On Wednesday, January 6, 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt, Air Force veteran and business owner from Ocean Beach, California, was shot and killed by an officer of the Capitol Police as she attempted to climb through a shattered window and toward the House Chamber.
In an interview with a San Diego news station, her uncle, Anthony Mazziott Jr., said, with tears, that Ms. Babbitt “loved people,” and that she “served her country and loved it, and our democracy, and ultimately gave her life for it.” Please pray for Mr. Mazziott and for Ms. Babbitt’s husband, parents, family, and friends in this time of profound loss and grief.
But let us be clear. Ms. Babbitt did not die for her country or for democracy. Ashli Babbitt died for lies.
Dig into this tragic death and Ms. Babbitt’s choices leading to the fatal moment, and you will find illusions embraced and allegiances misplaced. Evil has a way of taking something good and twisting it until it is dead, or worse, deadly. Ms. Babbitt’s love for people and country was twisted by QAnon conspiracy theories that resonated with her own suspicions and by lies repeated often enough to become credal affirmations. Add to that a gathering of like-minded folks and some final words from her Commander in Chief, and devotion began its sprint toward death.
Ashli Babbitt died for lies. Can you and I live in Truth?
Before we get to the big-T Truth, let’s start with the little-t. So, the obvious: Check facts; read diverse sources; don’t share stuff online just because it FEELS true or, hey, it COULD be. Distinguish between opinion and fact. Don’t demonize people who disagree with you. And before you tell me that those OTHER people do those same things, trust me, I know that. Let’s all acknowledge that words have power, and words repeated often enough take root and bear fruit, healthy or destructive. And yes, we are all capable of lying or passing lies along. Can we try not to?
Now, the big-T Truth. For me, that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I think it’s time for a revival. And if that conjures for you images of a big tent and repeated refrains of “Just As I Am,” I’m fine with that. Just be sure it’s a really big tent with room for all of us.
I watched with disgust Wednesday as rioters carried signs and placards bearing the name of Jesus. We can’t forbid such use of Christ’s name, but I can certainly challenge it. Jesus doesn’t look very comfortable in a QAnon T-shirt or, for that matter, wrapped in an American flag. Jesus didn’t lead those rioters to that moment; they dragged him along for the ride, using his name to clothe in holy garb their own anger and fears. That’s nothing new, of course; it’s been a popular Christian practice for a couple of millennia. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much God looks and thinks like you or me?
Let’s go to the tent. Let’s read the Bible. Let’s listen to people we don’t normally hear. Let’s search our souls. You and I are sinners saved by grace, but sin keeps nudging at us, doesn’t it? The old ways are not easily escaped. We can fool ourselves (Not a racist bone in MY body); we can deflect (I’m not perfect, but you’re not so great yourself); we can mistake knowledge for righteousness and ignorance for faith. We’re human. But the good news is … we’re human, just a little lower than the angels, and God has chosen to meet us in the perfectly human Jesus. Look to him. Watch Jesus. Where might he lead you?
As the news interview with Ashli Babbitt’s uncle neared its end, he said, “I wish we could all come down and figure out how to get along”—a sentiment we’ve heard or spoken how many times? Yet, here we are, of course, still haunted by, still enraged by, still frightened by, still fighting over, our differences of class, race, opinion, or politics, to name a few.
Howard Thurman said that “hatred often begins in a situation in which there is contact without fellowship” (emphasis mine, and with gratitude to Connor Bell and Mindy McGarrah-Sharp for the reference).
Thurman wrote those words long before the echo chambers of social media allowed us to segregate comfortably in our neighborhoods of ideas, but truth is truth. While there is online “contact” and trolling aplenty among those who disagree, there is less “fellowship” than ever. And hatred grows.
I really appreciate Thurman’s use of the word, “fellowship.” It’s a good church word. Can we perhaps recover some fellowship in our big-tent revival? Singing together, praying together, (and for each other), listening to the Word of God, maybe even listening to each other. This isn’t rocket science (though, in all honesty, it might be more challenging). To gather in the tent is to strive for that which I truly believe 99 percent of us want—to “figure out how to get along” in a just, loving, and caring community.
Before the Pandemic slowed us down, we United Methodists were ready to divorce over issues of sexuality, rites, and rights, and, more than likely, that break-up will proceed once we can get back together long enough to go our separate ways. But, in the meantime—and even if/when division happens—I hope we’ll agree to gather for the revival. The ugliness of these days needs to be tamped down, and who better to do that than the Holy Spirit?
Now, the truth is our revival doesn’t really require a big tent. It can be virtual, this revival; it can be one congregation gathered with another from a different geographical or ideological neighborhood; it can be a few folks together for prayer and Bible study; and it can start with you, alone with Christ, considering the state of your own soul. The revival is an invitation to know Truth and to live in that Truth.
And this is Truth—that God loves us, and we are called to love. Simple enough, isn’t it? But we can only discover the fullness of that Truth as we let go of the lies that deceive, divide and destroy, and that takes honesty, prayer, faith, and grace. Revival.
Jean Paul Sartre once said, quite perceptively, that “hell is other people,” but so too, the Scriptures make clear, is heaven. The difference? I believe we can best find the answer in the big tent. Together.
In Christ,
Rev. Mark Westmoreland