This week I spent a couple of days at our annual clergy conference, a gathering of all the active priests and deacons in the diocese. These gatherings serve two purposes. It’s a chance for us to spend time with our colleagues — to worship together, eat together, sometimes stay up drinking wine and talking late into the night together. It’s a time to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.
There’s also a theological or biblical theme to these conferences. This year it was being a witness. In small groups we spent time talking about what it meant in Christian terms to be a witness. How do we bear witness to God’s love? Who has borne witness to us?
Bearing witness is what at least part of our Gospel reading for today is. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples have a variety of answers — John the Baptist, Elijah, some of the other Jewish prophets.
Those answers are not what Jesus was looking for. “But who do you say that I am?” he asked. Peter immediately answers, “You are the Messiah.”
The Messiah is the anointed one, the one coming to bring about God’s kingdom of peace and justice, the one who shows us how to live as God intends, the one who is with us in life, in death, and in the life to come.
Just like Peter, we are all called to bear witness to this God of love, made known to us through Jesus. We are all called to bear witness to God’s truth.
What has grabbed my mind the past few days is not a witness to truth and love, but a false witness to lies and hate. The Bible is clear that there are false prophets and witnesses among us who can do great evil and create great harm.
As historian Heather Cox Richardson outlined yesterday in her daily blog, this false witness began earlier in the summer when Ohio Senator JD Vance, now a candidate for vice president, spoke before a Senate Banking Committee hearing, blaming immigrants for rising housing prices.
As an example, he cited a town in his own state, Springfield, Ohio. Several times after that he made public statements about “illegals” overwhelming Springfield.
In response to Vance’s remarks a group of neo-Nazis called the “Blood Tribe” showed up in Springfield, claiming the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders,” which was somehow the fault of the Jews. Other terrorist groups showed up bearing equally false witness.
Then in late August, a Springfield woman posted on Facebook that Haitians were eating cats and dogs.
That post was repeated by Vance. And as everyone who has seen TV or social media the last few days knows, the lies were amplified when former president Donald Trump said this of Haitian immigrants during Tuesday’s debate:
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Everyone I know immediately recognized that statement as a ludicrous lie. Almost instantly, memes sprung up all over social media ridiculing those words. I laughed at many of them, and passed some of them on to friends.
But by the end of the week those jokes were no longer funny. While it seemed obvious to most of us that those words were lies, many took them as truth. The results have been terrifying.
On Friday two Springfield elementary schools were evacuated after bomb threats. A middle school was closed. Bomb threats were also received at three hospitals, city hall, the courthouse, and multiple other agencies.
Hate groups armed with automatic weapons and waving swastikas have marched through the city. Much of the city, especially the Haitian immigrants who are there legally, lives in fear.
The mayor of Springfield, Republican Rob Rue, has tried to calm the situation. “Anybody on the national stage that takes a microphone, needs to understand what they could do to communities like Springfield with their words. They’re not helping. They’re hurting communities like ours with their words.
“This is a very concerning time for our citizens,” he added. “Frankly, a lot of people are tired of things that have been spread about our community that are just negative and not true. We need help, not hate.”
The woman who made the original Facebook post claiming Haitians were eating pets admitted this week that she had no evidence to support her words, and said she regretted them.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” she said. “I feel for the Haitian community. If I was in the Haitians’ position I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me.”
Politicians have also tried to stir up anti-Haitian hate in Springfield by claiming that an 11-year-old boy killed in a traffic accident last year was murdered by a Haitian immigrant.
“A child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here,” Vance posted this past week, a post that was repeated thousands of time on social media
At a city council meeting this week, the child’s father courageously stood up for the truth. “My son was not murdered,” Nathan Clark said of 11-year-old Aiden. “He was accidentally killed by a Haitian immigrant.”
Clark condemned “morally bankrupt politicians spreading hate at the expense of my son.
“You know, I wish that my son was killed by a 60-year-old white man,” he said. “If that guy killed my 11-year-old son the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone.
“Please stop the hate. This needs to stop now.”
The response to this grief-stricken father included this post, “Those parents should be executed.
Ginning up fear and hatred with lies about immigrants in order to boost a political campaign is blatantly bearing false witness.
It also goes against how the Bible says we are to treat the alien, or immigrant, living among us. Here are just a few passages from scripture.
From the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments; show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”
From the prophet Zechariah: “You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have begotten children among you. They shall be to you as the citizens of Israel; with you they shall be alloted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.”
From the prophet Ezekiel: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourselves, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”
From the Book of Leviticus: “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”
From the Book of Deuteronomy: “You shall also love the foreigner, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
I could go on, but you get the point.
I have always been against posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms and other public places, a move endorsed by many of our public leaders, including the ones who have been so busy spreading lies and hate this week.
But maybe it is not such a bad idea, after all. Especially if those who endorse it are required to read and abide by them, including Commandment number nine.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Amen.