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Hiding In The Herd
Rebecca Clancy
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Galatians 3:22-29 Matthew 25:14-17
I recently came across a link entitled, “The Top Five Human Fears.” “What a time waster all these links are,” I said to myself disdainfully.
No doubt you come across them too -- these links with their teaser titles: “This one will make you cry.” “This one will make you laugh.” “This one will surprise you.” “Open to burn belly fat.” “Amazing befores and afters.” “Celebrities Unretouched.” These links seem to exist to prey upon our tendency to procrastinate. Who of us would not rather click a link than pay bills, fold laundry, or clean the cat litter box? So there it was. “The Top Five Human Fears.” “Sorry, Link!” I said to myself confidently, “I am not susceptible to the allure of your charms.”
A few moments later I began wondering if I were a fearful person. “No, of course not,” I told myself. “Just the opposite, I am a brave person… But what if my bravery is an over compensation for my fear?” I continued to ruminate. “No of course not,” I told myself again. “I am a really and truly a brave person. I have high self-esteem and self-confidence, and I am a person of conviction. These are the building blocks of bravery, so I am definitely not a fearful person pretending to be brave…. But I bet that’s what all the fearful people pretending to be brave say to themselves,” I began to worry. “Best to dig a bit deeper,” I cajoled myself. “Best to click the link to see if I resonated with what was fearful to the general run of humanity, of which I am a member.”
Suffice it to say, in this way I seduced myself into clicking the link. When I saw the top five human fears, however, I no longer tossed over in my mind whether I was a brave or fearful person. That question shot out of my head like a sent croquet ball. “How trivial people are in their fears,” was the thought that now vexed me. Procrastination had taken full hold.
At any rate, see if you agree with me about the triviality of people’s fears. Here is the list: number 5: the dark; number 4: spiders; number 3: heights; number 2: public speaking; and number 1: flying. “This is what people are fearful of?” I thought, chagrined. “How banal! How bland! How stereotypical!”
What about the things that are really fearful; fearful, say, at an existential level? What about loneliness? Estrangement? Alienation? Absurdity? Insanity? Futility? Dread? Despair? What about failure? Rejection? Loss? Or the mother lode of them all: What about death?
Or set aside the existential level. These fears are but abstractions. What about things that are fearful at a concrete level? Take world events, for instance. What about violence? The gun violence that massacres innocence all across our country, or the political violence that rages across the Middle East? What about the Leviathan we’ve wrought out of the created order whose avenging devastation is here to stay? What about the Goliath powers and principalities that subjugate us every way we turn? What about all the horrors of history that rehearse the horrors of the future? Nothing that was really fearful made the list. “Where was I when the poll was taken?” I fumed. “I would have given them an earful about fearful.”
As I said, procrastination had taken full hold. I then began to wonder why people had answered so trivially. Spiders? The dark? Come on. It suddenly struck me that they did it on purpose. They delivered the party line, provided the pat answers, took the easy out, deliberately. Beneath the surface, then, their true fear could be seen to emerge. They feared separating themselves from the herd.
Not long ago I clicked on another link. It was entitled, “Deathbed regrets.” The number one deathbed regret was that people had not simply lived their own lives. They lived by someone else’s expectations, lived according to someone else’s “should.” Accordingly, they lived, and they died, regretful and unfulfilled. Of course they did. They lived someone else’s life. Why did they? Why this fear of separating from the herd?
There are many reasons to fear separating from the herd. The herd depends for its existence upon sameness – upon conventionality and conformity. The herd then does not like it when someone differentiates from it. It then criticizes. It judges. It ridicules. It rejects. And say you screw your courage to the sticking place and say to heck with the herd. I will live by my own expectations, according to my own should. I will live my own life. Well that’s just the beginning. Then you have to blaze your own trail, and trails are hard to blaze. They are risky. They are scary. They are uncertain. So there’s a certain safety in the herd. It may be stifling. It may be crippling. It may be dull, but this is the price to be paid for safety. I guess the bottom line is that those who answered so trivially, in that very triviality, indirectly gave expression to a fear that is anything but trivial – the fear of their own individuality.
But what does any of this have to do with us as Christians? Plenty, for this herd mentality tends to be imported into religion. The herd mentality asserts that the highest expression of religion is to look alike, to think alike, to judge alike, to be of a social class, to share the same political enemies, to harbor the same prejudices, to employ the same jargon, and to erect the same facade. And heaven help you if you try to separate from this herd. As I said, the herd does not like it doesn’t like it when you differentiate from it. In this case the herd, often through the appropriate committee, will confront you and demand that you toe the line, and if you don’t, it will shun you in one way or another.
The Bible, for its part, in fact is not supportive of the herd. Believe it or not, one of the mightiest theological choruses that runs throughout the Bible is one that sounds against the herd. Take the immortal words of the prophet Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…..I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…And I will be their God, and they shall be my people….For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Most people know these words, but know little of their context. The nation of Israel was no longer on its last legs. It had been destroyed. And I mean destroyed - with unimaginable violence and decisive permanence. That nation in fact would not be rebuilt until 1948. It fell to the armies of Babylon. The few who survived were deeply traumatized. Any destruction would have been enough, but this was the destruction of God’s nation. Jeremiah was not deeply traumatized. For him the God’s nation had to go. It had become a herd. Self-perpetuating uniformity. Us against them. God’s people aren’t
coterminous with a nation, Jeremiah declared. Nor are they coterminous with a race or ethnicity. God’s people are individuals possessed of God’s heart, regardless of nation or ethnicity or race.
Paul has his own immortal words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Again you know the words, but probably not their context. Christianity was at first housed within the close confines of Judaism, so-called Jewish Christianity. The Gentiles wanted in, but the establishment said no. They weren’t part of the herd. They must become Jews first, circumcise themselves and bind themselves to the Law of Moses, before they could come in. So Paul declared that this Jewish Christianity had to go. God’s people were individuals who had heard the upward call of Jesus Christ and believed in his saving power.
What the Bible is saying is that God’s people should and must be a various assortment of diverse individuals: individuals with unique personalities and interests, unique histories and stories, unique strengths and weaknesses, unique successes and failures. They need share only one thing in common. They must seek as their highest hope and aspiration to glorify the God of Jesus Christ.
Jesus once told a parable. Three servants were a different number of talents, each according to his merit. One was given five, one two, and one just a single talent. The servant with one talent thought he didn’t rate much as an individual. So he hid what he was given in the dirt. This landed him in deep trouble.
There is a negative lesson, here, obviously, it takes the form of a warning. But there is a positive lesson as well: It is this: You do rate much as an individual. You are important as that individual. You are worthy as that individual. You are needed as that individual. You can fill your role in God’s world as that individual. So love yourself and respect yourself as much as God loves and respects you. Expect as much from yourself as God expects of you. And this requires honesty. And this requires courage. And this requires faith. And this requires action away from the herd.
You know, I think I will create my own link. It will be entitled, “Click here for the secret to life.” When it opens there will be but six words: “For God’s sake, just be yourself.” Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
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