by The Rev. Todd Jolly
SCRIPTURE READING Isaiah 63:7-9
Transcribed from the sermon preached on JANUARY 1, 2023
A community ravaged by drought, crop failure, hunger, and inflation. Bitter enmity between rival groups. Civil and religious leaders who look only after personal gain and a court system riddled with corruption. A low level of community morale and a vindictive spirit that excludes other nations of the world from any participation in God’s plan save destruction. Sound familiar?
These are the precise words Paul D. Hanson uses to describe Israel in the late sixth century before Christ.
Some of the Judeans who had been serving the Babylonian empire had returned to Jerusalem, the homeland of their great grandparents. It had been seventy years, and none of them had seen the land of Judea. They had raised their families in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley. Now some of them had relocated to the land of their ancestors, hopeful that they could rebuild the nation of Israel. Attempts had been made to rebuild the temple, but the project lay unfinished and largely abandoned. The prophet Haggai tells of the bitter challenges they faced. Says the Lord: When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the winevat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
As happens when a society is under considerable stress, different factions arose, each believing it had the answer to the current difficulties. There was the friction between the laborers the Babylonians had left behind and the newly returned, educated elite. There were the people in red hats shouting, “Make Israel Great Again.” There were the religious zealots who insisted that the fortunes of the nation would turn just as soon as they reconstructed the temple. Mostly, there were the folks just trying to feed their families. People can lose faith in each other when they become hungry and scared. Neighbors can turn on each other in times of crisis. Perhaps it is this demise of trust and mutual support that is the most heartbreaking aspect of an imploding society.
It may be a bit of a stretch to project attributes of Judaism today on Israelite culture 2,500 years ago, but the Jewish culture I know champions serious discourse. Careful argument over important issues is considered respectful and necessary for a healthy community. Members of the community have the responsibility to stay informed on current matters so that they are prepared to debate challenges facing the people. This all sounds a lot like the American ideal of democracy, that is, educated exchange of ideas for the building up of the nation.
In this world view, difference of opinion is not only expected, it is celebrated. The person on the opposite side of the debate is an honored colleague, a beloved member of the same society, in service to the same goal of making us all stronger. My opponent is not my enemy, someone to disown, somebody to disregard, but a compatriot serving the crucial role of questioning proposals in order to find their weaknesses and recraft them in a way that serves the greater good.
Had the returning Judeans become so weak that they could not withstand the criticism of a member of their own community? Have we become so fragile that we must smear, attack, even shoot other Americans who express disagreement with us?
What are the barriers to educated discourse? One obvious obstacle is lack of education. When I think of education, I think of noble institutions housed in venerable halls, built on generations of research and wisdom passed down since antiquity. When some people think of education, they feel intimidated and overwhelmed. They use words like elitist to describe those of us who hold degrees, let alone advanced degrees. Clearly, they have not met Pastor Max! But isn’t that the point? Their experience does not include time spent in the lecture hall, the library, or the quad. They may never have discussed philosophers of the nineteenth and twentieth century. They have not peered through an electron microscope. Nor do they expect ever to have the opportunity to do so. Ironically, there are highly educated and smart people who make it worse, spreading the rumor that teachers are not to be trusted and schools are trying to brainwash students.
Education has an image problem. We need to take advantage of every chance we get to talk it up. Any time we get an opening in a conversation with someone who might benefit from the pursuit of further learning (and which of us cannot benefit?), we need to champion the cause.
Another barrier to educated discourse is misinformation. With the explosion of the internet, and privately owned news media, the age-honored practice of professional reporting and verification of facts has fallen away. When I went to school, I could trust that anything in Encyclopedia Britannica or World Book had been investigated by experts in their field. Now, anyone can write anything and put it on the web, without proof of any kind. If the liars are good with graphics, they can even make things appear real, and dupe gullible people into believing complete fiction.
I think it is likely to be a long time before our lawmakers figure out how to curtail this kind of behavior. Maybe it won’t be lawmakers who solve the problem. Maybe it will be educators who establish the equivalent of a respected and carefully researched encyclopedia online. Maybe Wikipedia is evolving into such a body of knowledge. One thing is certain; we must continue to investigate and speak out when we find falsehood masquerading as truth, just as we did decades ago.
Mental laziness is one of my pet peeves. People who let themselves fall prey to lies just because they do not want to go to the trouble of thinking for themselves, who do not put in the effort to read a newspaper article, or listen to a debate on PBS News Hour or NPR, drive me crazy. I can deal with differences of opinion. What I cannot tolerate is deliberate ignorance.
When confronted with individuals like this, my challenge is to treat them respectfully, even though I am not feeling respectful, and invite them to delve into topics rather than browbeat them into it. I am still working on that. I am still working on the bigger goal, that is, remembering that these are fellow Americans, colleagues, neighbors. They need my support and trust. If we get through this crisis, it will be together. Otherwise, we will not get through it.
This message is more for me than it is for you all. One of the major reasons I stay at St. John’s is because I am able to witness first-hand what educated discourse looks like. You all do it so much better than I do. Being here gives me hope. Even if I am not doing much to address the problems, at least I can see that somebody is here, talking out the issues, informing the congregation, spreading the truth.
Let us make some new year’s resolutions:
• Let us promote education, in its many forms and at its different levels
• Let us continue to challenge falsehood and misrepresentation
• Let us do the hard work of investigation and research, and encourage others to do the same
• Let us remember that those whose opinions are different than ours, even radically different, are our neighbors; they are children of God
If we manage even some of these resolutions, God will indeed smile upon us. May our city, our nation, and our world be at peace. Amen.