WAKE UP!

Matthew 26:43 - Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

You know, I’m jealous of the disciples. I wish I could just check out and sleep all the time. The consequences of the former guy’s f@ckery just keep coming: COVID, Afghanistan, the economic upheaval, Insurrection, lies. It is a lot! I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I’m just so tired of all the bulls#!t.

The situation the disciples were in was similar. They were oppressed, they knew Jesus was in danger, but they didn’t know – perhaps didn’t want to know – that the danger was becoming real that very night. In some ways, many Americans don’t want to know that the danger from climate change, from COVID, from the continuing insurrection, the Republican lies is becoming reality before our eyes. It’s tempting to just check out and sleepwalk our way through life.

And yet. Jesus gave them tools to reclaim their dignity from the oppressive Romans. According to Howard Thurman, “he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.” When Jesus calls the disciples and us to “wake up,” he is reminding us that we don’t have to give in to the fear and hatred that Republican leaders and other oppressors wish to foist on us. I make no apologies for equating those three hounds of hell with the current Republican party. Their actions are designed to create fear, hypocrisy, and hatred in others in order to better control those others.

Jesus’ good news was not for the Romans or rich collaborators. No. it was for those who were on the bottom of the social hierarchy. It still is. For those of us who are not at the bottom, how are we hearing the good news? How are we giving life to the good news? How are we working against those fearmongers, hypocrites, and hate-filled people? Are we making the good news real in our lives and in our communities? How are we loving our neighbors in the midst of the chaos Republicans would like to feed us?

Thurman speaks to this as well. “If … all life is one, arising from a common center – God, all expressions of love are acts of God. Hate, then becomes a form of annihilation of self and others; in short – suicide.” Every act of love, including loving ourselves. Self-care is essential for learning how to care for others. When we choose not to love ourselves, we choose not to love others. When we neglect ourselves in favor of anything else, resentment builds; and resentment often turns to fear, hypocrisy, and even hate.

Will we choose love or hate? Let’s choose love.

B