Scream

During the years I spent mostly in my studio as a working artist, I would occasionally reflect on Norwegian Edvard Munch’s famous portrait “Scream,” a sordid face reflecting the terrorized human condition.

I preferred images of flowers and photographs of my children. But I never was far from Munch’s ghastly scream.

I stumbled into this week still trying to come to grips with the racial hatred that motivated a slaughter in Buffalo. Then came Uvalde: Nineteen children’s bodies near those of two adults who tried to save them. How do I deal with this? What do I say, and to whom?

Jennifer Rubin is absolutely right: “No sane society would permit this.” Gun reform was adopted in a matter of days after shootings in New Zealand, Australia, England and elsewhere. The argument that constitutional “freedom” gives every American 18-year-old the right to bear weapons of war is clearly insane. Look at the evidence. Listen to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson famously declare that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

I believe in prayer but it feels both hypocritical and profane to call for prayer while merely shaking our heads over mass shootings. God knows we’ve had occasion to make change, starting in 1966 when Charles Whitman first climbed the tower at the University of Texas to get clear shots at the 16 people he killed and 49 more he wounded. Our schools have been killing grounds ever since.

We’ve elected officials who have such cowardice they prefer praying over bodies of children to showing some courage by confronting the N.R.A. at its Texas gathering. The money pouring forth from the gun lobby is blood money, every drop of it. Any politician who wraps his hands around that money has no right to wring his hands in a charade of grief and call for prayer.  

Prayer isn’t what we need today, as if this is God’s problem. Robert Hubbell rightly noted last night, the problem is ours to address. Adopting laws and policies that prohibit such shootings is our job now. “It’s on us.”

Until the “leadership” of this country acts, not with a call to prayer but with a set of policies and laws, scream. Go ahead, scream. It’s at least an honest response to Uvalde and Buffalo and a half-century of our children’s innocent blood.  

Sh...

When it comes to those who have a leadership role – a Senator, maybe, or a CEO – I’ve always most admired the quiet ones.

I don’t know Warren Buffet personally but he strikes me as someone who doesn’t bellow and scream. I imagine he talks. I thought it was admirable when my father’s biography was published under the title “Quiet Diplomat.” There’s something that feels honorable, maybe humble, about those who speak softly no matter the size of their stick.

In recent months, President Biden has taken a fair (or unfair) amount of abuse for his failure to excite the Democratic troops. It’s alleged that he doesn’t have a message, or that he doesn’t deliver what he has. He stumbles over his words; occasionally true. He lacks a towering rhetorical presence; probably so.

Biden’s predecessor still loves the roar of the crowd; he’s diminished if there are empty seats. He has the volume turned up on any microphone he uses. He’s eager to rouse his loyalists with red-meat lines, “Lock her up” being one of the earliest and most enduring. He’s happy to shout his views and have them echoed by the masses. The truth of what he trumpets doesn’t matter. What matters is volume. Noise.

I don’t really know Biden’s view on bold rhetoric. Maybe he admires it. Maybe it’s what he aspired to offer when, as an adolescent, he clinched his jaw and steeled his mind to slow down the stuttering that led classmates to snicker. Neither do I know what this President says to families of slain soldiers when I see him touch their shoulders, lean in close and whisper. Biden is a man acquainted with grief, and the truth of grief always outweighs the photo op. Grief whispers, it doesn’t shout.

All this, it seems to me, echoes Biden’s career as a Senator. He was not the one most  likely to give rousing speeches. He was usually spending his time building relationships within his Party and across party lines. He knew that consensus was the only path to legislation, and he embodied it. He listened. Imagine that.

Critics point out that Biden owes it to his supporters to be a political leader during these days of blazing competition. They accuse him of not leading if he speaks gently. I beg to differ. 

Robert Hubbell recently pointed out, when reflecting on the President’s management of the U.S. economy, that during the years of the previous Administration, America’s national debt increased every single year. Trump was so eager to reward his cronies with massive tax cuts (for corporations and the wealthy) that he sunk the nation ever deeper in debt.

By contrast, says Hubbell, “during Biden’s first year in office, the deficit decreased by $350 billion and is on track to decrease by an additional $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The latter will be the biggest decline in a single year in American history! And for the first time since 2016, the Treasury Department is planning to pay down debt for the current quarter.” Biden said all this in a press briefing last week. He said it softly. No one gave him headlines.

There’s something gracious about quiet leadership. It feels classy. In the face of intractable problems, it exudes its own kind of confidence, as if the analysis of mind-stumping issues is suited to reverie, as if hard decisions require some thoughtfulness enhanced by reflection and silence.

I worry some about President Biden’s low poll numbers. I wish he were more popular. But I don’t wish he were noisier. I think he’s done a stellar job at everything except, perhaps, selling himself. If Republicans reclaim the House or Senate in 2022, I’ll be profoundly disappointed (read: bordering on suicidal ideation). But I won’t yield my notion about what constitutes actual leadership.

The leadership I crave calls for the willingness to sacrifice for a vision, the compassion to care more deeply for others than for oneself, and the quiet courage to put oneself at the mercy of a harsh and sometimes cruel public. I like it most when all this comes wrapped in a soft-spoken, reassuring, honorable quiet that drowns out a frightened child’s stuttering.

A Word for Washington

The National Cathedral in Washington DC is sometimes called “America’s Church.” It was chartered by Congress in 1893, built on the highest point in the city. It’s the cathedral where funerals of presidents are held, where prayer services are convened during national calamities.

I was stunned to be invited to preach at the Cathedral in early 1999. With the invitation came the text I was to use. It came from the Sermon on the Mount as retold in the Gospel of Matthew, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” Being no expert in righteousness, I ended my sermon on a topic I know: evil. 

Reading the sermon recently, I said to myself, “I could preach that one again.”

…Matthew’s text reminds us we need to “be a light” to the world, that we need to be “righteous” – more righteous than the religious leaders of our day, or we’ll “never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

Well…I’ve craved a lot of things in my life.  “Righteousness” has not been high on the list. The closest I came to liking the word “righteous” was dancing to the music of The Righteous Brothers – who, as it turned out, weren’t. 

When someone says “righteous,” I hear “self-righteous.” I think of hypocrisy, frankly.  I think of people who use religion only when it is convenient, who dress up in confession only as a last resort when every other alternative has been exhausted. I hear so-called leaders describe their opponent’s adultery as “bestiality,” and his own as “youthful indiscretions.”

One word we should not be unwilling to use is the word “evil.” When all individual behavior is reduced to psychology, and all group behavior is reduced to sociology, there’s not much room left for evil. He killed his parents “because he was a troubled child.”  They massacred their neighbors because of “years of hostility.” We assassinate our opponent’s character because “it’s politics.” Another explanation for these things would be “evil.”

We need both the courage and the clarity to call evil “evil” when we see it; else we – as individuals, as a church, as a nation – will never know the value of being righteous.

Somewhere in our political battles in this nation, we need to draw the line closer to civility, because when we stray across that border we flirt with evil. And the church, God’s family, must say so.  Else “the salt” has already “lost its savor,” and we have lost our purpose.

When we tolerate bias and prejudice as the basis of our public policy, we are not merely “following the polls.” We’re following evil. And the church, God’s family, must say so.  Else our light has gone under a bushel, and we’ve lost our value.

When we say those with cancer deserve research, those with heart disease deserve funding, and those with AIDS got what they deserved – we are not speaking “candidly.”  We are speaking evil. And the church must say so. Else we have no integrity, and no courage, and no righteousness.

But if we do pursue righteousness, according to The Great Sermon, we come to a place where our hostilities and our fears and our anxieties are put to rest.  We arrive at a place where we can – in the words of Habbakuk the prophet – see God coming across our barren fields, arms outstretched, assuring us of His love. We hear the words of Jesus’ Great Sermon: “Don’t be so anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or what you shall wear.  Look at the birds sailing above the Cathedral: they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and yet your Father feeds them….  Seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be yours as well.”

It’s hard not to be anxious.  When our relationships are torn, when our careers are at risk, when we watch the virus having its way with us…it’s hard not to be anxious.  But here’s a word for those of us who are anxious: Our father knows us, and what we need.  If he will feed the birds, he will cradle his children.

We come together for worship. And then we go home, you to your struggles and I to mine. But having seen you here; having looked across this great sanctuary and having felt the power of your prayers; I will go home encouraged that common people can be uncommonly good.

I will tell Max, when he sees his mother’s sick bed and remembers his father’s deathbed, that if desperate times come, and he is all alone, there is a community of faith where he can take refuge. And I will tell Zack, when he grows silent and frightened, that there are righteous people who will defend him.

If, in fact, I should need to leave, I look to you to tell my children that I have not left them; I have only gone a little ways ahead. Tell them you know I saw God coming across the field, because you heard me say, “My God…!” Tell them that they will rejoice again, laugh again, roll on the floor and be silly again – because if he will feed the birds, he will cradle his children.

And know that, as you speak to my children, I will be offering this benediction: “Grace to you, and peace.”