Can We Be in Control?

One annual event on many church calendars is Men's Day.  As part of the Men's Day preparation, three preachers were asked to speak briefly at the Wednesday night Bible study and prayer time, all using the same text, 1 Corinthians 15:56-58.  We got our heads together to try to avoid too much repetition, and it worked well.  Thanks to Rev. Patrick Clay of Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church and Rev. Dennis Horne of Monument of Faith Church for being my excellent partners in this enterprise.  I focused on verse 56 because it gave me the opportunity to think about the relationship of sin and the law.  The focus, according to the theme, was on men, but of course the same kinds of arguments found in this sermon can apply regardless of a person's gender.

1 Corinthians 15:56-58

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

I want to address the first portion of the passage, verse 56, a compound sentence which says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”  The question I want us to consider for a few minutes is “Can we be in control?”

One of the great unknowns of human existence is death.  Everyone faces it eventually.  We watch helplessly when loved ones die.  We remain on this side of a great, impenetrable divide.  The uncertainty of death arouses great anxiety in some people.  Others are able not to dwell on such fears, and some face the inevitability of death with a kind of calm resolve and peace.

            Those who put their trust in God can often put aside their anxieties about death and rest in the hope of God’s salvation.  With or without faith, most people manage to keep thoughts of death at bay through one strategy or another.  They keep focused on living and on building security in this world.  But that does not mean that fear does not break through now and then.  Death can be a powerful shaping force in our lives, even if we keep the subject buried just below the surface of our consciousness.

            Death, or its possibility, may drive us to change our diets, to start exercising, to take various medicines, to have surgeries, to break old habits and start new habits, to take a vacation, to change jobs, to move to another climate, to improve our relationships, to pray and meditate.  Death makes us act because it is the ultimate loss of control.

            If that is true, that death is the ultimate loss of control, then perhaps we might also say that the desire and efforts and strategies that people use to take control of their lives can be ways of warding off death.  And warding off death can be a good thing.  God made us for life.

            But there is a kind of striving for control that can get out of hand.  We talk about people with a “controlling personality.”  We say that some co-workers are “micromanagers.”  And we accuse people in our lives of being “control freaks.”  We protest to people who try to tell us what to do and how to live, “You’re not the boss of me!”  There is a kind of concern for control that is not good for relationships and gets out of hand.  It may, in fact, mask an underlying anxiety about losing control.  It may be a reaction to the fear of death.

            We don’t want an untimely death.  On the other hand, death comes to all, and in the right season it can be received with grace.  But when we let ourselves get so concerned with controlling every detail of our lives and the lives of people around us, could it be that we have let ourselves be controlled by fear of death rather than by the goodness of God’s gift of life?

            The Apostle Paul wrote in this text that the sting of death is sin.  He says that death has a sting.  The sting is what hurts us.  The sting is the harm that comes to us.  Death stings us because of sin. 

            On one level, that means that if we die in sin, we face a future without hope.  Death swallows us up, and we are in the clutches of an enemy we cannot defeat by our human power.  The sting of death, in this way, speaks of dying in sin and facing judgment.   I would like to say more here, but the time is short, and I can come back around to this in combination with the next important thing to say.

            On another level, saying that the sting of death is sin means that death gets its poison into us through sin.  Sinning puts us into the atmosphere of death, the sphere of influence of death.  Death sneaks its way into our lives and pollutes them and twists them and dominates them, and it does this through sin.

            One of the principle biblical concepts of sin is our desire to control our lives without depending on God.  All the way back to the Garden of Eden story, human beings believed that they had a better plan than God.  It’s not a story about a magic fruit tree and an arbitrary prohibition from God.  It is a story about human beings trying to become sovereign over their own lives and realizing how unready and how unqualified they are to take charge for themselves. 

            We, like Adam and Eve, often find ourselves trying to take control.  We want to run things.  We want the people around us to do things our way.  Men want their wives, their co-workers, their neighbors, their kids, their siblings, their girlfriends, their buddies, their teammates, to do things their way. 

            You know the guy I’m talking about.  He can’t seem to listen to others.  He gives long speeches about how to do things (Lord, help me here, I’m talking to myself.)  He gets angry when people don’t automatically comply with his plans and his wishes.  He always acts like the expert.  He’s got a plan for you and expects you to carry it out.  If he’s a pastor or deacon, he may try to enhance his control by invoking God as his sponsor.

            In the extreme, he may be like the prominent athlete in the news who wants control so bad he breaks out into violent acts.  He can’t be questioned or challenged.  And the odds are that every church, ours included, has in its pews men (or women) who have resorted to violence to control their loved ones.  It’s wrong.  It needs to stop.  God and the church can help you get help and stop.  You don’t need to demand to be in control over others and become violent.

            One thing Paul is telling us here is that trying to fight off death by controlling everything around you is really a way of giving in to death.  Instead of pushing death away, fear of death is pushing itself into our lives.  We think we can prevent the chaos by keeping everything under control, but the chaos is working within us, pressing upward toward consciousness, fighting our love for life and replacing it with control.

            Only God is capable of guiding our lives.  So I’m not saying don’t use your gifts of leadership and administration.  I’m saying let them operate in a realm of grace and freedom and love.  Grace means letting God work through other people, not controlling other people.  Freedom means being open to changes in plans and the choices of others.  Love means listening and valuing the many people God sends into your life, with all the gifts they bring.

            Paul expands his argument by saying that the power of sin is the law.  I could spend a few weeks talking about the ambiguous concept of the law in the Bible and theology.  There are many controversies over its significance across the history of the church.  But let it suffice tonight to say that the law has a limited good purpose.  It cannot save us.  But understood rightly, it can guide us.

            Our anxiety, however, makes us want the law to be our salvation.  We think it is straightforward.  It is simple.  It is clear.  There it is in black and white on the page.  We feel that we can follow something that is in plain view.  So we sometimes wish and long for the law to be our salvation.  It is, again, a strategy of control.  And as you know, the people who own authority over the law, own the rest of the people.

            Again, you have seen this guy.  He knows the regulations.  He has told you exactly what he wants done.  He wants it done this way, no matter what good idea you think you have.  In our churches, he says that we have always done things this way and it worked for our parents and their parents and the ones that came before.  He says the constitution and bylaws of a Missionary Baptist Church tell us what organizations and officers to have, and that should be good enough to do the work of the church.  He loves standard operating procedure and prefers no variations.

            But law cannot save.  It is by grace we are saved.  The power of sin is the law.  Law turbocharges our sinfulness.  Law boosts sin’s power.  Law becomes the lever to let sin shove the world around.  The law is a club in a violent man’s hand to beat down his opponents or any who question him.  That’s not the purpose of the law.  So when sin gets it’s grip on us, we use the law to intensify our controlling impulses.

            So don’t be one of these guys.  You can be a man without being in control of everything and everyone around you.  Let God send co-workers, fellow-travelers, teammates, into your life who can bring their goodness and truth and beauty with them.  Let it be life that flourishes, not death through the sinfulness of control and the power of law. 

           God gives the victory.  Jesus gave up control as he prayed in the garden.  He laid out his ideas for a good plan, but he acknowledged that there might be other plans that would work out.  He said, “Not my will, but thy will, be done.”  He went down a path that was not in his own control.  It looked like death would win.  Death tried to sting him, but he was without sin.  The law tried to condemn him, but he was the lawgiver himself.   
           When it seemed that he would be swallowed up by death, instead, death was swallowed up in victory.  Jesus knew that the God who loved him before death would still love him even into eternity.  In the world Jesus gave us, death is not a destroyer, but a passage to new life.  He showed us the way.  May we walk in it with courage, and not succumb to our fears.

Would You Know Something Good If You Saw It?

This sermon was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on March 30, 2014.

Lectionary Gospel Text:  John 9:1-41

Today I want to reflect with you on a question raised by this story.  The question is, “Would you know something good if you saw it?  Would you recognize good news if you heard it?”  On this fourth Sunday of Lent, we continue in our journey of self-examination, of repentance, of seeking to turn in the path of following Jesus.  We have a story from the time of Jesus’ ministry that was filled with conflicts.  It is a story of how people were not ready to receive what Jesus brought to them.  It is their story and our story too.  Would you know something good if you saw it?  Would I?  Would I recognize the good news if I heard it?  Would you?

What a crazy, mixed up story this is!  People are looking at one another, whom they have known for a long time, trying to figure out if they recognize each other.  People are asking the same people the same questions over and over.  It’s almost as mixed up as the famous Abbott and Costello routine about “Who’s on first?”  Yes, he is.  Who is?  The first baseman.  That’s who I’m asking about.  That’s who it is?  What?  He’s on second base? etc., etc., etc.  These people could not stop asking questions long enough to think and figure out what was going on.  Religious people, the teachers and preachers, were arguing with one another about whether what they were seeing can really be happening.  They were arguing about their doctrines and ignoring what they saw and heard right there in the streets of Jerusalem.  Some people were afraid to say what they thought.  One man in the middle of it all was flabbergasted at how everyone was acting toward him.

When you and I look at this story, we tend to be drawn to a key aspect of it.  A man who had been born blind received his sight because of Jesus.  We might even tend to ignore the rest of all these goings on.  On the other hand, if something like this happened in our neighborhoods, there would probably be a commotion.  People would wonder how it happened.  And if we understand the situation in which this story occurs, maybe we can also get the picture of why all the arguing came about.

John’s gospel is full of stories of what happened when Jesus was in Jerusalem.  Unlike the other three gospels, which tell Jesus’ story in a familiar and similar way about his ministry that is focused in Galilee, this fourth gospel is different.  It has mostly stories the others do not include.  And at this point in the middle of the gospel of John, Jesus has been in Jerusalem long enough to have become a major topic of conversation and controversy in the city. 

If you look back through several chapters, you will see how some people, especially the religious and political leaders, are trying to do battle with him.  They want to discredit him, prove him wrong.  They want to try to show him up in front of the crowds.  But every time they try, Jesus comes out looking great in the eyes of the people.  His popularity grows.  He outsmarts them, makes them look foolish, makes them look selfish and greedy and arrogant.  He shows he understands God and theology better than they do.  He keeps urging people to care about one another and not so much about who is in charge or who tries to appear perfect before the law.  Jesus is winning the battle of public opinion, and his opponents are becoming his enemies.  They get madder with each encounter. 

If you look at the chapters which follow, it continues to intensify.  Eventually, he has to leave the city and go to the outlying villages.  He knows that he is in danger.  He recognizes that people are plotting to kill him.  Seeing it coming, he is trying to make the most of his last days.  He is designing a plan to bring the crisis to a head in a way that will make it clear what God was doing through him.  So when his disciples ask him an important theological question, he offers an multilayered answer in hopes they will come to see better who he is and what God sent him to do.

They ask him a question that comes from what we might call pop theology or the folk tradition.  They see a man who has been blind from birth.  They wonder aloud to him about why the man is blind.  They assume it is a punishment from God, either upon him or upon his parents for sin.  How they would think a man born blind could have sinned before birth and been punished, I have no idea.  But I suspect their puzzlement had to do with fairness or justice.  If it was because of his parents’ sin, why would God bring the punishment on their child?  So in order to try to make it seem more fair, they tried to imagine that it was the man’s own sin.

It’s a strange question as we analyze it.  But it’s not so far from the pop theology and folk religion of our own time.  We see something happen to someone in our community or neighborhood, and we imagine that God did it to the person because of some sin they have committed.  We tell ourselves that people who get sick or don’t get well must be being punished by God.  Or we say they did not have enough faith, another way of calling them sinners.  We act like it’s a simple cause and effect rule, an input-output machine.  Do something bad, God gets you.  Be good, God blesses you. 

Well how is it, then, that people who risked the savings and retirement funds, the mortgages and jobs of millions and billions of people in the world, lost all that money and put people out of their homes and jobs—these very same people got bonuses and raises and continue to be the richest people in the world?  Did all those people who lost their jobs get punished for their sins, but the crooks who caused the companies to fail and the economy to go into recession get blessed for being good?  Of course not.  All we have to do is read the book of Job carefully to see that this kind of thinking is bad theology.  Evil that occurs in the world is not by God’s design or cause.  It’s not a simple input and output.  Sometimes the unrighteous and evil prosper.  We see that way too often.

So Jesus first answers them by saying that they have it all wrong.  The man is not born blind as punishment on anyone.  Sometimes blindness or other hardships or disabilities happen in the process of fetal development.  Children are born with challenges.  Yet we also find that people with challenges can flourish.  Those who cannot see may find as much joy in life as those who can see.  The many variations in human gifts and abilities allow many variations in the form of a joyful life.  I would not belittle the hardships that people may face who find their abilities significantly different from most people.  But we don’t make sense of their struggles by trying to blame them or their families and tell them God is punishing them.

Then Jesus goes into a deeper theological truth.  He begins to talk about the specific meaning of his coming into the world.  He tells the disciples that he has a unique task and a limited time to accomplish it.  As we have already mentioned, this story appears in the Gospel of John.  This is one of four writings in our New Testament that we call “Gospels.”  The Gospels are the writings that tell us the story of Jesus.  They convey to us what he did, why he did it, and what it all means.  And if we remember our Sunday school training well, we remember that the word “gospel” means “good news.”  They are stories of good news.

It is an interesting time in churches and in theological studies to be thinking about this word gospel.  What does Gospel mean?  What constitutes “good news?”  When I was growing up, we were trained to “share the gospel.”  The people who came up with this training believed that gospel was about individuals getting right with God, and that was all that it was.  It could be fit into a small paper tract, a leaflet smaller than my hand.  So if people could read that tract and learn that their sins could be forgiven, and if they would ask for that forgiveness from Jesus, who made it possible, then they could be right with God.  Well of course that training was true, as far as it went.  Jesus did make it possible for us to be forgiven.  We do need to be right with God.  And many of us find ourselves longing for forgiveness, under a weight of sin.  Thanks be to God for the forgiveness of sins we receive because of Jesus Christ!

But the reason I needed more than that training offered is that when we read our Bibles and find the word gospel, there is a lot more going on than this message of inward peace through forgiveness.  The Gospel is grander, deeper, richer, and all around “gooder” news that touches everything about our lives and about the history of the world.  One New Testament scholar has referred to that version of the gospel as the “soterian” gospel.  He’s showing off his knowledge of New Testament Greek by using the Greek word “soter,” which means savior.  This is a version of the gospel that is narrowly focused on sin and forgiveness as an individual’s problem.  I got sin, you got sin, all God’s children got sin.  One by one, this soterian gospel says, we get right with God.  And God is satisfied with individuals being sorry for sin and asking for forgiveness. 

When John Perkins was converted in evangelical churches in Southern California, he began to participate in this kind of sharing of the gospel.  But the longer he ministered, the more he realized that the message of the gospel was bigger than just a simple sinner’s prayer.  It was for the whole person.  Not just the heart, the gospel was for the mind, the body, the entire life.  And it was not just for a person, it was for social life, for communities.  He became the great advocate for a wholistic view of the gospel.  Jesus brought us the whole gospel for the whole person and the whole community.

This scholar I mentioned, Scot McKnight, is an evangelical himself.  He is not denying this soterian message is an element of the gospel.  But in his thick book, The King Jesus Gospel, he says that this aspect of the gospel is a reduction, a minimizing, of a much richer meaning of the word.  The Good News is the whole story of what Jesus did, from coming into the world, living and loving, teaching and preaching, challenging the powers and lifting up the lowly, and finally being executed for his words and deeds.  God raised him from the dead and vindicated all that he had done.  What does McKnight say that Jesus had done?  Jesus had come to bring an end to the exile.  He had come to restore God’s promises.  He had come to fulfill the true purpose of God’s calling of Israel.  He was the announcer of the Kingdom of God, and he was even the Kingdom of God in himself.  That story, that life, that person, those words and actions, all of that is the Good News.  It’s not just about me, myself, and I, all alone, getting right with God.  It’s about all of us, all of the world, being called together by God to be a new kind of people, a loving, caring, forgiving, reconciling, sharing, righteous, humble, peaceable people.

If we think about it, whenever Jesus taught us about asking for forgiveness, he also had another thing he liked to say.  He said, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  Asking forgiveness from God for myself, if that is all I do, starts to look a bit selfish, especially if I cannot be changed by Jesus to become a forgiving person.  Jesus says not to expect to be forgiven if we don’t become forgivers.  The good news definitely includes your forgiveness and my forgiveness from God.  But it also includes that we don’t have to keep holding grudges and counting demerits and merits toward others.  We can be free to forgive, and that is the kind of person Jesus wants to turn us into.

So Jesus explains to the disciples that neither the parents’ sins nor this man’s sins caused the blindness.  But now that they have seen this man on this glorious day, it is an opportunity for Jesus to show the man, his family, the neighbors, the disciples, and anyone who wants to see it, that Jesus came to bring the light of God into the world.  He is restoring Israel to the purpose to which they were originally called.  He is turning things around and upside down.  As long as they have not killed him yet, he has some more light to shine.

Maybe some of you already have been thinking about a theological matter that I have puzzled over concerning the good news.  Quite a few years ago, I first talked publicly about this matter at a Wednesday night Bible study here at Mt. Level.  I’ve been thinking about it off and on ever since.  I recently gave a presentation to a group of baptist professors in Atlanta about it.  That matter I continue to think about is much like the one that Scot McKnight has been thinking about.  But it may be even more specific than his discussion of the gospel.  I keep wondering about this word gospel in a specific context: when Jesus himself says the word “gospel” or “good news,” there are some very specific things he means by it.  Now I’m not going to go into a boring lecture about all the different times Jesus says the word gospel.  Actually, it might not be boring at all for those of us who love the Bible.  But I’m not going to do that today.  Today I want to point out one central, very important time when Jesus says the word “good news.”

It was recorded in Luke chapter 4.  He was preaching in the synagogue in Nazareth.  He was announcing to the people there why he had become a preacher and teacher, and what God had sent him to do.  He quoted from the prophet Isaiah.  He quoted texts about the restoration of Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promises and purposes.  And he said he came to bring good news to poor people.  That’s right, he specifically singled out poor people.  And to drive the point home, he named all kinds of people who are poor and need some good news:  oppressed, imprisoned, and yes, blind people.  When we meet blind people in the New Testament, they are usually beggars.  To be blind meant that it was hard to learn a skill and earn a living.  To be blind meant that folk religion and pop theology made you out to be a sinner.  Lots of people were not very friendly to the blind.  And that’s exactly what we found out in this story from John 9.  This man born blind was a beggar.  He is one of the ones Jesus announced that he came to give good news.

What is that good news?  If it is the news of the Jubilee and the Sabbath year, it is that the poor don’t have to stay poor.  It is that the beggars can get a fresh start.  It is that slaves can be free again and debtors can have their debts forgiven.  It is the good news that among God’s people, there must be no need among us.  For anyone who is in need, God has a provision—the open hand of those who can share from God’s bountiful blessings.  That is good news.

But if you are among the rich and powerful, it might not seem to be good news immediately.  You might resent the idea that you should part with some of your wealth so that others can eat.  You might not like the idea that your second or third home could be a home for the people who have been set out and homeless because of the loss of income or foreclosure.  You might not think it’s to your advantage for the blind to no longer be viewed a sinners who caused their own hardship.  Since you aren’t blind, and you have some money, you have been claiming that God is blessing you for being righteous.  Now this rogue preacher says the good news is this man does not have to be poor, and he will shed some light in this moment of time by giving the blind man sight.

And now we get to the serious issue that causes this text to turn into a circus.  The issue is that when some people hear or see good news, they don’t recognize it.  They don’t understand it.  They call good, evil, and evil, good. 

As we noted earlier, some of the people seem confused at first.  They probably never really got to know the blind man.  He was just there all the time, begging.  They hardly looked at him.  He probably looked down at the ground or off in the distance.  So they did not recognize his face very well.  They kept talking to one another about him, as if he were not there himself.  They asked one another whether he was the same beggar who hung around the neighborhood.  Some were sure he was, others not.  He kept telling them, “Hello!  I’m right here!  Yes, I’m the same guy.  I was blind.  I was a beggar.  Jesus made me able to see.  I am that man.”

As if they had not been rude enough already, some went off to find the preachers, I mean the deacons, I mean the Pharisees.  They brought them in to offer an expert opinion.  So they started quizzing the man and the witnesses.  But before long, they were back to their usual ways, arguing with one another, trying to prove who was the most clever in understanding theology and the scriptures.  One is focused on the Sabbath laws, a favorite topic of theological dispute.  Another is trying to understand how such a transformation as ending blindness could occur at all, unless it was from God.  They can’t get it settled among themselves.  So they keep quizzing the man, almost as if he were on trial.  They want to quiz Jesus, although many have already decided that Jesus is a no good liar, a blasphemer, a sinner of the worst kind.  Of course Jesus could not have done this because he is such a sorry sinner.

They ask the formerly blind man questions, but they really don’t listen to his opinion.  They are sure they are the ones who know it all.  They get everyone upset.  Then they call for the man’s parents to be brought.  They get them so worried that they won’t even offer an opinion.  They are afraid they are going to get in trouble.  The man who got his eyesight gets so flabbergasted that he starts being sarcastic with the Pharisees.  He asks why they want to hear the same thing again.  He asks if they are trying to become Jesus’ disciples.

That made the Pharisees blow their tops.  Now they could be united.  They had a common enemy.  Jesus and anyone who might seem to like Jesus.  They accuse the formerly blind man of being Jesus’ disciple.  They brag that they are disciples of Moses.  They follow the law.  They don’t know what foolishness Jesus is up to, and they want nothing to do with him.

After all this outburst, the formerly blind man lays it on the line.  He says, “Man, I thought you guys were supposed to know something about God.  Listen to the junk y’all are saying.  Something amazing happened here.  I’ve been blind from birth.  But Jesus came along and made a way for me to see.  Now I can see.  How else could something like that happen except from God?  And you so-called teachers of God’s ways can’t even see the good that God is doing.  This is good news, folks.  Why can’t you hear and understand that?”

They can’t take his uppity words.  They try to cut him down to size.  They start preaching that folk religion.  They say he is a sinner, or else he would not have been blind.  They are not blind, so they must not be sinners.  Lord, they are full of themselves.  They are full of pride and self-satisfaction.  They can’t stand this kind of talk, so they chase the poor man away.  Once he was gone, they stood there shaking their heads.  Can you believe that guy?  Acting like he knows more about God than we do?  We are the ones who know how things are done.  We are the ones who can teach and live right.  Who does he think he is?

I suspect the man who ran off was shaking his head, too.  The so-called wise and religious ones sure came across ignorant that day.  Right before their eyes, a great thing had happened.  He figured most people would be overjoyed to get to see such a thing in their lifetime.  But these jerks just wanted to make it another reason to fight and argue and try to prove their superiority. 

What a blessing that Jesus was still nearby.  He got a report on what had happened, so he went looking for the man.  He found him and encouraged him.  He made sure the formerly blind man understood that he, Jesus, was sent from God.  And he put the crazy events into the right context.  He told the formerly blind man about why God sent him into the world.  He says that by bringing good news, he also brings judgment.  For people who refuse to receive the good news, the message becomes a judgment.  And it turns out that the ones who thought they could see are the ones who are really blind.  The Pharisees got mad all over again, but Jesus says they are bringing this judgment on themselves.  He has brought good news.  Why can’t they see it?  Open your eyes.  You have all the opportunities of studying God’s word.  Look. Listen.  There’s good news.  Receive it.  God has a way for us that is justice, its mercy, its walking humbly with God.  That’s what God requires.  That’s what God asks.  That’s what God made us for.  It’s good news for all of us.  The blind man sees it.  The poor can hear it.  You religious, law studying people, you privileged people—you all can hear it too.

The summary of all the law is to Love God with all that you are, and to love your neighbor.  Love this man.  Love that he can see.  Love that God makes a way for all of us to have what we need.  Love that God forgives, and that God can make us into forgiving people.  Love the grace that personal sin in your life can be forgiven, and that God can break down the walls and structures of sin that oppress and impoverish and imprison our sisters and brother.  God knows our needs and our struggles, our failures and our troubles.  God comes to find us where we are, and God brings good news.  Wherever we are, God has good news for us.  

 For those of us who are sick, the good news is that Jesus is the Great Physician.  For those who feel marked and stained by the crowd they are running with, the good news is that Jesus can sanctify us to God.  For those who feel the weight of sin, the good news is that Jesus forgives the sinner.  For those who are alone, the good news is that Jesus is a friend.  For those who feel abandoned, the good news is that Jesus embraces us and makes us part of the family.  For those who are in neighborhoods where trouble abounds, the good news is that Jesus came to restore streets to live in.  Wherever we are and whatever our condition, Jesus is bringing us good news.  Thanks be to God for this good news.  Let us hear and receive it, all of it, leaving none of it out.  Jesus saves us from our failures, our oppressive ways, our sins, our blindness, our lostness.  Thanks be to God.  Thanks for good news.  Thanks for Jesus’ coming to bring it to us.  Amen and amen.

Hosea Names the Misleaders

Having sketched the overview of Israel's failure in the opening chapters, using an embodied comparison to adultery through Hosea and Gomer, the prophecy turns in chapters 4 and 5 toward additional explanation of what has gone wrong and how it has gone wrong.  The opening chapters highlighted the bloodthirstiness of the regime and its desire for power to be maintained through military might.  The wealthy families and courtiers lusted after luxuries, demonstrating their sense of upward mobility and class-consciousness.

What has been the centrifugal effect of the ways of this ruling elite?  How did their immorality trickle down to the people?

There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
and no knowledge of God in the land.
Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.

The broader society displayed the ways of the rulers.  The commandments are broken:  swearing and lying, murder, stealing, and adultery.  The cycle of violence spirals out of control, as an unbroken chain of bloodshed following bloodshed.  Such behavior results from the people having no knowledge of God.  But why do they lack any knowledge?

My contention is with you, O Priest.

The priests have failed to fulfill their calling.  They have gone after wealth, power, and comfort.  They have allowed or even promoted the practices of worshiping other gods.  They have no faithfulness and loyalty to God, and it is no surprise that faithfulness and loyalty are lacking from the land.  Priests and prophets have rejected the teachings of the Torah.  They have rejected God's ways, which provide a clear path by which to walk, a light to the feet.  Now both priests and prophets will stumble.  God has rejected them.

Hosea says that the priests and prophets "feed on the sins of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity."  How can they feed on the sins of the people?  Why would they want more sinning?  If the sins are idolatrous worship, the priests and prophets may have a financial interest in the idolatrous worship.  Later in the chapter it discusses temple prostitution, to ritual sexual acts with prostitutes according to the religions of the land.  Priests may be connected to this religious pimping.  They may also get funds from the sale of idols.  As Isaiah said, the idolatry is part and parcel of robbing the poor.  Do they charge fees to do priestly duties or deliver private prophetic oracles?  Down to the days of Jesus, such practices made the temple into "a den of thieves."  Hosea speaks of getting a prophecy from a piece of wood or a divining rod.  It would be no surprise that people who ask for such guidance would have to "grease the palms" of the diviners.  And why should we limit our questions to the realm of religion?  Could the priests be organizing other criminal activity?  Is there an underground economy in which they have found a way to profit "on the side?"   

Perhaps another form of their "gain" has to do with encouraging the perception of a gulf between them and the common people (thanks to Dr. Annie Tinsley for helping me think through this one).  As noted above, the elites promoted their status by conspicuous consumption of imported goods, feeding class-consciousness of their own superiority.  Priests also elevate themselves by allowing the debasement of the common people.  In our day, I sometimes describe a certain ecclesial persona:  the "Imperial Pastor," who encourages the image of being above the sins of the commoners, closer to God than most people, more "spiritual" in speech and behavior.  Such a pastor may directly or indirectly claim to be a "covering" over the congregation, elevated in a hierarchy such that the lowly parishioners depend on the pastor for protection from evil.  That does not sound much like a "kingdom of priests" to me.

I am not attempting to diminish the importance of a good leader to bless and benefit the people whom the leader is called to serve.  But it is not by some mystical power or spiritual aura.  It is, as Hosea said, by doing the leader's job of teaching and guiding people in the ways of God.  Hosea says the priests left the people without knowledge of God.  This is not unlike the Imperial Pastor, who cares little whether the people can know God for themselves, but relishes being the expert and the dispenser of spiritual nuggets of wisdom. 

My people are destroyed by a lack of knowledge.

The priests are failing to teach and guide.  Many of them also ignore this learning for themselves.  The priesthood and the role of prophet have become one more path to wealth and prosperity among the elite rather than a service to the people.  So the whole nation is going astray, worshiping anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere, doing whatever seems pleasing, whether drunken orgies or empty sacrifices, ritual sexual acts or building altars to false gods.  And the priests and prophets are the ones on whom this sin rests.  They have been a snare, a net, a pit, to catch up the people and cause them to stumble.  The judgment will come to them. 

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 6: Upside-Down World

Isaiah 5:20-23

Ah, you who call evil good
...and good evil,
who put darkness for light
...and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
...and sweet for bitter!
Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
...and shrewd in your own sight!
Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine
...and valiant at mixing drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
...and deprive the innocent of their rights!

One of the great theological truths of Christian and Jewish faith is the sinfulness of humanity. With all our limitations, we seek, with the typical humans Adam and Eve, to behave as if we are unlimited in our capacities, as if we could claim the place of God.

Human beings are limited creatures. We exist in time and space with limits. We can't be everywhere. Our lives are short compared to human history, and we can't be in all eras. Our limitations in time and space contribute to a circumscribed capacity for knowledge. While we may stretch our thinking across centuries through reading and conversation, we will not have all knowledge.

Caught in these limitations, human beings afflicted by the misdirected desire for control, for domination, for limitless pleasures, and many other temptations, abuse the good desires that should draw us toward a life of beloved community. We create corrupted cultural visions of social existence in which some must dominate others, bending the masses to their will, rather than cultural visions of mutual benefit, love, and justice. Enclosed in our moments of time, we claim that what exists here and now is what must be. We twist rationality to justify the wealth of a few and the suffering of many as divinely ordained.

That's what Isaiah saw when he said that the economically powerful call evil good and good evil. When the stock market drops because unemployment has dropped below six percent, the financial elite is calling good evil. When a company's stock rises because they dissolve agreements to pay pensions or eliminate medical benefits for workers, that is calling evil good. Too often, public discourse aims to convince us that we live in "Oppositeland." In Oppositeland, it may seem bad to you that real wages are going down for decades, but if you were smart like these economists and financiers, you would see that the multitudes are better off with less. In Oppositeland, if you send troops overseas to invade other countries, that is the work of the Department of Defense, not the Department of War. You think it is dark in here? No, it is light. Losing your job is bitter? But we got our bonuses, so it must be sweet. The banks got a bailout so we could boost the economy. So we boosted the economy by keeping the money for our own executives and shareholders, even though you still don't have a job. We always do what is right because what is right is what we do.

These are the words of those who are wise in their own eyes. The live in luxury, drinking their $20, $50, and $100 bottles of wine. They gain status by having certain bottles in their wine cellars. They throw cash around with politicians to make sure that their unjust economic practices are perfectly legal. They praise the free market when they never really want it to be free. They write the rules to protect themselves and cry for a bailout when they mess it all up. If someone says that a free market means that the ones who messed up the credit system should bear the costs, they say, "No, we can't bear it, and the entire economic system will collapse." So is the free market good or evil? I guess it depends on what it is doing to you.

The NRSV starts these statements with "Ah!" The KJV translation may be more helpful in this case to give the effect: "Woe unto them . . . ." Oppositeland's rulers had better listen. Woe is on its way. Some people of Thessalonica, who had vested interests in Oppositeland, said that Jesus' followers were "turning the world upside-down." In Ephesus, the economic elite organized to protect their wealth against Paul's message of good news of the Way, brought to those who had previously set their hopes on handcrafted gods. As many preachers have said in my hearing, Paul was bringing a message to an upside-down world: God has shown the Way to get the world turned right-side up.

I'll quote another singer this time, Ken Medema, Flying Upside Down.

All of your life you have been learning
Every kind of way to get ahead.
"You've got to build yourself a future."
Those are the words your daddy said.

Now there is another calling.
It's telling you to change your mind.
It tells you finding leads to losing.
It tells you losing lets you find.

Turn it over; turn it 'round.
Raise the humble; free the bound.
Down is up, and up is down.
Does the world look different to you
When you're flying upside down?

The bottom line of your survival:
You'd better take care of number one.
You don't want to hurt nobody,
But you're gonna do what must be done.

There's a message on the wire,
And you've ignored it in the past.
It says the least will be the greatest;
It says the first will be the last.
Yeah, the first will be the last.

Turn it over; turn it 'round.
Raise the humble; free the bound.
Down is up, and up is down.
Does the world look different to you
When you're flying upside down?