Celebrate Freedom by Larry Poncho Brown

Psalm 14.1-6 (CEB):

Fool Tarot ArtFools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt and do evil things; not one of them does anything good. The Lord looks down from heaven on humans to see if anyone is wise, to see if anyone seeks God, but all of them have turned bad. Everyone is corrupt. No one does good— not even one person!

Are they dumb, all these evildoers, devouring my people like they are eating bread but never calling on the Lord? Count on it: they will be in utter panic because God is with the righteous generation. You evildoers may humiliate the plans of those who suffer, but the Lord is their refuge. [1]

I often read the Psalms when I’m frustrated with the world because the Psalmists typically (and uncannily) express my feelings with excruciating insight. I mean, be honest. How many times lately have you asked yourself, “Are they dumb? Is everyone corrupt?” I’ve definitely wondered what’s going on in this upside-down world where ignorance is celebrated, and compassion berated.

According to our Psalmist, this tendency to be idiots has been a human nature issue for thousands of years. Psalm 14 reveals that others have been as fed up with the corruption of the entire human social system as I. Unfortunately, Psalm 14 was written at least 3000 years ago and is still relevant. The more things change, the more we humans stay the same, I guess.

Like I said, frustrating.

Considering that the ancient Jewish covenant with God was one of communal responsibility both to God and each other, failing to provide for the common good (No one does good—not even one person!) would have been a colossal sin. The Psalmist hyperbolically accuses every single person in the society of being corrupt, dumb, and foolish to make the real point: nobody seeks God. Worse, because nobody loves God anymore, the society as a whole is shirking its duty to honor and care for one another, especially those on the fringes.

Are we killing God?

Psalm 14 is astounding. When I read it, I get the sense that the Psalmist, for all intents and purposes, is considering that God might as well be dead, since nobody’s paying attention to God anyway. To proclaim three millennia ago, essentially, that the entire world is evil because “God is dead and we killed him” is astonishing!

Is God Dead - TIME Magazine Cover Vol 87.jpg
Source: TIME Magazine – Vol. 87, No. 14 “Is God Dead?” (© 1966, TIME religion editor John Elson)

Toward the dawn of the 20th Century, Nietzsche devised a similar concept about the state of humanity. In The Gay Science he wrote, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

Nietzsche was commenting on what he saw as an unintended consequence of the Enlightenment: the secularization of society, especially Europe, no longer based on the moral teachings of the Catholic church. This caused a reform of European civil ethics which could no longer be grounded in either the fear of eternal damnation or the Jewish ideal of covenant. If our Psalmist met Nietzsche for an espresso in the Afterworld Café, neither would be surprised at the other’s theory that without a transcendent, centralized moral authority, society devolves into the power-driven politics of greed.

Our ancient Psalmist and Nietzsche make similar claims: Without a divine moral construct, without some image of a universal power that can create planets, stars, galaxies, and people, without something that gets us thinking beyond our own backyards, society devolves into a battle over resource control, and we behave like power-hungry fools. Why wouldn’t we? After all, both authors ask, if there is no God, what is the point of acting well, much less sacrificing our personal desires for the common good?

Today, the question is phrased like this: “Why should I pay taxes to support social security and universal healthcare and ‘free’ education?” Whereas I never hear anyone ask, “Why do we spend so much money militarizing the American Empire?”

It’s foolishness, I know.

It’s all about covenant, which is about community

I am not suggesting that the evils of the world will disappear tomorrow if we all started believing in God, whatever “God” means in our pluralistic, post-Christian, postmodern world. However, I do agree with the Psalmist’s ancient Jewish understanding of the self-revelation of God in and through creation. This wisdom—seeing God in everyone and everything—is how we live into the Divine covenant.

Nietzsche, although not religious later in life, was concerned that the collapse of the Church as Europe’s centralized moral authority would lead to a complete loss of meaning in modern society. Eventually, civilizations would be governed solely by what he called the “will to power.” This concept should be self-explanatory as it is precisely the model we’re seeing all over the world today.

Power. Money. Greed. It’s the Unholy Trinity, and I think the only way out of this mess is to get back to the basics. We must stop playing the fool and reinstate our sense of covenant, whether Divine or civil.

If it is honestly too difficult for us to believe in any concept of God in the 21st Century, if we can’t or won’t believe in a covenantal, duty-bound relationship to love the Conscious Universe, then can we not at least agree we are all in this together? Can we agree that if one of us destroys the planet, we all perish? Can we agree we are all a part of the same thing, literally, as science has shown beyond any shadow of a doubt?

Celebrate Freedom by Larry Poncho Brown
Art by Larry Poncho Brown. “Celebrate Freedom” (Larry Poncho Brown)

I happen to agree with our Jewish predecessors, like Jesus, who insisted the world and everything on it belongs to God and we’re just here to take care of it. The implication is we’re also here to take care of each other, and we’re not doing a good job of either. We are fools for no longer believing in something—anything—more significant than ourselves. We’re so full of hubris, so puffed-up by our own sense of Godliness, that we’re burning the world to the ground while we dance and play the fiddle like Nero in ancient Rome.

Our intention should what the Psalmist suggests: Focus primarily on loving God to gain the wisdom we need to recreate the world in God’s loving image. Love reveals that the secret of the universe is simply more love, to love and be loved in return, unconditionally.

Perhaps we should just start calling God “Love” instead of God. If I say I believe in God, people often call me foolish for believing in a “silly” concept in the 21st Century. But if I say I believe in love, well, you can still call me a fool, but who among us has never been a fool for love? And while once in a while love breaks our hearts, I tell you this: I will have my heart broken for love, especially for God’s love, every second of every day of my life, because I know only God’s Love can change the world.

If that makes me a fool, so be it.

[1] Common English Bible. Nashville, TN: Common English Bible, 2011. Print.

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