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Do No Harm                                                         Timothy Carson
Matthew 13:24-30                                                     July 19, 2026

 I have struggled with this parable of Jesus. It’s quite beautiful, but it provokes and raises more questions than it answers. Was it told with the background of many Jewish sects in mind? Were the disciples surrounded by competing voices, some of them hurtful or even misleading? Was there dissention in the ranks? Whatever historical context gave rise to this parable, its universality allows it to still provoke us today. The story goes this way:

   Once upon a time a farmer sowed good seeds in the field. So far so good. But one night a vandal or antagonist sowed weeds in that field of wheat. When the wheat grew up and sprouted the weeds were right alongside it. And the servants were agitated: What happened? Where did these weeds come from?! You can feel how irate they were. The farmer answers, Who knows, a prankster, somebody trying to ruin me?

   Then the servants said, Should we go weeding? And here is the crux of the parable. The farmer answers, No, because pulling the weeds could harm the wheat. Just let them grow together until harvest and we’ll sort out the wheat from the weeds then.

   Well that’s not satisfying. It runs against our grain:

Let’s get out there and do something, take care of the problem, nip it in the bud, so to speak. Above all, we want to fix the problem. But as we all know, trying to fix the problem often makes it worse.

   One time we were living in St. Louis and a water pipe in the basement was leaking. I used some of that instant plummer to stop the leak but that didn’t work. So I thought I would just take a wrench and tighten it … until one twist too far and the whole pipe came free and water was going everywhere and I was drenched.

   Sometimes trying to fix it makes it worse, especially if we don’t know what we’re doing. That recalls the most basic principles of ethics from Aristotle to the Hypocritic oath: Do good and Do no harm.

   Sometimes the attempt to do good creates more harm so one has to use caution. And that is at least one thing at work in Jesus’ parable. The council of the farmer is to not harm the wheat by trying to eradicate the weeds. Just let them grow together.

   One time my father-in-law was living with us, and he was determined to take care of the weeds growing along a fence line. He got out the Round Up and gave it a good application. That did it, alright. The weeds were dead and gone. But the same day he applied it the wind was blowing and he inadvertently sprayed the whole side yard. In short order the yard was brown as brown can be. Sometimes killing the weeds kills everything else.

   No, Jesus said in his parable, error on the side of doing no harm.

But what if we are faced with a clear case of injustice, even genocide? What if those weeds are a malignant evil that’s harming people? Do we just stand by and let it happen?

   I recently retraced some of the steps of the German pastor and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died resisting the fascism of the Nazis in WWII. He was the original Antifa, just like all those troops landing on the beaches of Normandy were Antifa – antifascists.

   As a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Bonhoeffer struggled with what was the right moral response to Nazism. He ultimately concluded that one can’t sit it out when the tyranny and violation is in front of you. You have to decide. You can’t be neutral. You have to act.

   Just how does this jibe with Jesus’ parable? Don’t pull up the weeds because you might hurt the wheat? Just let it grow and in God’s good time it will be sorted out? How much time? At what cost?

   Bonhoeffer decided that he had no moral choice but to resist the evil of the Nazis, even as millions of German Christians stood by and did nothing.

   We share Bonhoeffer’s moral predicament. When and how do we resist injustice committed by the powerful? Is it enough to just count on the goodness of the righteous? Don’t we have to address the greed of the oligarchs who take from the poor and give more to the rich? Don’t we have to stop the Epstein sex trafficking ring and hold them all accountable? Aren’t we obligated to speak against and stop those who harm others for the sake of their own ideology or religion? Don’t we denounce those who pollute our land, water and air so they can profit? Don’t we say, No way, no how to those who would discriminate because of race or gender or orientation? Most of us would say, No, we’re not willing to sit this out. We’re pulling out the weeds before they take over.

Was Jesus’ parable actually sounding an alarm about extremism, what can happen when people go on crusades, intent to pull out every weed at any cost?

   You don’t have to go far into purity culture before you find yourselves in a front-row seat at a Middle Ages-like Crusade, vanquishing the foe, converting at sword point, conducting inquisitions to rip out heretics from our midst and staging witch trials to eliminate every element we have defined as unholy. Can we possibly add up all the harm over the centuries that has been committed by the self-righteous in their weeding campaigns?

   I think the case can easily be made that Project 2025 of the Heritage Foundation, a blueprint followed by Christian Nationalists in power right now, is doing exactly this. And it doesn’t matter to them how many people they hurt.

   I recently listened to an interview with a woman in Austin, Texas as she described what happened when a cherished pregnancy turned terribly bad. There was no hope of saving the fetus and it was putting her life in jeopardy. But she couldn’t get any care because no doctor would provide a medical abortion. Doctors can lose their licenses, or worse be imprisoned under present law. She almost died and she lost all ability to bear future children. All because a radical religious political fringe is intent on pulling out every ideological weed, even at the expense of women’s health.

   The parable speaks truth. Do no harm, especially harm generated by self-righteousness crusades, rigid moral systems imposed on others. Don’t pull up the weeds and harm the wheat.

   Think of recent administration attempts to root out any vestiges of diversity, equity and inclusion (things they see as bad for white males). They used high powered AI models to scour the websites and grant applications of government agencies, universities and research institutions and withheld authorized grant monies for medical research until they removed all the perceived weeds of DEI. Medical research. They did harm in the name of doing good.

   This is a 21^st century version of the Inquisition. Whenever we take it upon ourselves to assume the role of god, when we engage in self-idolatry, things turn demonic very quickly.

   We need to be just as careful about doing no harm as doing good.

   Like most good parables, Jesus casts us into the horns of a dilemma: In the tension between doing good and doing no harm, what and how will we decide? None of our choices will be perfect ones. As Bonhoeffer discovered, we try to do more good than harm, knowing that the good is not perfect and the harm is unavoidable by degree. Do we violate one of God’s laws to be faithful to another?

   Your aunt comes in wearing her new dress. She is so proud of it. But it is the loudest, ugliest, most painful thing you’ve ever seen. You love your aunt. What do you say? Are you honest or kind?  You could say, “That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Or you could say, “You are as pretty as a picture in that dress.” Which is it? Honesty or kindness? Which wins? The late theologian Tex Sample called this making a tragic choice. Whatever you choose, you’re going to be a little wrong and a little right. How do we balance doing good and doing no harm? That’s going to depend on a lot of grace.

But because a parable is like a diamond with many facets, let’s turn over the gem stone and take a look from a different angle.

   There is a particular plant called darnel, and it is a mimic plant; it resembles grains like wheat and oats and grows among them. It was well-known in antiquity. This imposter, this poser plant was the evil twin of wheat. It evolved in such a way that it depended on humans cultivating grain fields so it could survive. And it was toxic. Small amounts could create a mild intoxicating experience, which is why some cultures used it in the fermentation process. But too much and it could make you really sick.

   So we have this imposter growing among the wheat, this intoxicating double, and it’s hard to tell the wheat from the weed. At a deep symbolic level this poses interesting questions for us.

   Perhaps Jesus was describing the world of illusion we all inhabit. When It’s hard to discern what is what and every field hosts a little masquerade party, we need to be careful how we employ our sickles. In a world of illusion in which darnel resembles wheat and our judgement is far from perfect, we can inadvertently do harm. As Batman says in The Dark Knight, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

   Or maybe the darnel that shows up in the field of our consciousness is the necessary trickster who tests us, confounds us, forces us to see things differently. Maybe the field is our psyche, and we must sort out what’s real and what’s not. Maybe the weeds in our lives have an important part to play.

   When we cast our glance into the rear-view mirror of our lives, we are sometimes able to see this more clearly. There are some people, some events, some struggles, some inconveniences, some failures, and some losses that bring everything into focus, into clarity, and they challenge the false notions of ourselves or the world that we carry. They are unbidden and unwanted, and we often do not know that we needed them until later.

   Like the servants in the story, we find ourselves preoccupied with how to get rid of them. But as a great mystery, the farmer tells the servants not to uproot the weeds, but rather allow them to grow together. Because, who really knows what needs to go and what needs to stay. And maybe we won’t know until much later, not even until harvest.

Prayer for the Holy Spirit, Pentecost 2026

Come Indwelling Spirit,
creating unity wherever you abide.
Visit us with your transforming power.
Holy Comforter, Guide, and Counselor,
invisible yet powerful,
descend like a mighty wind
and fill us with holy fire.
Enlighten our minds,
purify our thoughts,
flood us with love,
lead us to truth,
and fill us with courage.
Grant us your gifts
to serve well in the world,
build up the beloved community,
adore our Creator,
and follow Jesus, the Word made flesh,
through whom we pray, Amen.

— Timothy Carson, May 2026

This meditation was offered at the Bluegrass service of the Rocheport Christian Church on April 11, 2026.

The Patron Saint of Doubt Timothy Carson   John 20:24-29

If ever there was a story for Missourians, this would be it. But let me come back to that.

Because our culture revolves around holidays and the motto that whoever buys the most candy, eggs, cards, toys, flowers, decorations, and dinners wins, we are accustomed to the idea that everything builds to the big event and once accomplished it’s over and done, at least until the next year. It’s the American engine of commerce at work. That is certainly true of Easter. That holiday expectation is utterly disconnected from the Biblical stories about the continuing presence of Jesus in the world. This is not a once and done story. In fact, the reality of the resurrection is almost the exact opposite of that.

After the trauma of Jesus’ trial, torture, execution and burial his followers were shattered. They scattered. They hid. They collapsed. What happened following that disintegration was a slow – moving dawning of the impossible, namely, that the spirit of Christ lives on in unexpected, yet unmistakable ways. But it didn’t happen all at once for them. In fact, it doesn’t happen all at once for us.

Rather, the knowledge, awareness and consciousness that Christ lives on grew one person and group at a time.

At the beginning it was the women and a few disciples at the tomb. Through her tears, Mary Magdalene thought he was someone else. In Mark, the earliest Gospel we have, the women were so terrified and amazed that they ran away speechless, they didn’t tell a soul.

Once day fishermen were out in their boat and they saw a figure on the shore tending a campfire, cooking bread and fish. “Come have breakfast, children,” he said. Could it be him?

Another day disciples walked with heavy feet and hearts toward a little town called Emmaus. A stranger joined them on the road, and they didn’t know who he was. When he joined them for supper, they invited him to share the blessing, and when he broke the bread their eyes were suddenly opened and they knew him.

Dozens of these stories circulated through the early church, including the one before us today from John’s Gospel. The background doesn’t surprise us: The disciples took cover behind locked doors just like you and I would. Right in the middle of their despair the impossible happened, the one they lost was found. There was no explanation.

Somehow the same peace they knew during his lifetime enfolded them again. You can’t kill good, beauty and truth. All of those live on. Beyond all expectations they do. And he did.

It just so happens that one of the disciples, Thomas, was missing in action. When they tried to share what they experienced with him – and who can really describe a spiritual experience with someone else – he doubted everything about their testimony. And this is where Missouri shows up for us. “Show me!” he demanded. It’s only when I see the evidence for myself and put my hands on his wounded body that I will possibly believe.

We understand that need for proof and certainty too. I don’t want to live by wishful thinking or false hopes. I want the receipts. An ethereal ghost alone won’t do. I want to identify the body. Moving forward with clear eyes is important. We know things with our senses, with our bodies. Moving forward according to what we can see and know is important. What do we think evidence-based research is?

But walking by sight, as important as it is, is not enough. If we dare walk by faith it requires a whole different order of trust, perception, and awareness.

This week we have been following the progress of the Artimis crew as they circumnavigated the moon.

Once again, the moon of our earthly observation, the moon that waxes and wanes through the month and disappears behind cloud cover, the moon of poem, story, and fairytale, drew near.

As the astronauts orbited the moon and sent their photos and videos back to us earthlings, we looked upon the mountains, craters, and stark features of earth’s moon. And looking back toward the blue jewel floating against the immensity of infinite space we were reminded just what an enchanted garden we inhabit.

Here we are, daring to trust the report, the photos, the video feed of eyewitnesses. We dare combine their testimony with our wonder and hopes. It is a mighty confirmation of what we knew in part but came to know more completely.

Would Thomas believe it after viewing the reports on Facebook, the News or his Instagram account? Would that be enough for him? Or would he need to be the fifth crew member and view it himself through the window of the space capsule?

Maybe there is an analogy here that can help us, namely,  that boundary between the near side and far side of the moon. The far hemisphere of the moon always faces away from us, out of our direct observation. Only orbitals and landers have mapped it extensively.

Maybe that was the experience of Thomas. He knew the near side of the moon – his years with Jesus, the teaching, healing, praying, and his suffering. He knew the power of God present in this near side of his experience. That was his frame of reference, what he knew. And the source of his doubt.

But when Thomas returned a week later, his whole perception crossed over to the far side of the moon, that unknown territory, and he had an experience of the Risen Christ for himself. Before that moment he had only the reports of others, which seemed as remote as the far side of the moon. It was something others knew, something he may have hoped for, but not yet seen. Maybe this moment was a surprising confirmation of something he previously knew in part.

In the same way that the far side of the moon is remote and yet we know it’s there, so Thomas knew part of the story of how God was working in Jesus’ life. And then came the moment when he was able to trace each crater for himself.  

These experiences of the resurrection unfold over time and almost always manifest in some place between the spaces, at the border between light and shadow, at the edge of what is known and less known, at the boundary between the possible and seemingly impossible, and especially between faith and doubt.

For those of us who are persuaded that the sacred participates deeply in the ordinary and that the love of God suffers for the beloved creation, the wounds of Christ are also the wounds of the beloved world. Whenever we dare touch those wounds, we come to know our deepest humanity and our deepest divinity.

If, like Thomas, we need to see the wounds for ourselves, they are never far off, for Christ continues to be pierced in the body of the world. It is so often there, in those wounds, that we experience the crucified and risen Christ. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. And so He is known through the wounds of this world still.

We may feel like we have no access to that mystery on the far side of the moon, out of view, ensconced as it is in shadows. We are locked down in rooms of fear or helplessness or powerlessness. We doubt realities we cannot perceive beyond our own senses. But the mystery abiding in the far side of our consciousness, out of sight, exists whether we can see it or not.

What is required in this night of doubt, this need for proof, evidence, and certainty, is a leap of faith into something beyond our understanding and control.

As it was for Thomas, the presence of Christ is disclosed to us in the fullness of time. There behind locked doors, at the edge of light and shadow, Christ is disclosed in his body so that can know more than body. Christ is disclosed in material ways so that we will not be forever limited by the material. Like Thomas, the Risen One tells us to let go of doubt and take a risk, to take a leap of faith.

How else can we orbit the mystery of God except by faith? And then by God’s good grace it may become possible to see what has been hiding there all along.

The project actually began with a firepit wrought iron tool. The ten-year old excavator began digging in my back yard by the old barn next to a tree that has been alive twice as long as I have. I’m not exactly sure what gave rise to the dig, except that once the first chunk of sod was turned over the next was soon to follow. In time a friend rode up and began to help. Since firepit tools have their digging limits, they asked if I had a shovel they could borrow. Yes, in the shed, help yourself. Go ahead, dig up my yard.

Bemused neighbors strolled by and gave curious looks. Is this a new landscaping plan going into place? Perhaps installing a drain? How about a tree? Those are all good guesses from adults who would never think of going to the trouble of digging unless it was for some necessary addition. Why else would the boys be digging there? Those are all good adult questions. That’s how we think. And we’re too tired to expend unnecessary effort. I don’t dig a hole unless I have to.

For my part I knew I would cheer them on because ten-year old kids need someplace to be doing something fun and purposeful. Like digging a hole, for example. Better digging a hole than running over little old ladies with their bikes down by the Piggly Wiggly. Much better expending all that raw energy at my place. Besides, they need interested adults to sit and observe them with interest as long as they don’t interfere too much. Just get them them the tools they need and give an eloquent grunt every so often.

I think the real reason I gave the green light to digging up the yard is that I was them a handful of decades ago. I have memories of a variety of hole digging escapades in different places for different reasons. The motives of a ten-year old are quite different than those I carry now.

For instance, throughout adulthood I have fallen into many an unexpected hole and have dug more than a few all by myself. Digging out of a hole once you’re at the bottom requires no little effort, patience and timely help by others who are able and willing to reach down and give you a hand.

That is not, however, the reason a ten-year old digs. Motives reach across a gamete of possibilities. More than once we dug holes to bury something to find later. One time I buried a handful of half dollars in a little jewelry box to protect the treasure from pirates. One day I came home from school only to find that a backhoe was digging up the area for some utility project and my cache was lost to the mists of time.

After our dog dug under the fence to make the great escape into the neighborhood, we thought it was a good idea to dig the tunnel deeper so that little humans could wiggle through in the same way. My parents did not share my same enthusiasm for that idea. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why.

If we were in the play golf with the neighbor kids across the front yards phase, then hole digging was practical; a course was laid out with cups and flags dug into the lawn. My father was not especially fond of mowing over those.

The essence of it all. regardless of form or purpose, has to do with something else, the digging of the hole itself, the call of the wild to dig. It may be the opposite and equal reason one must climb a mountain, because it is there. Except the hole is not there yet. The movement is down instead of up, burrowing through the planet to the other side, or descending to hidden shafts and caves that honeycomb hidden domains beneath our feet. Some people feel compelled to plunge into the ocean depths or spelunk in the bowls of the earth for the same reason, reverse astronauts who explore strange new worlds below where few people have gone before.

In this late autumn of my life the holes I dig are less in the back yard and more in the ground of relationships, creativity, and the spirit. I am curious about the depths of others and the hidden treasure of the world. I am fascinated by the hidden forces that make everything buzz. Receiving the the gift of each day means something like figuring out what I have missed in plain sight, or mining the depths of memory, dreams or the big universal stories. It’s possible that all my youthful hole digging was preparing me for a different kind of digging later, the important work of removing the soil of the soul one scoop at a time. And then the next.

Every time we approach holy week in the Christian story cycle I take another run at it. Year after year I plunge the spade into the soil and turn over another level. Sometimes it seems like I’m striking rock. Then a day comes along for no special reason and I uncover gold just beneath the surface. The thorny problem, the irreconcilable tension, the offensive idea just pop to the surface like lost coins.

This year it was making sense of the cross in a new way, under the auspicious of crushing. The instrument of crushing demolishes humanity, as the inhumanity of this world so often does. And the instrument of crushing demolishes the signs of the sacred in the world, as this darkened world so often attempts. When Jesus was crucified he was the face of humanity constantly crushed and the face of the divine constantly rejected. Of course, that is the symbol that tells the tale, the hard truth of the world as it is.

What is told, too, during this Holy Saturday of the tomb, is despite how we attempt to bury light, truth, and beauty, the visible holes we dig often become passageways to unseen dimensions. By the grace of God, they do.

Until we put down our shovels at the last.

I actually have a favorable view of going to my regular teeth cleaning with the dental hygienist. She does a good job, the procedure is relatively painless, and I know her on a first-name basis. We discuss children and make small talk and even know some of the more important things about our lives. Not too long after my wife Kathy died, she gave me a phone call, her voice cracking on the other end of the line. At such times, those kinds of gestures make a big difference. So do random emails and handwritten cards that show up in the mailbox.

After the final flossing we compared signals on which type of Thanksgiving pie occupies most favored status. We basically divided humanity into two camps: the pumpkin pie people and everyone else. Because we fell into the pecan and mincemeat tribe, that meant that we were rooting for the same team. Out of those declarations of pie loyalty, an inner-office pie poll began as a result, and it short order true colors were revealed, the unvarnished truth of closely held pie secrets. Do you like your pumpkin with whipped cream on top? After Thanksgiving do you eat pie for breakfast? Are you willing to pucker up and eat the Gooseberry pie that Aunty Mae brings every year?

Somewhere in the middle of all this frivolity my dentist came in for the post-cleaning check. Everything seemed in order. A quick look and I was declared ready to go forth into the world until the next cleaning. When he made mention of the holidays and what Kathy and I were planning, I realized he hadn’t heard yet. It happens. News of a death gets out unevenly and some hear it before others. More than once, I have had to share the sad news on the spot. That usually leaves the other person not only sad but in an awkward position. How could I have not known? I am so sorry.

But my dentist is different. He is a man dripping with empathy, the real kind without pretense. He is also a person of faith, the kind that just naturally oozes out of his pores because it is part of him. When he asked, Can I pray with you, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, and right there reclining in the chair I said yes without a second thought. He pulled down his mask, laid his hand on my shoulder, and with my friend the hygienist bowing her head in the background, a treatment suite suddenly became a chapel.

His prayer was more a blessing than anything else, but prayers and blessings are first cousins. He gave thanks for Kathy. He prayed for my encouragement and how grief might turn into gratitude. He blessed me with thoughts of a love-surrounded Thanksgiving and Christmas that could heal wounded places. At the end of those gracious words, he said Amen. And I said, Thank you, I needed that.

As he left my room and headed down the hallway to the next patient, it might have been to a filling or root canal that he went. But for me, that day, he was more than a professional provider. He was a roving chaplain.

Jovial conversations about pie preferences continued all the way out to the reception desk. But what really hovered around me was the blessing in the chair.

We certainly find the ministrations of the spirit in places and persons designed for such things – churches, temples, shrines, and religious leaders on their rounds. But where we need to keep our eyes peeled is on the unpredictable zones, in the millions of cracks, corners, and crevices of this world where the sacred is hiding and waiting to snag us by surprise. Like in a dentist’s chair.

Everybody gets to have their own personal experience of institutional evil at least once. I’ve had mine. That helps me spot it when it raises its ugly head, like in the White House last week.

In my own case, years ago, I was on the receiving end of power-hungry bullies. In retrospect I realized they were acting out an abuse pattern. They set me up for attack and projected onto me for the very same behavior they engaged in. They expected me to crawl to them for their approval. When I wouldn’t become their subordinate, it enraged them because they wanted to thrill themselves with their own sense of dominance. I never gave them what they wanted. I’m glad I didn’t. I learned a powerful lesson about this kind of behavior and today I can spot it from a mile off.

I saw the pattern playing out in the Whitehouse last week when President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance met with Ukrainian President Zalenskyy. It was supposed to be one of those ritual photo ops held by heads of state in the oval office after they hashed out the real issues behind the scenes. But the Trump administration had something else in mind. They ambushed their guest.

It was the most disgraceful behavior of a US President since the last time Donald Trump did something disgraceful. It shocked allies around the world. Americans were stunned. Only Trump lapdogs tried to spin the display as something beneficial. The truth is something else: After siding with Russia in a recent resolution on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the United Nations, the Whitehouse debacle sealed the abandonment of Ukraine in favor of Russia. We are now alone. Except for the company of dictators and bad actors. Our former allies will stand behind Ukraine without us, perhaps against us. Instead, our imperial leaders will talk about annexing Canada, Greenland and Panama.

Identifying abuser behavior in this scenario is not difficult. The abuser blames the victim for their plight. The victim is cajoled into extending endless gratitude. When the victim asserts their independence, they are accused of being ungrateful. Cooperation is equated with capitulation to the abuser. The abuser reminds the victim that they are powerless without the abuser because only the help of the abuser can make them powerful. Interrupting and cutting off the victim in mid-sentence communicates how unimportant their words and ideas actually are. The abuser gaslights the victim by presenting a fabricated reality based on falsehoods. The victim is expected to accept. The victim is accused of being the real problem when they aren’t. They are expected to submit and take responsibility for that which they did not do. The abuser communicates that the victim owes them something, continuing to take from them and coercing them to participate in things that will actually hurt them. The real accomplishments of the victim are dismissed, while the abuser takes credit for the good.

All of this took place in clear sight in the Whitehouse. The Abuser-in-Chief played his role perfectly. But as in so many cases like this, unintended consequences soon rose to the surface. It doesn’t take long for bullies and their behavior to be identified. Collusion with Russia became doubly clear. And the one who was set upon, President Zelenskyy, became the recipient of renewed admiration and support.

Now people of good will around the world are bringing an equal and opposite reaction, gathering around Ukraine in spite of the abandonment by the former leader of the free world. In the meantime, we are cleaning up the blood-splattered flag from our self-inflicted wounds, the source of which sits behind the resolute desk in the oval office.

Today I had two separate conversations with people directly affected by the current administration’s sacking of the federal government. The first was a man who worked for the Consumer Protection Agency, up until a week ago that is. He was summarily dismissed along with dozens of his fellow staff members. Their job? To protect citizens from the kind of untoward practices that led to the economic meltdown of 2008. But it doesn’t matter if they protect citizens. Something else is at work.

The second was a retired federal law enforcement employee who provided the blow by blow of the Doge invasion of personal records, the kind of privacy and security invasion that would have justified an investigation just a few years ago.

It is clear that we have entered new territory. By now we are becoming aware of the many agencies affected, including USAID, NIH, FFA, IRS, Social Security, and more. Here is the thing: Elon Musk and his storm troopers operate under the mask of efficiency, rooting out waste, and eliminating fraud. But it’s a smoke screen to cover what they are really up to. I want to talk about that.

It has been the plan to gut the federal government as a part of a second Trump term. It was outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 – its roadmap. People like billionaire Peter Thiel who bought J.D. Vance’s Senate seat and placed him in the Vice Presidency, and Oligarch Elon Musk, the South African who bought Donald Trump’s Presidency in return for favors, join with other authoritarian-leaning oligarchs in an ambitious attempt to undo democracy and replace it with a single party, autocratic, theocratic fascist state. To get there you have to destroy things. You have to savage the separation of powers, sack the judiciary, gag the press, and pillage every institution of government, removing expertise and smarts. They want to privatize health care and the support of veterans and make millions off them. They want to gut anything that benefits all the people and make those who are already economically fat even more obese. They want to eliminate those who can investigate them and fire career law enforcement people. They want to politicize the military and transform them into the President’s new storm troopers. Replace competent people with compliant unqualified people. Silence and disappear the scientists and experts. Soil international relationships. And while they are at it, dismiss the board of the Kennedy Center and move in Trump as the chair.

Why all this? To consolidate absolute power. To move beyond governing a state and instead forming an international cabal of strongmen and oligarchs to determine everyone’s future and profit off it. They will decide what happens to Ukraine. They will decide what happens to Gaza. Trump wants this. So do his wealthy enablers. And his populist working class minions don’t even know that they are being played with a sheaf of culture war issues du jour.

That is exactly why a bunch of inexperienced tech kids under the supervision of the rogue shadow President, Elon Musk, are tearing through government with a digital chain saw. It is not their mission to reform; they want to destroy. And unless someone stops them, they will do just that.

This is also why American politicians like Vance and Hegseth show up at a security conference in Munich with supposed allies and trashes them. And spouts Russian talking points instead. Putin was surely tossing back a double vodka on that one. What useful idiots I have in America, he must think. Yes, the enemies of America are within. And they are mine.

One response is for Americans to throw up our hands and say, “Oh, well, there’s nothing to do.” Another is denial, “It’s not that bad, things swing back and forth.” Another is to be petrified and stuck in place with feet in concrete. None of these are adequate for these times.

As opposed to the fake Christian Nationalists who use religion to accomplish their ideological ends, I want to suggest another way forward. I think that the menace that stalks at noonday is already in the land. The whore of Babylon is here. I think that only spiritual power and moral resolve can stand against this tyranny. This requires resistance to injustice, domination, and destruction. This requires denouncing the ways the worst among us are thrilled at marginalizing anyone who doesn’t look like them and worship their small little tribal god.

For everything there is a season. It’s time to be prophets, not consolers. Not time to comfort, but rather to confront.

We do not choose the times given, only how we will respond. Generations from now they will look back at us and ask, “Did they stand against the plague?”

Well, did we?