I imagine that many of you have decorated
your homes for Halloween by now. October is the season of scary things of all
kinds; and many of our homes reflect that. My grandson Tanner has always liked
decorating for Halloween. This year, he decided that he wanted to use a spider
theme; so, his whole house, inside and out, is full of spider webs – the artificial
kind, of course. He was thrilled when I gave him a big, black, hairy, plastic
spider to put right in the middle of the biggest web in their front yard! Now,
my own tastes run more towards smiling jack o’ lanterns and little ghosts that
peer out from behind picture frames on my end tables. (If my ghosts even said
“Boo!” they would do so politely, I’m sure.) The scariest that I get is a
string of ghost lights that climb up my staircase and shine softly each night
until Halloween. But Tanner is a 5-year-old boy; and he wants to do scary – and
what’s scarier than a spider?
I recently ran across a poem about a
spider. It made me stop and think about my reactions in this season of things
that frighten us. The poem is by Nikki Giovanni; it is titled “Allowables.”
I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her
I don’t think
I’m allowed
To kill something
Because I am
Frightened
Let that sink in for just a moment. “I
don’t think I’m allowed to kill something because I am frightened.” Maybe
fright isn’t a good enough reason to smash something out of existence. But,
sadly, self-control isn’t our first response to something that scares us. When
we’re scared, our adrenaline starts to pump, and our “fight or flight” reaction
usually takes over. If we can’t run away from what scares us, we try to fight
it. Just like lawmen in the wild west, we tend to shoot first and ask questions
later. And the things that scare us usually get the worst of it, whether that
thing is a spider or a snake or a bat. But this poet is questioning our right
to do that. Is it all right to kill something simply because it scares me? The
truth is that even things that scare us are part of God’s creation, too. Maybe
they deserve our tolerance, if not our respect.
But maybe I’m making a mountain out
of a molehill. Who cares if we kill a few spiders, anyway? Well… maybe no one
(except the spider, of course). But the attitude that it’s OK to get rid of
anything that frightens us can itself become frightening when we start talking
about other human beings. People can be scary, too – or so we are told. The
last few months, especially, have been filled with all kinds of talk about
other people that is intended to scare the pants off us. Whole categories of
people have been pictured as scary… threatening… even dangerous. Why, you can’t
turn around without hearing someone or other warning us about the threats from
whole groups of people. Illegal immigrants from Mexico have been accused of
being drug smugglers, murderers, and rapists. Never mind that many of them are
very hard-working and ready to do the jobs that we don’t want to do! If they’re
in our country illegally, they must be threatening. Refugees from the Middle
East are vilified as potential terrorists. Everyone who has a Middle Eastern
heritage is under suspicion. Remember the recent comment that compared refugees
to Skittles candy? “If you knew that there were three poisoned Skittles in a
bowl, would you eat a handful of them?” If we’re not careful, they’ll
infiltrate our country and kill all of us! Even some of our police officers who
are sworn to protect us (and who do a very good job of that most of the time) have
bought into the “shoot first and ask questions later” mentality when their
adversary is an African-American. Why? They’re frightened! Maybe all of us are,
these days. That’s what happens when someone tries to divide us from one
another. We’re told that “those people aren’t like us.” And after we hear that
often enough, we start to believe it. They turn into “the Other,” and we start
to be suspicious of everything about them. What appears to be a friendly smile
from a stranger might mask deadly intentions. Pretty soon, we’re scared of everyone
but the people we know personally. And when we’re frightened of something…
Well, I think I’ve already covered that. We shoot first and ask questions later.
Can we get past being afraid of one
another? If we can’t, we may be doomed to endless cycles of violence born of
fear. Christian writer and thinker Thomas Merton asked, “What can we gain by
sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us
from ourselves?” We Christians, of all people, should realize that fear and separation
is not the kind of world that God intends for his children. A world of
suspicion and mistrust is the exact opposite of the Kingdom of God! So this
morning, I have two suggestions that might start to get us out of the bog of
fear in which we are sinking. First, let’s reject the “us-them” mentality that
some people are trying to shove down our throats. We are all of us children of
God; and all of us are infinitely precious
and beloved by God. Remember that Jesus hung out with the very people who were
considered to be “the Other” in his own society – tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers,
even Roman soldiers! Jesus reminded us that those scary people were just as
valuable as the pillars of the Jewish community. And maybe we’ll find out that
the scary people in our own society today are just as valuable as some of the
politicians who are running for office. But there’s a second step; and it’s
just as important as the first one: let’s refuse to be afraid. How many times
in the Bible do you think that the words “Fear not!” appear? On the basis of a
very quick search of the Bible, the answer is 63. 63 separate times God or one of God’s messengers tells someone
not to be afraid! On the other hand, how many times does God tell somebody to
be afraid? Not once! Maybe there’s a lesson for us there.
This morning’s scripture reading
(Psalm 27:1-6) is a great example of someone who takes God at his word that we
don’t need to be afraid of anything. The psalmist isn’t afraid of the wicked,
or of his enemies, or of an army that is camped around his city, or even of a
war! Why? Because he trusts God! Trusting God even in situations that look
impossible is what we are called to do. If we trust God, we will do what God
asks us to do. And what is that? Why, to love one another! The first letter of
John hits the nail on the head when it says, “There is no fear in love. Perfect
love drives out fear.” (I John 4:18a) Does that work? Can we really get rid of
our fear of other people by loving them? Well, it may not work for spiders and
snakes and bats. But we could certainly try loving other people and see what
happens. Do you know what I think? I think that if we rejected all the hate
speech, and we didn’t listen to people telling us to be afraid of one another,
and tried loving everybody, that the world would be a better place. Maybe we
should trust God like the psalmist did – and like Jesus did. Who knows what
wonderful things might happen!
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