed of fruit yet to come. “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will remain. (read John 15:8 and 15:16)

But I said there are three parts in this picture, and I have told you only about two of them. The picture remains incomplete if I don’t tell you about the third part.

There you are, surrounded by a pool of light in an impenetrably dark world. But that is not all. Because far, far in the distance—you can’t tell how far—somewhere there on the horizon you glimpse a glow, a burgeoning radiance, and you know: I’m going there. No matter what lies between me and that horizon, no matter what meets me on the unseen path ahead, I am going THERE. That glowing horizon is your meeting with the Son of God

We have the Light of the world in Christ Who is with us till the end of the world. As for what we don’t see, we press ahead courageously in faith. And the final meeting glows on the horizon, always beckoning, pulling us forward, in vibrant anticipation. I want to leave that picture with you today, as a gift, and I hope it will serve to encourage and strengthen you in the days and years ahead.

Amen.

Conspiracy Theories

The Conspiracy Theory is an astonishingly paradoxical device designed simultaneously to flatter the conspiracy theorist's ego with the delusion of omniscience ("Just ask me, I'LL tell you what's really going on behind EVERYTHING"), while relieving him of any inconvenient, discomfiting sense of personal accountability ("Don't look at me to fix anything! The whole system is rigged. We're nothing but pawns in the hands of [the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Jews, the Knights Templar, ETs, Big Pharma, the Matrix, Oil, Google, the Round-Earthers...]!").

Lest I be tagged a conspiracy theorist, I hasten to say that by "designed" I mean the conspiracy theory is designed, not by some malicious outside force, but un-/sub-consciously by the conspiracy theorist himself, darting like a wasp from the bouquet of his insecurities, fears, frustrations and yearning for self-respect.

It's a coping device. What it's coping for, it seems to me from life's observations and some sense of empathy, is usually an aching deep impression of one's helplessness and insignificance.

What better resort than suddenly to know EVERYTHING and be responsible for NOTHING? Thanks to the theory I'm conceptually on top of, in control of, my universe, yet not guilty for failing to do anything because NOBODY can do anything. Just ask me, I'll tell ya.

Two psychic goblins dispatched by one conspiracy theory. Exquisitely neat. Almost as if it was dreamed up just for that....

Like cigarettes, conspiracy theory harms, first, the conspiracy theorist, then those exposed to the second-hand "smoke" ("smoke" being the perfect word for it).

It's, as Mr. Spock might have said, "fascinating" how a complex born of an intrinsically dishonest coping device can invest its victim, as it often does, with an illusory yet, to some, magnetic aura of self-confidence, perspicacity, expertise on just about everything. It's not at all surprising that conspiracy theorists are often the centers of personality cults, gravitated to by "hangers-on" suffering the same psycho-emotional complaints but, for one reason or another, unable to convincingly slap together the same coping device. So they're drawn to his, to bask in its vibes.

Now, they all know everything together, as they frequently signal to each other with knowing smirks. Especially if outsiders are around.

You can't have lived in the real world, rubbing shoulders with real people, for much more than a half-century (far less if you're particularly observant) without having recognized a few such cases--either full-blown or, one hopes, nipped in the bud--among your various circles.

Blessed are the failed conspiracy-theorist-personality-cult leaders (aka pathetic schlemiels) for whom it never took off, who found themselves maddeningly frustrated, marginalized or, to some even worse, treated kindly "in spite of of his...you know...weird ideas...."

I've seen cases like that and thanked God for His mercy on them, because getting what they wanted would have destroyed them and possibly others.

Their salvation lies in the searing desert of their loneliness, where alone God will meet them.

Entirely contrary to the demon-god Conspiracy Theory that promised to give you all knowledge and demand nothing in return, the true and living Redeemer-God will reveal that you know nothing and then demand everything you have, to transform it.

When the disciples in justifiable cluelessness said to Jesus, "How on earth can we possibly feed all these people?", Jesus answered, "What have you got? Bring it to Me...."

You don't know, but it doesn't matter. Meet Him there and give Him all.

God loves pathetic schlemiels. There's some dimension of pathetic schlemiel in each of us. We turn ourselves into clowns, not in any good sense, if we insist there isn't. That's when pathos degrades into farce.

The polar opposite of such farce is "shalom", the healing reality of God's reconciling love, that liberates us equally from the pride-spawned delusion of omniscience and the fear-triggered fantasy of unaccountable insignificance.