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The Rev. Frank
Logue Breaking our false images to discover God
Blasphemy. It is a word that had lost its original punch in English. That is until these past two weeks and even more so these last few days. For the charge of blasphemy is at the heart of the worldwide dispute over cartoons published by a Danish newspaper. No doubt, there are many who are fanning the flames of hatred for their own reasons, which have nothing to do with sacrilegious depictions of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed. State-sponsored rallies in Syria and Iran may seem suspiciously political to us, but it is clear that rank and file Muslims were offended and remain angry about the editorial cartoons. As blasphemy refers to sacrilegious statements and depictions, or other ways of showing contempt for God, then it is undeniable that blasphemy is the right charge from a Muslim perspective. Some Muslims will say that it was blasphemous to portray the Prophet at all as Islam has usually avoided pictures of Mohammed lest the image come to be an object of worship. Others say that it is depicting Mohammed as a terrorist that created the offense. No matter what the initial offense, rallies against the cartoons this weekend have led to 11 deaths in Libya, 15 in Nigeria, where 15 churches were also burned. We shake our heads in incomprehension at the violence begun by 12 drawings. Yet historically speaking, Christians also have blood on their hands. Blasphemy was once a capital crime in some Christian nations, especially during the Inquisition. But to be honest, there is a lot of ugliness in Christian history, which we mostly prefer to ignore—the Inquisition, the crusades, the Christian wars which raged across Europe in the wake of the Reformation, the abuses of Colonial expansion which were aided by Christians and the Christian justification provided for slavery in this country. We too have much for which to answer. Of course, there are also great stories of heroes of the faith whose Christ-like lives serve as an example. Christians can tell with some pride stories of saints like Patrick of Ireland. As a boy in England he was kidnapped by the Irish and forced to work as a slave. He escaped, was trained as a priest and went back to carry the Good News of Jesus to his captors. Closer to home there is Thomas Bray who served just 10 weeks as a missionary to Maryland in the 1600s. But on his return to England, Bray took on mission organizing and funding. Then through his work with debtors prisons in England, where he was beloved for sponsoring beef and beer dinners for the prisoners, Bray hatched the plan for the colony of Georgia as a chance to give prisoners a new start. A third and final example is the men and women who have become known as the Martyrs of Memphis, as in Memphis, Tennessee. In August of 1878 a Yellow Fever Epidemic caused 30,000 people to flee before 20,000 were quarantined within the city. A group of Episcopal nuns known as the Sisters of St. Mary ran a school in the town, which became a hospital during the epidemic. Six nuns and three physicians, two of whom were also priests, headed into the quarantined city to join the other nuns already involved in the relief work. By then 200 people were dying each day. The death toll would eventually pass 5,000 including six of the workers at the relief center. They were, of course, not alone as other Christians took care of the sick only to be felled by the disease. They did it because the times demanded it and interestingly also because their bishop requested it. So now that we have visited briefly the current blasphemy crisis within Islam and the good and bad of Christian history, I want to turn to the Gospel reading this morning. The crowds around Jesus have gotten so great that four men take the unconventional step of tearing a hole through the roof of the house where Jesus is ministering and lower the paralyzed man down to Jesus. Jesus then astounds all by not just healing the man of his paralysis, but using the healing as a proof of sorts that he can forgive sins. Once he has pronounced forgiveness of sins, some say in their hearts that Jesus is speaking blasphemy. This is no minor charge. According to Mark’s Gospel it is blasphemy which will be the charge upheld by the chief priest which gets him to go convince Pontius Pilot to put Jesus to death. So this charge of blasphemy first spoken only within the hearts of those at Capernaum that day will become the public accusation that leads to Jesus’ crucifixion. Blasphemy remained a capital crime in Israel, but the Jews were not supposed to put anyone to death. The death penalty was to remain Rome’s prerogative. The problem was one of mistaken identity. Many of those who gathered around Jesus to hear a great teacher expound on scripture, many more came for a touch from the healer Jesus. Others looked to Jesus to be the Messiah, but then felt that the Messiah would bring military and political overthrow of Rome and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. Each of those conceptions of Jesus was a mistaken identity. Few, even among his close disciples understood Jesus to be the Son of God until after his resurrection. The problem was often that Jesus did not meet expectations. If you were hoping for military revolution, his message of peace, with the meek inheriting the earth and peacemakers being blessed by God would fall short of your hopes. If you came looking for healing, Jesus would heal your body, but seem more interested in your soul. If you came looking for a great moral teacher, Jesus made it clear that that is not what he was. For great moral teachers do not go around saying the things Jesus said. For while it does make sense for me to pronounce in the name of the Church absolution of sins for all who sincerely repent, I can not forgive sins. Not me. That is God’s job. And Jesus was so clearly involving himself in things reserved for God that he would eventually be put to death for blasphemy. So what it comes down to as that we think we no longer suffer from mistaken identity. We know who Jesus is and we have a proper understanding of God. So we no longer do those awful things Christians have done in Jesus’ name. We’ve put the Inquisition and the Crusades and all of that behind us now, so we can shake our heads at the Muslims wondering how they could have gone so wrong in their understanding of God. OK, I’m sure not everyone feels that way, but I’ll own up to the fact that I do. I feel like Muslims need to put the cartoon controversy in context and chill out a bit. As I wrote in Friday’s Tribune & Georgian, quoting the text of one of the 12 cartoons that sparked the riots, “Relax Friends, at the end of the day it is only a drawing by an infidel.” Yet can we be so sure we have gotten it right? Especially while feeling that so many Christians through history have gotten it wrong. After all, psychology tells us that we tend to project our hopes and dreams on God, and in the process can make a God of our own devising. Some use this to say that there is then no God other than our projections of our Fathers and Mothers onto the divine idea. The Christian author C.S. Lewis touches on this in writing, “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?” For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus continually shattered false images of who he was to show us God in a more complete way than had ever been possible. Jesus was God in human form and in our likeness he showed us a godly life. If we want to know if we have gotten Christianity right, we just need to enter more deeply into Jesus’ story. The more you conform your life to Christ’s example, the more you live in line with the will of God. This is not always easy as Patrick and the Martyrs of Memphis show us. To distill Jesus’ life and ministry down to its essence, you need only one word—love. Jesus we are to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and love our neighbors as ourselves. Then he lived out that love. So love is the standard by which we measure our projections of God to see where we have erred. Had those questioning Jesus in their hearts that day at Capernaum done this, they would have seen that Jesus was showing his love for the paralyzed mind by healing him body and soul. As God is love, the love Jesus showed him could not be blasphemy. Love cannot be sacrilegious. The self-giving love Jesus showed is the antidote to the contempt of God and of our fellow man, which is behind blasphemy. I want to close by reciting together the collect for today. A collect is a form of prayer with collects the thoughts of the readings for the day in a particular form of prayer. As we consider how love can be our standard and guide, turn with me in your bulletins to the collect we prayed earlier and join me in prayer: O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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