O Be Careful Little Self What You Teach

October 15, 2000

James 3:1-12

Columbus sailed the ocean blue,

in fourteen hundred ninety-two.

The second verse,

according to some revisionist versions,

puts his "discovery" in a different light:

In fourteen hundred ninety-three,

Columbus infected all he could see.

This last week,

for some of us,

was a three day weekend,

Columbus Day.

Today,

while Italian-Americans

still observe the day

with a strong sense of understandable pride,

others view this holiday

as a fundamental historical lie.

There were people living here

when Columbus arrived,

after all,

not to mention the Vikings

who beat Columbus to the New World

by about 500 years.

Now it's Native American Day,

or Indigenous People's Day.

Columbus,

the pride of Genoa -

no more "discovered" America

than he invented the Internet,

according to James Louwen,

author of the prize-winning

Lies My Teacher Told Me -

a blistering critique

of the high-school history textbooks

our children are poring over

and maybe even digesting

this new school year.

After painstakingly comparing

high-school history textbooks

with original letters, diaries and interview transcripts,

Louwen asserts that

today's history textbooks

serve up a Disneyfied view of the past.

Slippery scoundrels

become heroes

in order to idealize and customize

our patriotic sensibilities,

and -

in more ways than one -

the truth is whitewashed.

Betsy Ross?

Hire that woman's publicist!

Betsy Ross was nowhere near the first flag.

In fact,

she did absolutely nothing

to serve her country -

and to be fair,

few high-school textbooks

even mention her name anymore,

although elementary schools

still honor her as First Seamstress.

Patrick Henry?

Mr. Give-Me-Liberty-or-Give-Me-Death?

Eight months

after declaring that historic pronouncement,

Patrick Henry commanded "diligent patrols"

to prevent slaves

from joining British troops

during the Revolutionary War.

The slaves had been offered a sweet deal:

freedom in exchange for

fighting against their owners,

many of whom were "the Fathers of our country."

Abraham Lincoln?

Lerone Bennett Jr.,

editor of Ebony

and author of works on black history

such as Before the Mayflower,

asserts in his latest, critically acclaimed book

on Abraham Lincoln

(Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream
[Johnson Publishing Co., 2000]),

that Lincoln was

in his private life

a crude bigot

who habitually used the N word

and had an insatiable thirst

for blackface-minstrel shows

and degrading "darky" jokes.

He further asserts that

Lincoln's fondest dream

was of a "lily-white America

without

Native Americans,
African Americans
and Martin Luther Kings."

Columbus

rates his own chapter

in Louwen's book.

Not only were

over 20 million people already here

when Columbus "discovered" America,

but most people in 1492

already knew that -

duh! -

the earth was round.

Even the dullest slacker

watching a ship

sail away from any European port

had figured it out years before.

Washington Irving -

the Oliver Stone of his day -

popularized the mythology around Columbus,

from promoting him as the

"man of science

who corrected our faulty geography"

to hyperbolizing everything

from Columbus' seafaring adventures

to his death.

Louwen's latest book,

Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong,

takes on the

roadside markers, guided tours, and museums

which teach we average Americans

their U.S. history.

He highlights

"the birthplace cabin of Abraham Lincoln" in Kentucky,

built 30 years after Lincoln's death,

as well as a monument in Idaho

dedicated to victims of a "horrible Indian massacre" -

although the massacre never occurred.

No wonder James starts

right off the bat saying,

"Not many of you should become teachers" (3:1)!

Words yield enormous power.

James Louwen repeatedly illustrates

how the choice of a single word

can have an overwhelming impact on history.

Does a textbook

call Native Americans "savage"?
Are slaves described as being "simple-minded"?

Words go beyond political correctness.
They impact historical correctness.
They impact theological correctness!

Words can set a forest ablaze! (v. 5).

James' letter notes that

the untamed tongue can spew

fiery words,
staining words,
poisonous words,
cursing words
and sometimes even

blessing words.

What I want to get at here

is that we do our darndest

to tell the truth.

For once we start telling less than the truth,

it is difficult to get back on line.

James tells us that

teachers are judged by higher standards

because they must use their tongues -

those unwieldy little agents of iniquity.

Fact is,

we are all teachers.

Parents are obviously a child's first teacher.
Children teach adults every day.
Strangers teach us all kinds of lessons.

We don't need construction paper

and a Bible under our arm

to teach.

We teach others

by the words we speak,

which is what James is talking about when --

just preceding this lesson -

he tells us

"faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (2:17).

Our language is part of the "works" others notice.

Words

in the form of stories

we tell about ourselves

weigh heavily upon our perceptions -

the way we see the world,

the way we see ourselves,

the way we see God.

The reason I start

with our nation's history

as the place of lies told,

is that if we believe all that we were told,

our history and our destiny

all line up in a pretty little package...

and we,

of Northern European descent,

are simply carrying out God's will

in this our given land.

If we're not careful,

we can allow ourselves

to believe a very dishonest story...

Columbus discovered.

There were a few savages here

all willing to help the newcomers...

Things went along,

native people moved out west

via U-Haul.

Slaves came in boats

singing Spirituals.

Then the Continental Congress met,

made some decisions,
fought a war

we were bound to win

against the British

because we were the good guys.

Our nation expanded westward

as we immigrated and propagated.

And we roll over

19.5 million native Americans

who died of

disease, starvation or violent means

brought by Northern Europeans.

We roll over

the people brought in chains

from their home lands

to be slaves.

In this telling of the story

they are but speed bumps.

It is not difficult to believe

we are God's gift to this land...

and all that it has to offer

is for our exploitation and consumption....

we then enter the land

of historically located arrogance.

Makes me think of words the Apostle Paul wrote

to the church at Rome,

"For by the grace given to me

I say to everyone among you

not to think of yourself

more highly than you ought to think,

but to think

with sober judgement,

each according to the measure of faith

that God has assigned (12:3)

Or to the Galatians,

"Share each other's troubles and problems,

and in this way obey the law of Christ.

If you think you are too important

to help someone in need,

you are only fooling yourself.

You are really a nobody." (6:2-3)

Or to Timothy,

"As for those

who in the present age

are comforted by money,

remind them

not to be haughty,

or to set their hopes on

the uncertainty of their wealth,

but rather on God...

tell them to

use their money

for good,

they should be

rich in giving

to those in need."

As I read this,

and as I hear the teachings

of the car commercials,

and the SUV commercials...

We all have seen the commercial

where a couple comes out of the restaurant

on their first date

and she uses her reflection in a nice car window

to check her look.

It's not his car.

His is the Ford Tempo behind that car.

And he acts ashamed.

The announcer says,

"Time to buy a Galant."

And the message is,

"It's all about

look and image."

As I look on the catalogues

that come in the mail

offering all sorts of stuff

I didn't know I needed

until I looked in the catalogue...

You know

if you go to the racetrack

all you can buy

at the race track

are Pepsi products,

and yet

there are ads

for Pepsi products.

They are reminding you of

your thirst,

your desire.

I become sad.

Because what my life

may be saying

is that it's more important

for me to buy this stuff

that I desire,

that I have been taught

to thirst for,

than it is

for me to make sure

people are getting fed...
their real thirst being quenched...

that it's more important

for me to buy this stuff

that I desire

than to ponder

the effect on the environment

to make it, drive it or discard it

when it no longer

quenches my thirst...

And as we practice it,

we teach it to our children

and our neighbor's children.

I get scared because

in the end,

I fear we will have to explain

to the rest of God's creation

why we were so haughty,

so clear that

their suffering came second

behind our desire to consume.

The sin we are committing

is buying things

before giving...

based on a core belief that

we can act and order our lives

as if we stand alone on this planet.

And have you thought about

what evil is?

Evil is doing wrong --

sinning --

which is forgivable,

but evil happens when

we sin

and don't ask forgiveness,

evil happens

when we sin

and call it good.

When we teach ourselves that

we are simply fulfilling our destiny

by fulfilling our desires,

we fool ourselves into believing

it is inevitable,

it is natural selection at work

on a national level,

we continue a lie

that has been told

for as long as anyone can remember.

We are teaching ourselves

to forget how to think

there is anything but us...

we no longer know how to blush.

The only time

the word "blush"

shows up in the bible

is in making reference to people

who don't know how to blush.

Jeremiah says it this way,

Therefore the showers have been withheld,

and no spring rains have fallen.

Yet you have the brazen look

of a prostitute;

you refuse to blush with shame. (Jeremiah 3:3)

Are they ashamed

of their loathsome conduct?

No, they have no shame at all;

they do not even know how to blush..." says the LORD. (Jeremiah 8:12)

I think

we need to be careful

that we not become a showcase

for all the nations of the world

to look on

as an example of

"...gaining the whole world

but losing our soul."

there is a consistency

throughout the bible

regarding God's preference

for people who

give life and lose life and gain life.

we would be wiser

to take a more humble approach

to telling our story

and asserting our place in history.

There is another way...

of the one who

makes the lion

lie down with the lamb

instead of

consuming the lamb.

of the one who

gives bread daily

to those in the wilderness,

of the one who

beats swords

into plowshares.

Illustrations I found in preparing for this Soul Talk

Looking back on her childhood,

author Anne Lamott discovers that

some people believed in God as a borderline personality.

"It was like believing in the guy

who ran the dime store,

someone with a kind face

but who was always running behind

and had already heard

every one of your lame excuses

a dozen times before -

why you didn't have a receipt,

why you hadn't noticed the product's flaw

before you bought it.

This God

could be loving and reassuring

one minute,

sure that you had potential,

and then fiercely disappointed

the next,

noticing every little mistake

and just in general

what a fraud you really were.

He was a God

whom his children could

talk to, confide in and trust,

unless his mood shifted suddenly

and he decided instead

to blow up Sodom and Gomorrah."

-Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies
(New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 7-8.

can be read through the prism

of John's Apocalypse,"

says historian [Bernard] McGinn,

coeditor of a recent three-volume

Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism.

In the 12th century,

for example,

the Crusaders saw

the recapture of Jerusalem

from the Muslims

as a defeat of the Antichrist.

Christopher Columbus set sail

thinking his voyage to India

would hasten the return of Christ to earth.

For the same reason,

Oliver Cromwell

readmitted Jews to England

after the English civil war,

thinking his victory

would establish the New Jerusalem

on British soil.

Isaac Newton wrote a book

on the Biblical prophecy,

hoping to prove that

"the world is governed by providence."

"In Puritan New England,

America's greatest theologian,

Jonathan Edwards,

studied John's Apocalypse

and calculated that

the millennium of Christ's kingdom on earth

would begin in the year 2000.

-Kenneth L. Woodward, "The Way the World Ends,"
Newsweek, November 1, 1999, 69.

Tokyo's largest department store

decided to have

its first-ever Christmas display.

On the first day of Advent,

the management called in the VIPs

of the city's British colony

for an unveiling.

The nonplused bigwigs

were confronted by the biggest Santa

they had ever seen ...

nailed to a cross.

Last year,

this delightful tale -

possibly apocryphal -

inspired the McGillicuddy Clan's float

in the Christmas parade at Hamilton, New Zealand.

The cross was adorned with foliage

in the manner of the Swedish midsummer Stang festival.

The float was excluded

as "bad taste

and contrary to the spirit of Christmas."

-"Santa Crucified," Christchurch Press,
1993, www.urbanlegends.com.

Mr. Lohr said

my purple teepee

wasn't realistic enough,

that purple

was no color for a tent,

that purple

was a color for people who died,

that my drawing

wasn't good enough to hang with the others.

I walked back to my seat

counting the swish swish swishes

of my baggy corduroy trousers.

With a black crayon,

nightfall came to my purple tent

in the middle of an afternoon.

In second grade,

Mr. Barta said,

"Draw anything."

He didn't care what.

I left my paper blank

and when he came around to my desk,

my heart beat like a tom-tom

while he touched my head

with his big hand

and in a soft voice said,

"The snowfall.

How clean and white and beautiful."

-Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
(Deerfield Beach: Heath Communications, 1995), 211.

Isaac Bruce

made the game-winning touchdown

against the Tennessee Titans in the Super Bowl,

he gave credit to God.

"It was all God.
I knew I had to make an adjustment on the ball,

and God did the rest."

Sports fans are accustomed

to this kind of piety.

Players regularly kneel to pray

in the end zone,

point to the heavens in thanksgiving

after a touchdown,

and offer "Thank you, Jesus"

for victory in the postgame interview.

Though we hesitate to criticize

any passion for praising God,

we do wonder

on such occasions

if the one being praised is

the God of Jesus Christ -

the God who

disciplines those he loves

and who

sends rain on the just and unjust -

or some more domesticated gridiron god.

Can we really discern

just how God is acting

in the ups and downs of life?

More to the point:

If God was positioning

the Rams for a touchdown,

what did God have

against the Titans?

-Editorial, "God squad,"
The Christian Century, February 16, 2000, 171.

legendary female pontiff,

was said to have reigned as John VIII

from 855 to 858

until her male disguise

was exploded by labor pains.

In fact,

Benedict III

succeeded Leo IV in 855

after a period of only a few weeks.

One of the earliest forms

of the legend

is found in the 13th century

by Stephen of Bourbon;

according to him,

Joan was elected pope in Rome

in c. 1100,

but upon giving birth

during a papal procession to the Lateran Church,

her imposture was discovered

and she was taken out of the city

and stoned to death.

She was often known as

Agnes or Gilberta

or simply remained anonymous

until the name Joan

became the standard form

in the 14th century ....

The legend was accepted as historical

for many centuries

and seized upon

by Protestant reformers

in the 16th and 17th centuries,

but after the 18th century

the myth began to lose credibility.

-Dave Wilton, citing Larousse's
Dictionary of World Folklore, www.urbanlegends.com