One of the most horrific scenes in the Bible appears in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The despot Herod, informed that the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem, orders the slaughter of all of the children in that region under two years old. Unimaginable carnage and despair followed. And the text tells us why Herod took this desperate measure: he was "frightened." Fear, especially fear with titanic energy behind it, has terrible consequences.
Right now, we are awash in fear. It is feeding political and ideological extremism in ways we have not seen in fifty years. It is persuading people they need to own military-style rifles with clips capable of shooting hundreds of rounds quickly. It has led people to believe we need to build walls and to deport undocumented immigrants. It is the principal fundraising strategy of many gun rights organizations and it has been the centerpiece of recent political campaigns. It is the bread and butter of many of our sources of news and information.
We are afraid to send our children to school. We are afraid of flying--the simple process of getting on an airplane includes a dozen signals that we are at risk. We are afraid of dramatic changes in the environment (so largely choose to ignore them), afraid of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, afraid of terrorists, afraid of mental illness, afraid of cancer, afraid of all the more banal shocks that flesh is heir to.
Our dialogues about matters of public importance are often unproductive and corrosive because they involve one collection of fears arguing with another. This was the genius of the Russian meddling in our election. It seems to me wrong to say that it preyed on our political divisiveness. What it preyed on was our competing paradigms of fear. They will do more of it. It worked beyond their wildest dreams because, in our fears, we let it.
Maya Angelou once said that courage is the most important virtue because it makes all the other virtues possible. That seems to me exactly right. And on re-reading the second chapter of Matthew this morning, I was reminded yet again that while we need to be compassionate and loving and tolerant and forgiving and generous and so on and so on, there is something we need to be first: brave.
If the massacre in Florida is to be something more than just our latest national tragedy, then it will be so because of the lessons of courage that it contains, that are modeled for us, and that we take seriously and follow. The assistant football coach who threw himself over students to protect them. The teacher who was killed ushering students to safety. The voices of the young survivors who are calling out defiantly and strongly and resolutely for change, right here, right now.
The story goes that after meeting with Herod and standing in the presence of his rage and paranoia, the three wise men followed a star and visited an infant in a manger. Through their witness of the power of light and grace, they were changed. They turned their back on Herod's violence and fear. And they went home by another way.
It's our turn.
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