Nathanael: A Person for Such a Time as This, Part 2

Continued from previous post

     Of course, Judas finally lost his way.  He may have become disillusioned with Jesus, impatient with Jesus’ unwillingness to take up violence against the oppressors.  He may have simply lost his vision and started wanting some riches.  Whatever it was, he turned against the best friend he ever had.  He made a terrible choice, and he regretted it as a terrible mistake.  He could not take back what he had done, and his co-conspirators laughed in his face and mocked him.  It was too much for him, and he took his own life.  Jesus saw the good in Judas, but Judas lost sight of the good in himself.
     I need to stop and make an important point about this story.  Some Christians believe that when a person takes his or her own life, it is an unforgivable sin.  The first important thing I must say is that we have no justification to try to put limits on the forgiveness and grace of God.  God is able to forgive without our permission, without our understanding, without our agreement, without our acknowledgement.  God’s grace is immeasurable, and it is greater than all our sin.  Destroying a human life is a grave act, and it is not one to be taken lightly.  God has never take our sin lightly.  God came in Jesus Christ to face sin down, head on, with all seriousness and gravity.  Consequently, Jesus died on a cross because of the murderous ways of humanity.  Yet from that cross, he cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 
     One reason that some Christians believe that there is no forgiveness for an act like Judas’s is that they have accepted a mechanical understanding of our relationship with God.  We know that we ought to confess our sins to God and ask for forgiveness.  Many Bible teachers who have helped me learn to serve God have spoken of the promise in 1 John 1:9 as the “Christian’s bar of soap.”  “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Yes, it is true that we ought to confess our sins.  But it is not true that God is keeping a checklist and making sure that we stop to name everything we did and ask forgiveness individually for each item.  God is not operating a sin accounting firm, trying to catch us and nab us for forgetting to confess.  If that kind of mechanical operation were required, we would be caught up in another form of works-righteousness:  it’s like believing God will only save you if you will always name every sin and ask for forgiveness for each one.  It is a way of saying that salvation is just an input-output machine.  Put in the confession.  Take out the forgiveness. 
     So even if a person dies before she or he has a chance to ask for forgiveness, God is not sitting at a desk making sure that every box has been checked off.  God has known us and loved us even before we were born into this world, and God has not stopped loving us even until now.  What can separate us from the love of God?  When we have faithfully sought after God in this life, God stands faithfully with us through our best and worst times, welcoming us into our eternal rest.  God is free to forgive us, even when we have not lived up to our side of the bargain.  Though we are faithless, God will remain faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
     Another disciple, Thomas, remains mostly unknown until after the resurrection.  We know him as doubting Thomas, because he found it hard to accept the testimony of others that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  Frankly, I can see his point.  But what we have called doubting could also be called square dealing.  Thomas was not one to be impressed with fantastic theories, wild imagination, or fancy words.  If he were from the United States, he would have lived in Missouri.  Thomas would say, “Show me,” when the story sounded too fishy.  When someone’s explanation did not seem to add up, he would ask him or her to go over the story again.  Thomas asked people to “put up, or shut up.”  He wanted a practical, workable, realistic plan.  He did not want to be counting on something to appear out of thin air. 
     Jesus needs people who are not satisfied with endless talking and imagining what can be.  Some people need to bring folks like those back down to earth to start laying the paving stones toward progress.  Jesus needs people to keep it real, to be a down brother or sister who knows what’s jive and what’s real.  Jesus called Thomas to help keep his ministry team on the ground and dealing with reality.
     Simon the Canaanean was probably a Zealot.  That means he was committed to the overthrow of the Roman Empire and the reestablishment of a Jewish state in their homeland.  Jesus knew that Simon loved his people and hated to see them treated so badly.  He saw in Simon someone who could analyze the political and social world and recognize how power functioned and who was pulling the strings.  Jesus called him to follow because that kind of insight is needed if God’s people are going to live up to their mission to change the world.  Certainly Simon’s revolutionary ways needed to be tempered by the meek and nonviolent ways of Jesus.  But taking up the ways of nonviolence is not the same as just letting the oppressors do whatever they want.
     Jesus wants leaders who can see the political and economic injustices of the world and guide the church to take strategic action.  Some Christians who have this kind of insight may misuse it to manipulate power in the church.  Others may think the church has no use for their abilities.  But God wants all of our talents to be ordered toward the work of doing the will of God here on earth as it is in heaven.  When churches simply ignore the use and abuse of power in the community, they have truncated, or cut short, the gospel.  God is concerned about every part of our lives and every person in the community.  Using the wisdom God has given us about social strategies for change is what God has called us to do in the gospel.  That is good news for the poor and freedom for the oppressed.
     Thaddaeus may be the one we know least about.  His name probably meant strong-hearted.  He may have been, like Simon, a Zealot.  But whether or not he was part of that movement, Jesus needs people who have strong hearts, courage to act, and love that does not fade under pressure.
     There was another James in the list, and it tells us his dad’s name was Alphaeus.  We also know very little about him.  Some think he might have been a cousin of Jesus.  Maybe because his dad’s name is given, it means he was from a famous family.  In either of these cases, it seems that a key aspect of his calling was his connections to people.  When Jesus calls us, he calls us in the midst of our relationships.  He expects us to be a lifeline to those around us.  As friends of Jesus, we become part of a chain, the so-called six degrees of separation, by which we link one another to Jesus through our witness, our service, and our caring relationships.
     That brings us finally back to Nathanael.  What I find particularly compelling in this story today is what Jesus said about the man.  “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”  Jesus calls Nathanael an honest man.  Nathanael tells the truth.  He says what he thinks and not what he thinks Jesus wants to hear.  Jesus admires this characteristic in a world where flattery and fluffy talk are the rule of the day.  When everyone is thinking it and no one wants to say it, we need a Nathanael to break the ice.  When the doublespeak has fogged our vision, someone needs to speak up and tell what is wrong.
     Jesus calls people like Nathanael who will be willing to take the heat and tell the truth anyway.  It’s not the same thing as saying everything that is on our minds.  That might turn out to be cruelty, rudeness, and half-truths.  But when people are beating around the bush, the church needs someone who will make things plain.  When the competing stories leave everything fuzzy, someone needs to lead the way toward a clear picture of things.  When everyone is afraid, someone has to name the problem.
     Jesus saw Nathanael as the person for such a time as this.  Jesus’ elder cousin and mentor, John, was being discredited by powerful people.  The fledgling movement was under attack.  Political intrigue between powerful Roman, Herodian, and Jewish leaders seemed to shift the landscape everyday.  Nathanael was ready to say what needs to be said.  Jesus could help him find the truth that everyone needs to hear.
     On this weekend we remember a man who might have been any ordinary man.  Martin Luther King, Jr., was a preacher’s son who was blessed to get an excellent education.  He was ready to fit into his role as an urban pastor, doing the expected duties and nothing spectacular, but Jesus had a task for him.  While he did not fully know what gifts and talents he had, Jesus needed a Nathanael to tell the truth.  Jesus needed a Simon to see the political landscape and think strategically.  Jesus needed a Peter to step out boldly when everyone else was timid.  Jesus needed a Son of Thunder to blast forth the trumpet of justice.  Jesus needed an Andrew sold out to God, longing to know and love God better in all dimensions of life.  Jesus needed a James who would use his connections to build a movement and bring more and more people into the vision of freedom only Jesus could offer. 
     And in our day Jesus needs a Nathanael who will stand up to the bankers and to say God expects them to be stewards of the people’s money, not gamble it away and steal it bit by bit.  God needs a Nathanael in whom there is no deceit to remind the public officials whom they serve and whom they need to protect.  God needs a Nathanael to tell our neighbors and friends that Jesus came to give us a life in which loving God and loving one another shape the parameters of our existence.
     Jesus is calling us today to be a person for such a time as this.  Whatever our gifts, whatever our abilities, whatever our talents, whatever our skills—Jesus has sized them up.  Jesus has a place for them.  Jesus has a place for you.  Jesus has a place for me.  Jesus is calling us to walk in his way.  Jesus is calling us for such a time as this.
     If you have never answered the call to follow Jesus, you need to know that he has looked you over, sized you up, and said, “Follow me.”  Jesus can take whatever mess you have made of your life and put you on the right way, the way to life, the way to a future and a hope.  God is ready and able to forgive whatever you may have done. 
     You may have been sitting at home, or sitting in church, for some time, thinking you have nothing Jesus could want.  You may have become discouraged about your life and your usefulness to God.  I’m here today to say that God has not made any junk.  God has not populated this world with useless people.  God has a plan for your life.  God has a job for you to do.  If you are ready to take up the gospel call and stop sitting on your hands, then Jesus will make it plain what you need to do.  Don’t let yourself become deadwood in the building God is building.
     Jesus is telling us to “Come join in.”  Follow Jesus on the way to life.  There is a job for you to do, a place for you to stand, a reason for you to live.
   

Isaiah and Economic Justice 11: All People and Nations Standing Before a Just God

Isaiah 10:5-7, 11-15, 33-34

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger—
     the club in their hands is my fury!
Against a godless nation I send him,
     and against the people of my wrath I command him,
to take spoil and seize plunder,
     and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
But this is not what he intends,
     nor does he have this in mind;
but it is in his heart to destroy,
     and to cut off nations not a few.

"Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols
     what I have done to Samaria and her images?”

     When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty pride. For he says:

“By the strength of my hand I have done it,
     and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I have removed the boundaries of peoples,
     and have plundered their treasures;
     like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones.
My hand has found, like a nest,
     the wealth of the peoples;
and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken,
     so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved a wing,
     or opened its mouth, or chirped.”

Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one who wields it,
     or the saw magnify itself against the one who handles it?
As if a rod should raise the one who lifts it up,
     or as if a staff should lift the one who is not wood!

Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts,
     will lop the boughs with terrifying power;
the tallest trees will be cut down,
     and the lofty will be brought low.
He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax,
     and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.

The Assyrian imperialism and its widespread destruction of cities, villages, farms, and people, raises theological questions for the Isaiah and the people.  First, the Assyrians are not examples of obedience to Yahweh.  They see the gods of other peoples, including Judah, as idols, as weak deities who will fall before their divine mission.  They pursue greed through conquest.  Assyria and its leaders are also guilty of economic injustice.  Why would God allow Assyria to succeed while judging the sins of Judah and Israel?

Isaiah declares that Assyria's time will come.  They also stand under the judgment of God.  In the meantime, God allows the cycle of violence and greed to work itself out, sowing and reaping destruction.  Assyria does not march across the continent with an understanding of its conquest as the judgment of Yahweh.  For Assyria, it is the demonstration of the greatness of their generals and armies.  Thanks to their own greatness, Assyrian leaders believe they will grasp and carry away the wealth of the nations.  They will plunder all the treasures of the continent and claim it for themselves.  This is the very same sinfulness of the leaders and elite of Judah, expanded to an even more violent dominance and an even more vast landscape.  But God is not "blessing" Assyria.  Assyria will quickly sow the seeds of its own destruction.

Second, in the process of Assyrian conquest, the widows and orphans, the weak and the vulnerable, will also suffer, as stated in chapter nine.  Here in chapter ten, Isaiah offers more insight into this theological problem about the suffering of innocents.  Assyria, while serving as an instrument of judgment, does not act in accord with the will of God.  Imperialistic war, violence, plunder, killing and maiming--these are not the ways of God.  They are the ways of sin.  God is not endorsing violence, but allowing sin to work out its terrible consequences.  Violence comes into the world, not by the will of God, but by the freedom to be greedy, self-aggrandizing, possessive, and hateful that God has allowed to humanity.  This same violence led to the organized use of power to execute the sinless one, Jesus.  God is not pleased to see this violence, but God is willing to endure the violence to which humanity finds itself in bondage.  The struggle of righteousness and justice is to push back the powers formed in violence in the name of those formed in peace and justice.

So Assyria will have its day of judgment as well.  As Dr. King said, “Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate.”  That is what seeking economic justice is about.  Someone has to have the sense to say enough is enough in exploiting workers and the poor.  Someone has to stop the destruction, stand in the gap, speak truth to power, lift as we climb.  That is why the prophecies of the Old Testament are always conditional.  There is another way that leads to peace.  Jesus wept over Jerusalem's failure to find that way.  But if the unjust structures stand, the road will lead to a downward spiral of violence.  Pray that the Lord will send workers into the harvest, workers who know the good news of the way of Jesus.

Economic Recovery for All 5: Faith Perspectives, Pt. 2

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON THE ECONOMY
A Working Paper for North Carolina United Power
from an Interchange Among Theological Educators
July 2009

III. Faith Perspectives on Responding to the Crisis

B. Biblical, Theological, and Ethical Principles Guiding NCUP Actions and Campaigns in Response to the Economic Crisis

1. Interdependence of creation and humanity's birthright to share in God's gifts

Gratitude toward God, communal interdependence, and mutual accountability are at the core of a biblical understanding of economics, grounded in the Jewish scriptures and reaffirmed in the Christian scriptures. In the parable of the "rich fool," a man reaches the apex of prosperity because of bumper crops on his farm. He congratulates himself as if it were all his own doing, only to lose enjoyment of his success when he dies in his sleep (Luke 12:13-21). Human beings share a mutual obligation for the well-being of all. Cyprian of Carthage taught, "Whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from God's benefits and God's gifts, so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality." One "who, as a possessor in the earth, shares his returns and his fruits with the brothers and sisters, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God" ("On the Unity of the Church," Ante-Nicene Fathers 5:25).

Indeed, if we are to flourish or even survive, we must act in love. We must receive what we need from others and we must share what they need from us. If we don’t receive from others, we will die. If we do not share what we have, then they will be less likely to share what we need from them; we both will die. We must act in love or face destruction.

According to Howard Thurman, “Human beings, all human beings, belong to each other, and anyone who shuts themselves away diminishes themselves, and anyone who shuts another away from themselves destroys themselves” (The Search for Common Ground, 104). Because of the way God created the world, our own, truest self-interest is inextricably tied to that of others. So, pursuing God’s kingdom, or righteousness, is to participate in and contribute to the great exchange, by which we all survive and flourish. It is to honor others by receiving their goods and virtues and, then, sharing our own goods and virtues vital to others. “We are,” as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” ("Letter from Birmingham Jail").

2. The unconditional protection of those vulnerable to loss of food, shelter, clothing, and other basic goods of life

The divine plan for humanity's flourishing requires that societies and communities manage their wealth toward this end: "There shall be no one in need among you" (Deut. 15:4). In the story of the fledgling church after the Spirit of God moved at Pentecost, the writer states the budding fulfillment of this teaching, "There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34). The teachings of Christian theologians through the ages have reinforced this view of wealth. Martin Luther wrote of Deut. 15:4, “Now if God gave this commandment in the Old Testament, how much more ought we Christians be bound not only to allow no one to suffer want or to beg” (“A Treatise on Usury”).

The Year of Release, also called the Jubilee, offered a new beginning, a second chance, and a path to keep the entire economy flourishing for the long term. There must be no irreversible poverty, no unlimited acquisition of houses and lands, goods that should be distributed among all the community. Houses give shelter; fields provide food. Both are essential to making a livelihood.

The prophet Isaiah condemned those "who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!" (Isa. 5:8). The prophet Micah denounced those who “. . . covet fields and seize them, houses, and take them away . . . who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat and declare war against those who put nothing in their mouths” (Micah 2:2; 3:5). Nehemiah chastised the wealthy landowners who had accumulated numerous houses and fields because of the misfortunes of their neighbors, and he publicly denounced them for their selfish greed. The very identity of the people depended on their returning houses and lands to all the families in the community (Neh. 5:1-17). In that case, Nehemiah and the people managed to reverse the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Will people turn again toward the common good in our time? Will this society make a path for recovery to all classes of people who have suffered losses? Or will the economically powerful tighten their grip, leverage their advantages, and make recovery difficult or impossible for the unemployed, the foreclosed, and the uninsured? Basil of Caesarea preached, "If one who takes the clothing off another is called a thief, why give any other name to one who can clothe the naked and refuses to do so? The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor; the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod" (“Homily on Luke 12:18”).

I have had a generally good impression of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright since I first looked at some of his writing about six years ago. We have been on the same program at the Shaw University Divinity School Minister's Conference, and he was complimentary concerning my remarks. I have known more than one person who told me of Wright's influence on her or his ministry.

I was impressed to learn of Barack Obama's membership in Wright's church and his conversion to Christian faith in part under Wright's influence. This connection caused me to look more seriously at Obama's candidacy in those early days when a dozen or more people were running for president. Although I understand Obama's continuing statements to distance himself from his former pastor, I regret that he is doing it.

When Wright became the object of infotainment programming and talking heads a while back, I listened to some brief selections from his sermons on YouTube. I have to say that I found nothing troubling in what I heard. I quickly concluded that the sermon in which God's damnation was stated sounded very much like the prophetic writings of the Bible which Wright clearly indicated that he was imitating. In Jesus' teachings, he pronounced "woes" upon various cities for seemingly lesser offenses than Wright was detailing concerning the United States.

Any Bible reader knows that the Hebrew prophets' words are often much more X-rated than anything Wright had to say. If people are taking offense at Jeremiah Wright's sermons, then they would take offense at the Bible and prophetic preaching from any source. If perhaps there is a more obvious use of biblical precedent in shaping black prophetic preaching than white church-going people are currently accustomed to hearing, then what we are observing is more a rejection of their own past by white churches than a shockingly intensive level of conviction on the part of black churches.

As for the observation about "chickens coming home to roost," it is a common saying. Wright's sermon refers to a former ambassador who uses this phrase, once used by Malcolm X (which led to his censure by and eventual departure from the Nation of Islam), to describe the conditions under which attacks were made upon the United States. Nothing about the saying excuses the vicious acts of terror. Yet as an observation about how "what goes around, comes around," it could not be more accurate about the results of U. S. aggression and economic exploitation across the world. According to Voice of America, more than $24 billion of military products were supplied to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries by the U. S. this past year. As Ched Myers has said, the United States is addicted to violence. The litany of U. S. military adventurism and terroristic policies is long and tragic, costing the lives of Native Americans, kidnapped Africans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Nicaraguans, Panamanians, Guatemalans, Granadans, Haitians, Filipinos, protesting college students, and on and on. Relying on violence leads to violence. Martin Luther King, Jr., said it in 1958 this way

force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.

Although his word was "begets," it still means the same as "chickens coming home to roost." And King was a harsh critic of the U. S. and its foreign policy. He said

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

And also,

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government.

These words brought great criticism and abuse on Dr. King. Nowadays we like to treat him as a teddy bear, cute and cuddly. But he was a prophetic preacher who castigated the U. S. for its violence, oppression, and war. Having forgotten the way he was hated in his time, a new generation has found another preacher to castigate.

A final matter from his speeches has to do with the comments about the HIV virus. I do not believe that it is a manufactured virus designed to kill blacks or any other group. However, as Wright said, he does not put this sort of strategy of intentional infection beyond the realm of possibility for the United States. Many people now know of the intentional infliction of suffering on blacks during the Tuskeegee syphilis study. Fewer are aware of the persistent tactic of the U. S. government's giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native American villages in order to kill the inhabitants. Wright cites the contradictory and hypocritical policy of the U. S. toward Iraqi use of biological weapons when the U. S. is the supplier of those very weapons to Iraq.

To top this all off, the document "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century," raises the spectre of a new type of biological weapon that selectively kills people according to their genes. In other words, weapons that can select people according to their ethnicity. Israel and Apartheid South Africa are reputed to have done research on this kind of weapon to use against their enemies in ethnic warfare. Now they find an exploratory endorsement in a document which lists Lewis Libby and Paul Wolfowitz as contributors, for an organization that names Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Weigel, Elliott Abrams, William Bennett, Jeb Bush, Norman Podhoretz, and others as endorsers. On page 60 it says the following.

And advanced forms of biological warfarethat can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

Is the U. S. government capable of such an act? Yes. Do I think the HIV virus is a creation of the government? No, but I can see why someone might be suspicious.

Jeremiah Wright is speaking up in a prophetic voice. I am thankful for his courage to say what he is saying.

The Maker and Appraiser, part 1
Jeremiah 18:1-11

(This was the Men's Day message for the 8 am service at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on September 9, 2007.)

Imagine yourself on the grade-school playground. Two or three children are playing together, climbing the jungle gym, and one proclaims, “I’m up higher than you are.” In response, another child says, “So what? I can jump off of here and land farther away than you can.” Soon the whole group has jumped down to the ground where they are comparing who jumped the farthest. Out of their arguing another voice says, “Big deal. I can run to the fence faster than you can.” And so on and so forth, the remainder of the school recess is filled with inventing contests to measure who can claim superiority over others in one way or another.

Our obsession with measuring our rank and status does not end in the competition of the playground. Those games, full of importance for the moment, are a rehearsal for more long-term, more expensive competitions in later life. Who is tallest? Who can sing lowest? Who can eat the most hot dogs? Who can whistle loudest? Who can throw a rock the farthest? Who can make a rock skip the most times across the surface of the lake? Who can catch the biggest fish? Who has the coolest sunglasses? Who has the fanciest car? Who has the most seniority? Who has the highest rank in the office? Who has the most expensive suit? Who is wearing the most outrageous tie? Who went to the most prestigious school? Whose favorite team won the championship? Who got a date with the most popular girl? Who makes the most money? Who has the biggest house? Who has the largest number of Christmas lights on his house? Who has the biggest collection of baseball autographs? Who has the most tools in his workshop?

It seems that we have an infinite capacity to invent ways of measuring our value. We seem driven to find some quantifiable way to be sure that we are worth something, or at least that we are worth more than that other guy over there. I may not be as rich as Oprah, but at least I’m doing better than my lazy cousin. I may not be the president, but at least people look up to me more than they do my stuck-up neighbor. I may not be as smart as Cornel West, but at least I read more books than old motor-mouth down at the coffee shop.

Most of us know, when we stop to think about it, that there is a problem with always making up new ways to compare, to measure, to compete with others in order to try to prove what we are worth. As soon as we start to depend on one of these self-construed ways of measuring our value, another kind of measurement comes along and sets aside our temporary imagined triumph. I may have lost the most weight, but someone else has done better in lowering his blood pressure. I may have accessorized my car with a global positioning system, a DVD player, and new hubcaps that don’t stop spinning when the car stops, but someone else just got a great big Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I may have just been on a long and impressive trip, but the other guy has twice as many frequent-flyer miles. I may have the best statistics for meeting my goals at work, but the other guy has the best relationship with the boss. I may have the most cable channels to watch basketball games, but the other guy has the biggest high-definition tv screen. It’s like a never-ending cycle of escalating standards. Trying to prove ourselves by creating contests is like walking on a treadmill. You keep on taking one step after another, but you never get anywhere. You can speed it up and walk faster, but you still are in the same place. And on top of that, the guy next to you has one of those fancy elliptical walkers that’s better than your treadmill.

I’m not giving you any breaking news. Anyone here who has stopped to think for a few seconds knows that the constant effort to set a standard to get ahead and prove our worth by comparing ourselves with others is a road that leads only to disappointment and frustration. Through the centuries, many people have reflected on our theme for men’s day, “the measure of a man.” When they have been honest and critical in their analysis, they have often arrived at valuable insights to help us know what it is that makes for a good life, a life that leads to fulfillment, a life that can be admired.

Sidney Poitier named his memoir The Measure of a Man. He undertook to write it because he was wanting to reflect on and evaluate his life. He said, “I wanted to find out, as I looked back at a long and complicated life, with many twists and turns, how well I’ve done at measuring up to the values I myself have set.” Those values have to do with his vocation as an actor and his integrity as a human being. His way of stating it was in terms of personal goals and commitments. Of course, he did not make these up out of thin air. They must also be related to those high standards of excellence which were passed on to him by his family, his teachers, and the community. He is right that he would not be able to take stock of how well he had done on his own goals unless at some point he had come to commit himself to those standards and long for their achievement.

In a less individualistic way of speaking, we might turn to the words of the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the Philippians, “I want to take hold of that for which I have been taken hold of.” Paul wants his achievement to be appraised by what God has called him to do. Paul helps us see that we cannot purely on our own claim to invent the standards for measuring the worth of our lives. Paul understood that the maker of the pot is also the appraiser. In fact, he spent some time reflecting on this very image of how to evaluate the worth of a person compared to a clay pot. He said to the Corinthians, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” in “clay pots,” in “jars of clay.” The true measure of the value of these clay pots is not in the dirt they are made from, but in the use they serve for the household. And it is God who is the one who appraises our service.

It is fascinating to see how other people through the ages have considered the measure of a man as not merely self-initiated, but socially and externally evaluated. I want to take a few minutes to look at three examples of statements about “the measure of a man” which have come down to us across many centuries. One is over two millennia old. Another is over two centuries old. And the other is about fifty years old.

Looking way back, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato is recorded as saying, “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” No doubt he had seen some people who seemed just fine when they were “one more Joe” on the street, doing their job, making their way. But when they got promoted or appointed or elected to a higher position, it seemed like they had lost their minds. Instead of building relationships of mutuality and reciprocation, now they start looking down on people, shouting orders, and taking revenge. Instead of making sure the benefits and privileges are shared, they start hogging all the good stuff for themselves. What does power do to people? It opens up the chance to get by with things you never would have tried when you knew someone could call you on it. That does not mean that if we get power we are forced to become abusers of that power. We have a choice. We can use power to serve the community’s good. When that is what we do, we have passed the test of what Plato has stated. We can be measured as exemplary, because we did not let power corrupt us.

Around the time of the founding of the United States, the English literary scholar of the late 1700s, Samuel Johnson, said, “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” Johnson seems to be drawing on the tradition of Christian teaching which urges us to do good to others regardless of whether they can repay our good deeds. Like Plato, he is pointing out that the power relations that exist between people can turn us into calculating, scheming self-promoters. This is the opposite of what we call good character. A person of good character holds to his convictions steadily, in all sorts of situations.

Who is it that I find myself facing here and now? Maybe that person I have to deal with at this moment appears to be many notches below me on the social register. Maybe the man I meet appears to be wearing and carrying all his worldly possessions on his body. Maybe the least influential person at work is the one who has come my way today. What will I do when I know I probably won’t get anything out of it? When I know it probably won’t help my career? When what I share can’t be restored to me? Here Johnson, like Plato, is helping us to see that the measure of a man is not something we can simply choose for ourselves and say, “I did it my way.” It also has to do with what is good for others, regardless of our own benefits. “Who is my neighbor?”, was the question asked of Jesus. And as the story unfolded, it was full of all sorts of unexpected answers. Clearly, for Jesus, the kinds of social, political, ethnic, economic, religious barriers that we put up around us have little to do with how we should respond to the people we meet along life’s way.

More recent, and better known to us is the iconic figure of Martin Luther King, Jr., who once said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Maybe you have been there like I have. The newspaper has an article about something that gets under your skin. You hear about something the president, the mayor, the principal, the school teacher, or your boss has done. You start your next sentence, “If that happened to me, I would . . . .” Out of your mouth pour the most powerful oratory, full of catchy turns of phrase and plenty of “gotcha” points. You convince yourself, in the comfort of your armchair or the seclusion of your kitchen, that you will be courageous, heroic, unbending, and untiring in your opposition to all perceived wrongs.

What Dr. King wants us to realize is that those dress rehearsals are not the real test. Now it may be fine to have those dress rehearsals of what I would do or what I would say. But if they never lead to a performance in the face of a real challenge, when people are watching, when somebody might confront us and push back against us, they really don’t amount to much. Character is proven when it faces a real test. The measure that matters comes when we arrive at the big event. No matter how many times I run a sub-44 time in the 400 meters in my yard, Michael Johnson still has the world record. Until I run that time at an official meet up against Jeremy Wariner, Angelo Taylor, Darold Williamson, and LeShawn Merritt (the four members of the 2007 World Champion U. S. 4 x 400-meter relay team), then it doesn’t count. If I can’t do it then, then it does me no good to be bragging about how fast I am when I practice.

From these three estimable persons, we are led to ask the following questions about the measure of a man. What does he do with power? How does he treat those who can’t repay him? How does he act in the face of challenge and controversy? This question of what is the measure of a man has caught many people’s attention, not only the philosophers, literary critics, and theologians.

In part, the conversation is happening now because we live in a time when certain traditional ways of showing manliness have been called into question and challenged. Consequently, there are conflicting ideas of being a man. If I had only heard it one time it would have been enough, but I have far too often heard it said that the way to show you are a man is to put a woman in her place and show her, if necessary through violence, who is in charge. That is the measure of a brute or a tyrant, but not of a man as God has made us to be. Part of the reason we have to talk about the measure of a man is that false gods and false understandings of human nature have led people to false ways of trying to be a man. It’s not who has the biggest gun. It’s not who seduced the most sexual partners. It’s not who has the most explosive temper. There must be something deeper and more socially edifying that is the measure of manhood.

I was surprised to quickly find no less than five pop songs which take up the topic of defining “the measure of a man.” They range across a variety of musical genres, and even local pop star Clay Aiken named an album with the song title, “The Measure of a Man.” Now I’m not one to go first to pop music to find the answers to life, but that does not mean that I don’t sometimes find some insight and wisdom there. These pop songs talk about being willing to sacrifice for love, being steady in difficult times, working hard, being loyal, giving your time and possessions to others, standing up to injustice, standing by commitments made, passion for what is important, and what’s in the heart. This list of character traits and behaviors gives us plenty to chew on as we ask, “What is the measure of a man?” --continued--

The Land of the House of Omri--Part 1
Psalm 146
I Kings 16

In the official inscriptions of the ancient kingdom of Assyria, archaeologists have discovered a phrase that names a character from the Old Testament. That phrase refers to a kingdom, and it calls that kingdom “the house of Omri.” Who was Omri—O-M-R-I--Omri? Did Omri have a famous family?

Well, fame is a relative thing. About 3000 years ago in the hills of Samaria, Omri was pretty well known. He was the sixth king of the northern kingdom of Israel. He moved the capital of the kingdom from Tirzah to a new city he built called Samaria. He reigned for about twelve years and seems to have built some buildings. He was mediocre in his ability to maintain good relationships with neighboring kingdoms. He seems to have solidified one relationship with a strategic marriage for his son. Elsewhere he lost some cities to Syria and took some cities from Moab. And he got his name into the records of Assyria, a kingdom on the rise toward a becoming a great empire. His successors as King of Israel would ultimately have to face a reckoning with Assyria, and it would be their downfall.

But what I’ve just told you is much more than the book of 1 Kings bothers to tell us about Omri. Omri is one more in a series of rulers who are most memorable in the Bible for the way they went wrong. Of course, that is the overall story line of the entire period of kings in Israel and Judah. Some people began to demand a king. Samuel tried to stop them, and he warned them it would not be good for them. Against God’s true purpose for Israel, God let them have a king, and what follows is one sad example after another of why we need to understand what Psalm 146 is saying: “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans will perish.”

Let’s think back across that history. God selected Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, as the first king. He had the look of a leader. He showed an inclination toward godliness as was manifested when he joined up with the traveling prophets. He took up the task of leadership with confidence. Pretty soon he was fighting wars. The longer he stayed in office, the more he worried about who might be trying to take over his place as king. This concern seems to have pushed him toward depression and maybe even mental illness. He could not figure out that the best thing he had going for him was a friendship with young David. Instead, he let the waves of public opinion rock him back and forth. It’s a tragic story, but not an isolated incident of failure on the throne.

Saul was replaced by David after his death. Sometimes the Bible makes it seem that under David everything was great. But closer attention to the story shows us it was not. David’s leadership was tied up with his effective use of violence. God did not want him to build the temple because of his violent ways. Moreover, while he seems to have started out with the blessing of the people and of God, David quickly dissipated his political capital and his divine favor. He decided that being king put him above the law. He stole a man’s wife and killed the man. He did not maintain a harmonious household. The household disagreements poured over into political factions, and the land became divided and went into civil war. Although we see David repenting of sin and seeking to reconcile the divisions, even on his deathbed he plotted revenge.

His successor Solomon is praised for his wisdom, but where is the wisdom in having so many wives and concubines? He sounds more like a rich, powerful man out of control. Some of his marriages were for political alliances, and these brought the powerful influences of other kingdoms and other faiths into the land. Although Solomon is revered for building a temple to the God of Israel, he also built temples to the gods of the neighboring kingdoms. And the way he built so many fine buildings was by drafting the people to do forced labor for the kingdom. It was hard to raise your crops and keep your animals if you had to spend months away from home building fancy buildings for the king’s wives to live in or for the priests of foreign gods to practice their religion. People were angry by the time Solomon died.

One of the popular critics of Solomon’s policies, Jereboam, helped to split the kingdom into north and south, and he became king of the northern tribes. He went back to the wilderness precedent of erecting a golden calf as a symbol of the throne of god. He mixed up the gods of the land with the worship of the God of Israel. His was the first of many disastrous kingships in the northern kingdom. His son and successor, Nadab, was murdered on the battlefied by another northerner, Baasha, and then the whole family was rounded up and slaughtered. Baasha did not know how to stay out of fights, and he had plenty of trouble with his neighbors. When he died, his son Elah succeeded him. That’s where 1 Kings chapter 16 picks up.

I would hate to be Elah in the history books. The Bible gives us one fact about his life. While a war was going on somewhere else, he was back at home with half the army in the capital. And he was drinking himself stupid with his buddies. In that state of inebriation, he probably never knew what hit him. The commander of the troops in the capital came to the place where he was drunk and assassinated him. The kingdom went into chaos. Zimri, his assassin, proclaimed himself the new king. Then he did just like Elah’s father had done. He rounded up the whole family of Elah and executed them.

After this assassination and usurping of the throne, the people began to rally around popular leaders. The part of the army that had been off at war chose Omri to be the new king. Omri took the army off the battlefield and marched back to the capital. When Zimri, the assassin who was claiming to be king, saw the troops arrayed against him, he gave up hope. After being king for only seven days, he set fire to the palace and burned it and himself in it. So Omri claimed to be the new king.

But he could not fully claim it yet. Even though the army was backing him, about half the people of the northern kingdom were backing another fellow, Tibni, for king. Putting the dates from 1 Kings 16 together, it seems that for four years, two people claiming to be king were locked in a struggle for power. Finally, Omri’s party overcame Tibni’s party, and Tibni’s death let Omri reign unchallenged for the next eight years until his death. What inheritance did he leave the kingdom of Israel? He left them his successor, his son Ahab, who led the people down many wrong paths.

Omri came to power in the midst of war, in the wake of assassinations, and when the country was divided. I Kings says that half the people backed Omri and the other half backed Tibni. Omri and Tibni battled it out in an intractable struggle for four years. Then Omri got the undisputed title, and Tibni went to the grave.

This does not sound so unfamiliar to me. Half the country was for one leader, the other half for another. The controversy went on for four years, and finally one of them emerged the victor over the other. It sounds like the last six years of U. S. politics. This country’s voting populace is so evenly divided between two parties that every election ends up with a dispute over who won. And with the margin of victory so narrow, who knows what people are willing to do to sway a few votes. Some try to intimidate voters to keep them from going out to vote. Others use mailings or phone calls to lie about where and when the vote is taking place. Some throw out perfectly good ballots that could hurt their party’s cause. Others take election results to court. Many of us wonder whether the coming use of electronic voting machines will bring an end to having our vote count if the machines can be programmed to ignore our decisions and mark ballots for whomever pays the programmers the best price. We face uncertainty, conflict, and division. So did the people who ended up with Omri as their king.

It was that chaotic reign that the Assyrians recorded as their name for the northern kingdom of Israel. Even after Omri’s descendents lost the throne, the Assyrians called this kingdom “the house of Omri.” They did not call it the house of Jereboam. They did not call it the house of Baasha. They did not call it the house of Jehu, even though Jehu was the one who unseated and executed the family of Ahab, son of Omri. So forever in the archives of Assyrian history, the northern kingdom has been known for a king whose reign was built on chaos and civil conflict.

The Psalmist’s words are an important reminder for those of us who find ourselves living in the house of Omri today. Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. As Samuel warned, and Jeremiah reminded, depending on armies and violence and putting one person in charge over everyone is a bad plan that is bound to fail. One person is not capable of exercising that much power. Armies and violence produce more armies and violence. Autocratic leaders become self-centered and self-serving. They help their friends while everyone else pays the price. They talk as if they are for the people when behind the scenes they are robbing them of their prosperity and their dignity.

In our day leaders are promoting the use of torture, putting the energy companies in charge of the energy policy, taking away the right of habeus corpus, allowing unlimited imprisonment without charges, imprisonment without the right to communicate with a lawyer, allowing wiretapping of citizens without probable cause or a warrant, spending billions on a war of aggression while leaving hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims to fend for themselves, creating education policies designed to shift billions of dollars to private companies. In these times of chaos and division, leaders can manipulate the system to the great disadvantage of the common people.

This is the world we have been living in. We have been living in the house of Omri. And do not be fooled. It has not changed overnight. One day of voting did not transform a troubled and broken system into the Kingdom of God. When Saul died and David took his place, the problems did not go away. Solomon may have tried to be a uniter and not a divider, but when his son took power, the country split and civil war ensued. One election did not remove the dangers and turn the U. S. into the land of eternal happiness. For generations after Omri’s reign, people still called the northern kingdom of Israel “the house of Omri.” And when they stopped calling it that, it was because the kingdom had been defeated, destroyed, and deported.

To be continued . . .