Reality Check

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

I just finished reading Kurt Anderson's Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. His premise is that ever since we came to America there have always been people who think that reality is whatever they decide it is. The result has been cults, pyramid schemes, witch hunts, quack medical cures, conspiracy theories, and Satanic panics. We have people on both sides of the political spectrum denying science, folks dressing up as superheroes at Comic Con, Civil War re-enactors, guys pretending to be modern day soldiers and shooting at each other with air soft guns, and people who want to live in Disneyworld. Some of these fantasies are relatively harmless in that they, as Thomas Jefferson said, neither pick our pockets nor break our legs. But some are harmful, especially at a time when we have some major real world problems to solve and yet some people are doubting there is such a thing as objective truth. We already have deep-fake videos which make it look as if a real person is saying or doing things they haven't. In the newest Indiana Jones film for the first 20 minutes they convincingly make 80 year old Harrison Ford look like he did 40 years ago. P.T. Barnum once sewed together the bodies of a monkey and a fish to create the Fiji mermaid for his museum. Imagine what he could do today! He'd have a YouTube channel and a Twitter feed.

In today's gospel reading Jesus is dealing with perception and reality. He compares the people of his time to children playacting and being upset that the other kids aren't going along with them. Each group has their very own made-up reality. Sound familiar?

This inability to see reality extends to their perceptions of John the Baptist and Jesus. John was very much an Old Testament kind of prophet. He was also an ascetic, abstaining from wine and various foods in a form of self-discipline that went beyond the dietary laws all Jews had to observe. His message was one of judgment on the corruption of the leaders and the spiritually and morally lax behavior of the people. He is represented in Jesus' metaphor by the children wailing and playing a funeral dirge.

Jesus by contrast was not an ascetic and is represented by the children playing a dance, as folks would at a wedding. Jesus liked to compare the kingdom of God to a wedding feast. (Matthew 22:2-14; 25:1-13). What's more, he ate and drank with people that were considered outcasts by the religious leaders: tax collectors and sinners. Jesus said to those who were upset with his approach, “Those who are healthy don't need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

There are still people who think the primary purpose of the church is to condemn sinners and make sure they are punished. They misunderstand the gospel. The Greek word for gospel, euanggelion, means “good news.” To evangelize means to proclaim the good news. As I heard a preacher once say, some people instead approach the gospel this way: “Hey, have you heard the good news? You're going to hell.” That is not good news.

This doesn't mean we tell people what they want to hear. John the Baptist was delivering the diagnosis: everyone, rich or poor, religious or not, was spiritually sick. The prognosis was that this spiritual illness would lead to spiritual death if untreated. As physical death separates us from our loved ones, spiritual death separates us from God.

Jesus delivers the good news that there is a cure. He is the great physician, who can heal us from this dire disease. But just as you have to trust the doctor to heal you and you have to follow the doctor's orders, so also we have to trust Jesus and do what he says we should do. But going on their faulty perceptions of Jesus, a lot of people could not bring themselves to do that. They didn't think Jesus was holy enough.

People often form ideas about Jesus based on impressions they've picked up from others rather than investigate him themselves. So they might think he was always disapproving of innocent things, including things he never mentioned. Other people think he was all about approving everybody regardless of what they do. The truth is Jesus didn't condemn people but he did condemn certain thoughts, words and actions which people are responsible for. He said people who were enraged with a member of their community, or who insulted them by calling them empty-headed or a moron would be answerable for their sin. (Matthew 5:22) He was against adultery, even if it was only lusting after someone in one's heart. (Matthew 5:27-28) He was against retaliating for the way someone treated you. (Matthew 5:39-42) He was against hatred for your enemy, saying you should love them instead. (Matthew 5:44) He was against violence even if it was motivated by defending Jesus. (Matthew 26:51-52) He was against people paying lip-service to God but not actually doing what he wants us to do. (Matthew 7:21)

Jesus accepted people who acknowledged their sin and repented. (Luke 19:2-10) He was for forgiving others (Matthew 6:14; 18:21-22) He was against harsh punishments that didn't give the person a chance to change their lives. (John 8:3-11) He was against blaming people whose misfortune was not their fault. (John 9:1-3) He was for helping those who were hungry or sick or imprisoned or immigrants. (Matthew 25:34-40) He was against rules that stopped people from helping others, even if the rules were religious. (Mark 3:1-6) He was against stopping other Christians from doing good works in his name because they weren't part of “our” group of Christians. (Mark 9:38-40)

Jesus' critics could not see past their prejudices to perceive the hand of God in the good he did or the wisdom of God in what he said. They actually accused Jesus of casting out demons, that is, healing people, with the help of the ruler of demons. They didn't see God's Spirit at work in Jesus. People whose thinking is so messed up that they think good is bad and bad is good can't be helped because they don't recognize the one who can help them. (Matthew 12:22-32) The problem is that people who think they are really smart can get so caught up in their sophistication and cleverness that they miss the obvious. Kids on the other hand often see through the elaborate foolishness we adults frequently fall for. My brother, an amateur magician with 50 years experience, says the hardest audience to fool is that of children.

It reminds me of Hans Christian Anderson's story of the emperor's new clothes. If you remember, 2 swindlers convince the emperor that they can weave him clothes so fine that only the stupid or incompetent won't be able to see them. They go to work on “making” the clothes and nobody comments on their loom seeming to be empty because they don't wish to appear foolish or unfit for their position. The emperor pays the “weavers” a fortune and they “dress” him in his new royal finery. The word of the new clothes reach the townspeople and when the emperor parades before them no one dares say anything for fear of looking incompetent. And then a child states the obvious: “The emperor has no clothes!”

In that spirit, Jesus thanks God that his wisdom and goodness, which is lost on the worldly wise, is not missed by those who, like little kids, see things as they really are. Things that heal and help are good; things that harm or hurt people unnecessarily are bad. Jesus healed and helped and fed and forgave people. He was doing God's work.

And yet there are still folks who think Christianity has done more harm than good. As I said last week, secular historian Tom Holland would disagree. Without Christianity the modern world would not accept the idea that might doesn't make right, that mercy is preferable to ruthlessness, that the weak and the poor have rights, that people should forgive others, and that all people should be treated equally well. We would never have derived this from the Greeks and Romans and pagans. For instance, Paul took the then common form of the household code where everyone in the family was told their duties and he subverted it. He told husbands they should do more than provide for their wives but should love them and be faithful to them as well. They should not exasperate their children. In a world where thousands owned slaves he told their masters not to mistreat them because they too have a Master in heaven who shows no favoritism. (Ephesians 5:25-6:9) Thinking, as many of anti-theists do, that most people today would magically have these ethical values without Jesus and Christianity is living in fantasyland.

And yet such folks rightly condemn the church when it violates the values Jesus taught. Which means they agree with Jesus about this. When the church has gone wrong, it is because it has forgotten Jesus' principles and sought power and money and ignored his call to love all, including enemies. Jesus foresaw that self-proclaimed followers of his would act like the Pharisees he opposed. He said of the last judgment, “On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds? Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!'” (Matthew 7:22-23) That will be the ultimate reality check.

C.S. Lewis, in his book The Screwtape Letters, saw that one diabolical way to keep people from seeing the truth was to make them fear and fight against the threats that are least likely to affect them. Thus we still have people worried about socialism and communism at a time when even Russia and China have gone capitalist, and yet these people ignore the fact that these countries show that it is possible to have both capitalism and a dictatorship. People complain that their views are not heard at the same time anyone can go on the internet and find a forum to say anything, including the most easily disproved lies. Some people are convinced that celebrities are kidnapping millions of children to drink their blood whereas less than 1% of child abductions are committed by strangers. The vast majority of child abductions are committed by parents in a custody dispute and more than 90% of those children are returned home alive. This kind of thinking is like looking up at the sky, worrying about getting hit with a meteorite, instead of looking both ways when crossing a busy street.

And some Christians have gotten caught up in fearing unlikely things while ignoring real problems. They have worried about Satanic child abuse while ignoring the child abuse happening in some churches. They have preached more about maintaining traditional lines of authority in families and less about the things that really destroy families: lack of commitment, infidelity, too much conflict, marrying too young, financial problems, substance abuse, and domestic abuse. They have concentrated more on maintaining denominational and doctrinal purity and less on doing what Jesus commanded us to do: show the love of Jesus to others by all we think, do and say. These other things are diabolical distractions from what we need to be concerned about.

If there's one big thing I disagree with Kurt Andersen about in his book Fantasyland, it's his attitude toward religion. As an agnostic, he feels all religion is magical thinking. He traces the origin of the concept that everyone has a right to their own reality to Martin Luther saying everyone should interpret the Bible their own way. That's not what Luther said. He felt that everyone had the right to study the Bible for himself and that the church did not have the sole authority to interpret it. Luther felt that if the person read the Bible with the guidance of the Holy Spirit the basic truths of the gospel would be plain. He did not approve of all of the groups that came out of the Reformation, especially some of the radical Anabaptists who believed they received new direct revelations, or who used violence to usher in the New Jerusalem. Had Andersen researched the history of the church he would know that there have always been those who cherry-pick a few parts of Christianity and then run wild with them.

The big problem Andersen has is that he doesn't give us a good definition of reality. How can you pin down what is a fantasy if you don't lay a firm foundation of what reality is? Any definition would have to account for the existence and persistence of religion throughout all history and all cultures. The definition of reality would have to deal with the fact that scientific studies show that belief in God tends to go along with better physical health, including a better immune system, lower blood pressure and greater longevity. It gives life meaning and people a purpose in life, both vital parts of good mental health. Prayer and other spiritual practices can reduce stress and anxiety. At a time when loneliness is epidemic in society, a person's religious community can lead to friendships and support. While deaths of despair from substance abuse and suicide are increasing, those attending services weekly can reduce that risk by anywhere from 33 to 68%. And studies have shown that religion is vital to the formation of a civilization.

Andersen's idea of reality is that the universe is a somewhat clumsy “but astonishing accumulation of happy accidents with nobody in charge.” Really? The number of the atoms in the universe are 10 to the 78^th or to the 82^nd power. That's between ten quadrillion vigintillion and one hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms. They all have to somehow be arranged into a universe that is fine-tuned to allow for life without design or guidance. That would be like having a million Lego sets and expecting them to accidentally come together in an exact, life-sized and working model of the Millennium Falcon. And then having that happen trillions of times in a row until you had the whole Star Wars universe. Does that sound realistic? Or does that sound like fantasy?

Up until the age of 12, it is hard to convince children that there isn't a God or a purpose behind everything. Like the kid in the tale of the emperor's new clothes, they see what is obvious. Kids enjoy fantasy but they know the difference between it and reality. It was adults who convinced themselves that narcissistic conmen like Jim Jones, or David Koresh, or Keith Raniere, or L. Ron Hubbard were either God or the person with all the answers to life. These people lied and harmed people. They did not live up to their own standards. Eventually that reality came out to the world.

Jesus says, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” If I or any other human said that it would come off as a humble-brag or a contradiction in terms. Why do we not feel that way about Jesus saying it? Because from everything he said and did, we know it rings true. He didn't use his power for himself but for others. He was betrayed by a follower but he did not betray his disciples, even asking those who came to arrest him to let them go. (John 18:8) Jones and Koresh decided all their followers should die with them.

You can find cults or religions that tell you that sin and evil or even the physical world are not real. You can find ones that tell you that just by believing you can be rich or successful. You can find ones that tell you that you are God. But the Bible says God originally made a good world and he created us in his image. We misused and abused and neglected his good gifts. But in Jesus, God's son, we see what God is like and we see what we can become: children of God. Those who didn't like the reality Jesus revealed about them killed him. But God raised him to life again. And those who encountered the reality of the risen Jesus, who saw and touched and ate with him, told everyone they met, even when it cost them their lives. But their persecutors couldn't kill the gospel and it is still making real changes in people's lives.

When Paul and Silas left Thessalonica after a riot by their opponents, they came to Berea. We are told, “These Jews were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) They did a reality check on the gospel and found it to be true. We Christians need to be discerning. We mustn't get distracted by unlikely threats and irrelevant issues or ignore the obvious or retreat into fantasies of how we'd like reality to be. We need to be clear-eyed and clear-headed. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) How we think and talk and act needs to reflect the reality of Jesus and his love.