Smash Your Statues, Drown Your Idols

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son,

Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University

“When he got near the camp and saw the bull calf and the dancing, Moses was furious. He hurled the tablets down and shattered them in pieces at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it in a fire. Then he ground it down to crushed powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.” 

(Exodus 32:19-20)

Every November 13th in Bristol, England, schoolchildren are given large sweet buns mixed with dried fruits and tasty spices. These massive buns come with eight wedge marks, all the better for breaking off and sharing with other children and their families. It’s a fine lesson in practical charity, and the buns themselves are named after Edward Colston, one of the most noted philanthropists in Bristol’s history. When he died in 1721 he left a legacy of giving that continues to this day—walk the streets of Bristol and you’ll see buildings, schools, and churches founded or sponsored by Colston still bearing his name. The one thing you won’t see, at least anymore, is the statue of Colston that used to stand in the city’s center, as it was toppled, desecrated, and shoved into the nearby harbor on June 7, 2020 by protestors enraged by the police murder of George Floyd in the United States. For Edward Colston, benefactor of Bristol, model of Christian charity, namesake of a delicious children’s treat, made his fortune selling kidnapped Africans into slavery.

We live in the midst of a literal historical reckoning. As millions spill into the streets the world over to protest police brutality and anti-black violence, people are taking long, hard looks at their countries’ histories and reconsidering who are worth revering. These “reconsiderations” are particularly pronounced here in America, a land still steeped in legacies of racial hatred and mob violence. Statues of colonizers and slaveholders dot our public buildings and national landmarks, and even now there remain an estimated 1,800 monuments, statues, and official symbols memorializing the Confederacy (most of which, tellingly, were erected during the Jim Crow era to intimidate newly freed black communities). And now many of these are getting the Colston treatment. In Richmond, Virginia a statue of Robert E. Lee was desecrated with graffiti. In New Orleans a bust of John McDonogh, public school patron and slave magnate, was toppled and smashed. And in Boston, a famous statue of Christopher Columbus, one of the greatest butchers in human history, was beheaded.

The point of these protests isn’t to erase history, but to tear down the false idols erected to enshrine false legacies. How can any nation who purports to believe in egalitarian equality dedicate public space to men who enslaved their fellow human beings or fought a war to keep them in shackles? In the Book of Exodus, we can find an eerie parallel to our current national crisis of conscience when the Israelites, fresh from a 400 year captivity in Egypt, turned from the God who freed them and erected a golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai. This golden calf was more than just an idol, as some scholars believe it was an Apis Bull, an object of cult worship in Egypt. It would seem that just as the Israelites grumbled in the desert for the bread and meat of their captors, they grumbled too for their gods. Just as we in the West cling to the imagined legacy of charitable slaveholders and magnanimous colonizers, the Israelites clung to an imagined history of prosperity in bondage.

Moses’ response was swift, brutal, and effective. Not only did he destroy the golden calf, he had it crushed, mixed with water, and consumed by its worshippers. They were, quite literally, forced to choke on their blasphemous idolatry. So now must we in the West also choke on our own false worship. In particular, we as a larger Christian community must stand as an example and follow Moses’ example and exorcise the false idols of white supremacy and racial violence from our pasts. Though we believe in the sanctity of all God’s children and the ultimate salvation of all who truly repent of their sins and follow Jesus—slaveholders and colonizers included—there’s no reason to preserve their legacies of bloodshed and terror. It’s not just the moral thing to do, it’s the biblical thing to do. It’s time we cast our idols into the harbor next to the golden calf and Edward Colston.

Joy,

Love's Modesty

“Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant.”

1 Corinthians 13:4 (Common English Bible)

              It is reported that Abraham Lincoln once made a speech before a huge audience and was greeted with a loud and long applause. As he was leaving the podium, a man said, “That was a great speech Mr. President; listen to how they enjoyed what you said!” Lincoln, in his usual self-deprecating manner, responded, “I am kept humble by the fact that the crowd would be twice as large if I were to be hanged.”[i] Always modest, never vaulting himself or puffed up, Abraham Lincoln cared little for his own reputation. He did not need to. His love for his country, his desire for useful service characterized by empathy, humility, and respect for opposing opinions made him as large as the monument erected in his honor in Washington, D.C.

              “Love,” the apostle Paul writes, doesn’t brag, nor is it arrogant. These two qualities of love are closely related to each other. “Doesn’t brag” refers to outward conduct and behavior; “isn’t arrogant” refers to an inward disposition. Together they characterize someone who is modest, ready to stoop to serve. We think again of Jesus on that dark night that he was betrayed. On their way to the Upper Room the disciples disputed as to who of them was the greatest. Each of them presented arguments for their own claim to the highest honor. The result was that when they arrived to the Upper Room and took their seats, not one of them would stoop to the humble service of foot washing. So Jesus rose from the table, took a towel and a basin, and began to wash the disciple’s feet.

              The church in Corinth is experiencing quarrelsome behavior that is dividing the faith community. Various members are elevating themselves, declaring possession of the greater spiritual gifts. The one who has the gift of tongues believed they exercised a gift beyond compare, especially over the more plain and practical gift of prophecy. The same manner of boasting and argument infused the discourse over any number of spiritual gifts. Rather than placing each gift at the disposal of the community, to bless and build, competitiveness became the order of the day. The result of all the boasting was friction and strife. The cure for all that, writes the apostle Paul, is love – a love that has no mark of brag, or swank, or swagger. Genuine love, love that builds the community of faith is modest.

              Love never seeks to assert its superiority. The love that Paul desires for the Corinthian Church is one that serves, seeking the welfare of others. That love takes no notice of the worthiness of another. Nor does it seek acknowledgement. Only one concern is present – to serve another in a manner that eases the strain and burden of life. It is a love that is captured by the belief that God continues to be at work in the lives of individuals, reconciling them to God and changing them into something so much more than they presently are. As this demonstration of love takes possession of our souls, what is ugly, and bitter, and broken in our lives is diminished. What increases in our hearts is patience and love that knows no jealously and celebrates the gladness of another.

Joy,

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[i] James G. Cobb, “Real Love, Real People…What an Idea!” in Preaching 1 Corinthians 13, ed. Susan K. Hedahl & Richard P. Carlson, (St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2001), 108.

Paul's Keynote Address

“Love never fails.”

1 Corinthians 13:8 (Common English Bible)

One of my most dramatic experiences occurred one evening during a semester of study in Coventry, England. I gathered with other students to attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Coventry Cathedral. Hung from the chancel wall of that cathedral is a large tapestry that depicts Jesus seated in power over all creation, his two hands held up as if to communicate a blessing. We listened to the beautiful music from that oratorio, aware that we were being grasped by it’s message about the way the world ought to live, that we are to follow the way of Jesus and his example of love. As the Hallelujah Chorus began, the lights of the cathedral were dimmed, and then extinguished all together, leaving a bright spot light on the tapestry – a bright light on the seated Jesus offering his blessing to the world.

I was overcome with emotion. I stood to exit the cathedral to keep my tears private. As I turned my back on the chancel, turned my back on the seated Jesus now lit-up in the darkness, the visual impact almost brought me to my knees. The light on the tapestry was reflected on the all glass facade of the cathedral. Just outside of that cathedral, which was constructed following the Second World War, are the ruins of the original cathedral destroyed in the war. The visual impact that I experienced was Jesus seated in power, hands raised with a blessing, juxtaposed over the brokenness and devastation of the world. Since that evening I have often reflected on what it would mean if the world were to give itself completely over to the love of Jesus Christ.

This chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church, chapter 13, is regarded as his keynote address – Paul’s great oratorio of love. Like the twenty-third Psalm, this is one of those passages of our Bible that is so saturated with imagery, and beauty, and power that the substance of our faith reveals itself in uncommon ways. While it daunts the reader it also fascinates and challenges. For in this hymn of love, Paul does more than assert the supremacy of love. Here, Paul declares that it is love that gives every other gift its value. He names many of the treasured gifts of the Christian faith – the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, a sturdy faith that can move mountains, and a generosity beyond compare and boldly states that they amount to nothing without love.

Paul turns the searchlight onto our lives. In our Christian walk, in our corporate worship, do we have love for one another? He helps us examine ourselves deeply and honestly. Are we patient with one another? Are we kind? Do we practice humility rather than arrogance? Do we put aside irritability and complaints and the insistence on our own way and consider the well being of others? Have we developed the capacity to think beyond ourselves to consider what may be best for the larger faith community? Paul is relentless. He pushes the question further. Do we still behave as a child who protests much when things are not going our way or have we matured in the faith and placed away childish things? This is how Paul concludes his keynote address. And the question lingers for each one of us to answer, have we love for one another?

Joy,

Breaking and Remaking the Temple - Faith in a Time of Rioting

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son,

Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University

“At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 

The earth shook, the rocks split…” (Matthew 27:51)

Once again, within our lifetimes, our country is torn by civil unrest. Enflamed by widely disseminated smartphone footage of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, until he suffocated to death, organized protests have popped up in more than 200 cities demonstrating against police brutality. For many, particularly those in minority communities, the George Floyd killing was the final straw: memories of Rodney King in Los Angeles, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York City, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and untold more have boiled over into an angry wave of civil disobedience. While the vast majority of the protestors have been nonviolent—living less than a mile from Barclays in Brooklyn, one of the national hotspots for the demonstrations, I can personally attest to this—there has still been looting, vandalism, and the wholesale destruction of property on the part of many so-called “activists.” And while many police have acted responsibly and even admirably—in several cities officers have actually marched with and demonstrated alongside the protestors—there are still widespread reports of unprovoked police violence such as the use of rubber bullets against non-protesting bystanders and tear gas towards accredited members of the press.

Social media has been awash with images of the unrest, and several are undoubtedly bound for the history books. But one of the most powerful, in my opinion, show the walls of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City the morning of May 30 after demonstrators desecrated them with antipolice slogans the night before. It’s an image to make one pause: here’s one of the oldest, grandest, and most sacred cathedrals in America, one which since its initial dedication has seen two World Wars, twenty-seven presidents, and countless worshippers baptized, married, and eulogized. Images like these shatter the aura of timelessness surrounding our holy spaces, reminding us of their presence in the eternal now. The church’s eyes might be lifted towards the eternal, but these pictures force us to remember and reexamine God’s mission in our everyday lives. So yes, the graffiti is a tragedy. One day the spray-paint will be washed away and St. Patrick’s Cathedral will seem as timeless as ever. But right now it—and the rest of the Christian community—is on the frontline of these riots.

How then should we react to these demonstrations? First, we must remember that civil disobedience and nonviolent protest are baked into the very DNA of Christianity. Jesus himself preached in the shadow of a violent colonizing force. His teachings flipped the societal status quo on its head, forcing the authorities to acknowledge the humanity of their subjects even as they repressed them. Consider Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek: by doing so, victims would force assailants to strike them a second time with the palm of their right hand (the left hand being unclean and unsuitable for striking), which in the customs of ancient Rome signified them as socioeconomic equals. We must also remember that destruction need not be a profane act. In fact, destruction is frequently a prelude to renewal. Remember that upon Jesus’ death, the Temple in Jerusalem was struck by an earthquake, the Temple curtain being torn asunder and the very stones smashed apart. The old ways needed to be destroyed before they could be restored with God’s new covenant. But—and this is important—nowhere do the Gospels say that anyone in the Temple was harmed or killed. In stark contradiction, the violent upheaval of the Temple led to the breaking of tombs and the resurrection of many “holy people” who returned to Jerusalem and “appeared to many people.” (Matthew 27:52-53) The destruction sanctified and gave life, it did not take it.

Perhaps we would do well to remember the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., one of the architects of the American Civil Rights Movement. At a speech given at Stanford University in 1967, King famously reflected on the widespread rioting that ravaged the country. “I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots,” he declared. He then delivered one of his most shocking (and frequently decontextualized) statements: “But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” When we see the riots in our streets, the protests, the demonstrations—and yes, even the vandalism and destruction—we Christians must ask ourselves what we have failed to hear. What must we do to restore the Temple now that it’s being smashed again? How do we preserve and protect life without denying it?

Joy,

When You Don't Know

“Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is – what is good and pleasing and mature.”

Romans 12:2 (Common English Bible)

              My wife, Grace, and I celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with an eight-day Caribbean cruise. That was in November of 2012 – four months after beginning a new ministry that took me from the Philadelphia area to Delray Beach, Florida. The last day was a sea day, the ship making its way back to Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Placing an assortment of oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies on a plate someone approached me, thrusting his hand toward me for a handshake, and said, “Hello Dr. Hood.” Naturally, I was startled. I am on a cruise ship of nearly 3,000 strangers. Who could possibly know me? The stranger continued, “I am a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach. I saw you board the ship. I’ve been watching you during this cruise. I wanted to see what kind of man you were when you didn’t know you were being watched.”

              That is a good question for any of us. What kind of man, what kind of woman are we when we don’t know we are being watched? This question reminds me of a presidential race several decades ago. Suspicion whirred around one candidate, suspicion about his private life and fidelity to his marriage vows. The candidate boldly told the press, “Follow me. Watch me!” Apparently, he didn’t believe they would. They did. And he was caught being unfaithful to his wife. That was the end of his presidential run. What kind of man, what kind of woman are we when we don’t know we are being watched? It is a good question.

              The apostle Paul teaches us in his letter to the Roman Church that each of our lives are being molded and shaped by one of two forces, either by the world or by God. The world has its patterns and desires which would shape our lives and God has another pattern and desire for us. Fortunately, says Paul, we have a choice in the matter. It is a matter of where our attention is focused. Attention to the values and priorities of the world will result in feelings of scarcity, a fear that there is simply not enough to go around. Our response becomes one of struggle – wrestling with others to ensure our fair share. Attention to God and God’s values and priorities results in concern for others and generosity. The world will create a man or woman that is selfish, self-centered, and fearful. God creates a man or woman that is secure in God’s care and embodies hope for the future. Again, teaches Paul, we have the freedom to choose.

              The Christian life is a life lived in, through, and for God. Attention to God through regular prayer, reading the Bible, and intentional practices of obedience to what we hear in scripture increasingly conforms us to the image of Christ. Neglect of these things thrusts us into a default position of being conformed to the brokenness and disintegration of the world. Over time, we become someone who lives in the dark, fearful that someone will see what we are ashamed of. The apostle Paul is urging the church to recognize the negative and destructive forces of the world that seek to grasp us and shape us. “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world,” writes Paul. Rather, “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” That is accomplished by living into a relationship with God. It is then we are not ashamed of what others see when we don’t know we are being watched. My conversation with the man on the ship ended that day with his gentle and gracious comment, “I look forward to you being my pastor, Dr. Hood.”

Joy,

In the Silence We Hear, in the Stillness We See

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son,

Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University

“My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.” 

Psalm 131 (Common English Bible)

Since it began earlier this year, the global COVID-19 quarantine has had some truly remarkable effects on nature and the environment. Earlier this month an international team of scientists announced that the sudden halting of, among other things, factory production and car usage has resulted in global carbon emissions dropping by 17%. All around the world this reduction has revealed itself in shocking, unexpected ways. The perennially smog-drenched skies of Los Angeles are clean and blue for the first time in many people’s memories. The sediments traditionally churned up by Venetian boats have settled so completely that animal and plant life have returned to the city’s formerly mud-choked waterways. In Delhi—the most polluted city on earth—pollution has dropped so drastically that residents can now see the stars at night. I’ve personally experienced the effect this quarantine has had on New York City: for the first time since moving to Brooklyn almost three years ago I can actually smell the salt water of the Atlantic ocean.

Writer Julio Vincent Gambuto has described this period as the “Great Pause,” and indeed it seems as if the entire world is holding its breath. But it’s not just the environment that’s paused, it’s life itself for billions of people. Jobs have been lost, leaving countless families in financial limbo. Close-knit communities have been disrupted as people have been forced to abandon public gatherings. Parents have been stressed as schools have closed, forcing them to provide 24/7 childcare even while working. Marriages have been strained and tested as some couples have been separated by hospitalizations and others cloistered together in tiny living spaces for months on end. And for those self-isolating in quarantine, the days themselves have become a blur, the days running into weeks, the weeks running into months. Is it Monday, Wednesday, or Saturday? March, April, or May? What does it matter when they all seem the same?

Yet this pause need not be a negative one. In a recent sermon, Rabbi David Edleson of Temple Sinai in South Burlington, Vermont explained thusly: “I think it is very tough for many if not most of us just to sit still, just to BE home, to be present and to be content. This is a spiritual opportunity for growth. For stopping the focus on what we can’t do, and finding ways to be more content doing nothing, or doing simple things with those with us.” Indeed, the need for peace, silence, and nothingness is baked into the very DNA of the Abrahamic faiths whose God rested on the seventh day of creation. Our scriptures are all filled with visions of quiet and calm, of sabbath rests and high holy days, of fasting and contemplation. When Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, he rebuked the very winds with the word “peace.” Perhaps this “Great Pause” isn’t a curse but an opportunity to draw closer to God.

Psalm 131, one of the shortest psalms in the bible, provides one of the most striking visions of finding contentment in times of stillness and quiet. One of the fifteen Songs of Ascent—psalms believed to be sung by worshippers traveling to Jerusalem during pilgrim festivals—it celebrates calming oneself as an act of surrendering one’s pride before God, and with it one’s anxieties about the present and future. This ego-destruction frees us from the illusion that we can control our destinies, and that we are therefore responsible for the unexpected catastrophes and uncontrollable set-backs in our lives (a delusion common in America’s up-by-the-bootstraps culture). By submitting ourselves to the stillness of God, we release ourselves from psychological self-bondage. In this way we find a contentment in peace that is healing, not distressing as we rest in a pause that is holy, not destructive.

Joy,

Stuck Like Stockdale

The following meditation was written by Doug Hood's son,

Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University

‘Now, compelled by the Spirit, I’m going to Jerusalem. I don’t know what will happen to me there. What I do know is that the Holy Spirit testifies to me from city to city that prisons and troubles await me. But nothing, not even my life, is more important than my completing my mission. This is nothing other than the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus: to testify about the good news of God’s grace.”

Acts 20:22-24 (Common English Bible)

On September 9, 1965, naval pilot James Bond Stockdale was shot down while flying a mission over North Vietnam. Forced to eject from his disabled plane, Stockdale parachuted down into a village where the inhabitants brutally beat him and turned him over to the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war. For the next seven-and-a-half years he was held in the Hỏa Lò Prison—the notorious “Hanoi Hilton”—where he held the dubious honor of being the most senior naval officer in captivity. During this time he and his fellow captives (including future senator John McCain) were savagely tortured, starved, and interrogated. Their treatment was so severe that inmates took it for granted that they’d eventually be broken through torture and forced to make anti-American statements. New arrivals were coached by other prisoners to do whatever it took to survive. “But you first must take physical torture,” they were solemnly warned.

As an officer, Stockdale’s captivity was particularly brutal; when he was repatriated in 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming he couldn’t stand upright or walk. But he nevertheless maintained what little composure he could, implementing a code of conduct for his fellow prisoners and routinely disfiguring himself so he couldn’t be used for North Vietnamese propaganda. Reflecting on his captivity in later years, Stockdale explained his mindset to business writer James C. Collins for his book Good to Great. He said that the prisoners who didn’t survive the Hilton were the optimists, the ones who believed that they’d be rescued or freed in no time. He explained that the key to withstanding extreme hardship was brutal realism: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” [Emphasis added] Collins would term this seemingly contradictory duality of hope and realism as the Stockdale Paradox.

Around the world, millions, if not literally billions, of people are finding themselves in another form of captivity while under quarantine for COVID-19. The physical, mental, and psychological effects have been staggering. According to federal studies binge drinking among those trying to self-medicate has skyrocketed. Many living alone have found themselves trapped in impromptu solitary confinement. Domestic violence has exploded around the world and with it a new wave of divorces and separations. Unemployment rates not seen since the Great Depression have thrown the lives and welfare of tens of millions of Americans into chaos, anxiety, and disarray. And with so many governments, both local and federal, domestic and international, treating the pandemic with a hands-off attitude exacerbated by widespread distrust of the scientific establishment, the global rate of infection doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

To weather this storm, we Christians need to take a good, hard look at the Stockdale Paradox. We will not be able to pray this away, and neither will the virus suddenly vanish overnight. It will take great discipline and fortitude to make it to the other side. For guidance, we can turn to the Apostle Paul, who in the book of Acts racks up one of the most prominent records of suffering in scripture, being arrested, imprisoned, and shipwrecked numerous times. Paul was never deterred from his calling to spread the Gospel, but neither was he unrealistic about its cost. While preparing to depart for Jerusalem in the twentieth chapter, he explained that he fully expected another round of imprisonment. That was the harsh reality. But the hope that tempered it—the hope Stockdale would insist on almost two millennia later—is the grace and strength of Jesus Christ. May we find the same strength and comfort as we steel ourselves for the worst to come.

Joy,