Glenn Beck’s God is not my God

I imagine that many of you watched or read the news yesterday, as I did, and saw the pictures of people gathered on the mall in Washington DC, at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

There conservative talk show host Glenn Beck stood at Lincoln’s feet, looked out across the crowd and declared, “America today begins to turn back to God.”

As I listened to him speak, it suddenly became clear to me. Glenn Beck and I may both call ourselves Christians, but we don’t worship the same Christ or the same God.
Today’s scripture readings crystallize that difference.

“Let mutual love continue,” we heard from the Letter to the Hebrews. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

And then Jesus also speaks on hospitality, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.”

These two verses speak to something that is at the heart of our faith – to welcome the stranger, to love the enemy, to reach out to those on the margins.

It is not just a New Testament concept. The verse from Hebrews alludes to the Jewish patriarch Abraham preparing a feast for three strangers who appear at his tent, strangers who he later learns are, indeed, messengers from God.

Centuries later, when Abraham’s descendants are wandering in the wilderness, God has Moses deliver this message on how they are to live when they reach the promised land:
“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

From Moses to Jesus, from Abraham to Paul, the message of radical hospitality, regard and respect of the Other, is repeated time and time and time again.

This ethical injunction cuts across all societal, racial, cultural, religious, and ethnic boundaries. People of faith have a responsibility to reach out to and care for those who are not of our own inner circle.

One commentary I read this week makes this observation: “The frequency of this admonition testifies not only to its importance, but also to the tendency of xenophobia (fear of strangers) in society and among the people of God.”

It is an admonition that seems especially important for us to hear now, in a time when that tendency to fear the Other is in full bloom across much of our country.

We see it in the Arizona immigration law that recently went into effect, a law that gives police the authority to ask people to prove their citizenship or immigration status – questions that most likely none of us would ever be asked.

We hear it in the congressman who, on the House floor, urged the repeal of the 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born in this country because, he claims, terrorists have a scheme to have babies here and then raise them to kill Americans.

We hear it in efforts to amend the law so that our places of worship can become armed fortresses where the stranger is greeted with suspicion, not hospitality.

We see it in polls that show increasing numbers of Americans believe that our president is a Muslim and not really an American citizen, and in Glen Beck’s claim that the president has “a deep-seated hatred of white people.”

We hear it in Christian ministers who plan to commemorate September 11 by burning copies of the Koran.

And we hear it in the hysteria that greets plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site, and attempts to block the building of mosques in other American cities from Tennessee to California.

A piece I read this week by Will Bunch, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, put it this way: “In 2010, a large swath of the American public has declared an all out war on ‘the Other’ in America in all its alleged forms, from immigrants to Muslims to non-white aides working in the West Wing of the White House, to, of course, the president himself.

“And it is threatening to rip America apart.”

Bunch has spent much of the last year traveling around the country, talking to people, seeking the source of the outrage and anger that seem so prevalent among many Americans.

“What I discovered,” he writes, “was fear – some of it innate and much of it whipped up by high-def hucksters on TV and in talk radio and even in the corridors of political power.

“Much of that fear,” he notes, “centered on one simple fact – that America is increasingly becoming a non-white dominated country.”

In other words, the Other is increasingly around us, not just on the street corner looking for day labor, but in the Oval Office, the very seat of power.

Changes and the unknown often arouse fear in us. I believe there is something innate in that.

But fear is one of the greatest impediments to showing and receiving hospitality. And scripture reminds us that acting out of fear is not faithful.

We hear it in today’s reading from Hebrews. “We can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’”

We are reminded again in 1 John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

So how can we faithfully react to the fear of the Other that is so rampant? How do we address the fear that we find in ourselves.

I think we begin, as Glenn Beck suggests, by turning toward God.

In practical terms, that means not buying into the climate of fear that so many in the media and in political power seem eager to whip up. It means finding out the facts, the truth of a situation.

It means having empathy for the Others around us. It means looking at the Hispanic woman registering her children for school and remembering that our ancestors, too, came to this country as strangers looking for a better life for their children.

It means looking at those who want to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York and remembering that many Muslims worked in the World Trade Center and died in the September 11 attacks.

It means realizing, as Jesus says, that we are blessed by those who differ from us.

It means regularly reminding ourselves of our baptismal covenant, whose questions lead to the heart of what it means to be a Christian, not only in what we are to profess and believe, but in how we are to live out those beliefs in our actions each day.

The last two questions, in particular, address our relationship with the Other.

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?”

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

The answer to both questions is the same, “I will, with God’s help.”

Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of another rally at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial, a rally in which a quarter of a million Americans of every color and creed came together to show their support for justice and freedom for all people.

The culmination of that rally was a speech by one of this nation’s greatest prophets, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King, too, urged Americans to turn towards God. But the God to whom he prayed and the country he envisioned are the antithesis of what we heard yesterday from Glen Beck.

Dr. King that day spoke mostly of the civil rights of African Americans, but if he were alive today I believe that he would include Hispanics, Muslims, and all others who are marginalized in his dream of a better America.

That dream of which he spoke is deeply rooted in the Gospel, a call for us to help establish the Kingdom of God here and now.

It is worth hearing part of that dream again, to remember what our nation will look like when we truly turn toward God.

“I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
“I have a dream today.
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’
“If America is to become a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
“Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
“Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
“But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
“Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
“Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Amen.