OPEN YOUR EYES, BUT NOT YOUR MOUTH

This past Thursday, Juan Williams, a news analyst with National Public Radio, was fired from his job after statements made on the Fox News Channel. Among the offending views expressed was the following:

“… when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

NPR has long been concerned with Williams many appearances on Fox News, a station whose right-wing leanings are at odds with NPR’s more liberal stances. NPR actually requested Fox News to stop identifying Williams as an NPR host when he appears on the network. Williams apparently crossed the line this week in revealing his own fears or anxieties and suggesting that the war against terrorism is not readily distinct from opposition to Islamic doctrines that run counter to the western ideology that characterizes democratic and free nations.

In parashat Vayera, there are at least three incidents where that which is seen is either not identified for what it is or in some way completely invisible. Three strangers show up at Abraham’s tent, and neither he nor Sarah understood that these were messengers from God. Hagar, spent and despairing in the wilderness, lays her child down to die for lack of water, failing to see the well that is only feet away from her. Finally Abraham stops short of sacrificing his son to God, coincidentally discovering a far better alternative, a ram caught in a thicket just behind him. In all three cases, not seeing the reality for what it is, brings the viewer to error. Sarah ends up not taking the messengers seriously, Hagar is on the verge of giving up her’s and her child’s life, and Abraham almost sacrificed his beloved son to God.

Seeing the truth is only the first part of arriving at the truth. After we see the truth, we have to be able to verbalize it. All attempts to dictate how we speak about what we see are violations of free speech. A communication distorted is the first step on a road to error.

Before God brought destruction upon the two wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He says, “…shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him?” (Genesis 18:18). God probably knew what would happen if He mentioned his intentions to Abraham. Abraham would challenge the wisdom and the justice of it all, and that is exactly what happened. But it was in sharing the plan with Abraham, and the subsequent debate, that the righteousness of the plan became ever more transparent. Honest perceptions will not always be pleasant perceptions, but in speaking them aloud we at least give others the chance to challenge us and thereby refine our views. We should be suspicious of all those who try to shut us up. It was actually a good week for free speech, but not such a good week for NPR.

A MAJOR MIRACLE FOR 33 MINERS

 

I don’t think any of us could help but feel emotionally moved by the rescue mission that took place in Chile this week. The drawing up of 33 Chilean miners, trapped a half mile below the earth for 69 days, was an exhilarating, moving, and deeply emotional experience for all involved.

One need not be a half mile below the earth to feel trapped or gripped by despair. In the case of the Chilean miners, their families were equally trapped above the earth, cut off from the ability to save their loved ones. Both the men below the earth and the families above have had to exercise tremendous faith, day by day, to continue to believe that they would be reunited at some point. They had to have faith in the people designing the rescue and supplies shafts, the workers who constructed the implements for salvation, the company that financed the operation, the government, foreign industries that assissted, neighbors and friends and family who continued to support them throughout the ordeal, and I would imagine that many found their strength in God.

The difference between having faith in all these various people and having faith in God, is that the people had specific roles to play. God did not. We can’t call Him the general contractor or the overseer. God is the One who helps us through ordeals, but that could mean the ordeal of successfully rescuing the 33 miners, which in the end it was, or it could have been the ordeal of losing them, which thankfully it wasn’t. An interesting headline in the Wall Street Journal read that the rescue effort was 75% science and 25% miracle. I disagree. I think that the rescue effort was 100% science and I believe that is was also 100% miracle. There is something profoundly riveting of people around the world joining together to help and assist one another, and in this contentious and competitive world in which we reside, this may be one of the clearest concretizations of miracle that we ever are witness to on earth.

The details of salvation are more often than not in the hands of you and me and others or other factors over which we exercise little control. But God, as the power who assures us that we can stand up to whatever challenge comes our way, is with us in multiple circumstances, joyous and sorrowful, to help us endure, grow and ultimately thrive.

It has always been of great interest to me that in our parashah, God instructs Abraham to Lekh Lekha, to go forth from his native land and from his father’s house to a land unnamed and unknown. God does not say that He would bring Abram to Canaan—He is actually silent on where the land would be. Couldn’t God have been more specific? Well, maybe not. You see, the devil is in the details, but God is in the generalities. The challenge is always to invest those details with a heavenly direction, a godly purpose, and a divine passion. And when we all work together, human beings make miracles. We did this past week, in Chile.