The Use and Abuse of Power

The scriptures referred to are scattered throughout the sermon.

St. Augustine of Hippo wrote of seeing a baby jealous of another who was suckling at its mother's breast and that, to him, was a prime example of original sin. Since Augustine was astute, I think we can infer that the baby was not starving but just didn't like seeing the other kid get Mom's attention like that. And certainly we see that babies and toddlers tend to be selfish. If they want a toy, they grab it, even out of the hands of another kid. In time they grow enough to learn empathy for others. They see someone sad and they go to comfort them. They wince when they see someone else get hurt. I wish I could say that all do but some people never grow out of that “The world is all about me” stage. They become narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths.

But even those of us who do have a conscience will find ourselves in a position where we want something from someone. And if the person is not immediately cooperative, we start calculating how to use our strengths to get it. If we are a good negotiator, we might try to trade for it. If we are rich, we might try to buy it. If we are persuasive we try to talk them into it. If we are manipulative, we might try to use charm or emotional blackmail to get it. If we are sneaky, we may try to steal it. If we have authority over them, we might demand it. And if we are physically stronger, we might just take it.

In the world we often see those who have an advantage over others use that power to take what they want from them. And from a purely naturalistic viewpoint, why shouldn't they? Lions don't ask for food; they just kill it. Similarly, to make a nursing lioness more receptive to sex, a new male taking over the pride will often kill the cubs of his predecessor. Pods of male dolphins will corral and rape females. In nature, the strong simply take what they want. Why do we object to this when we see the same thing in humans? Aren't we just animals?

Many scientists would say we are simply that: biological organisms whose primary drive is to live and to perpetuate our species. We approach every other organism with the underlying questions of the 4 Fs: should we fight it, flee it, feed upon it or fertilize it? We are social animals so I suppose we could add another F: should we friend it? We are not the strongest of predators, nor the fastest, nor do we have fangs or claws. We have gotten to the top of the food chain by cooperating. One man has little chance of bringing down a wooly mammoth but a group of them with special weapons and a strategy can. And some scientists have postulated that this is why we think of how things affect not just ourselves but our group. We might even sacrifice ourselves for the good of the group, especially if they consist primarily of our offspring and kin. Dogs will risk their lives for the pack. Your pet dog will, too, for it considers you and your family its pack.

What is really hard to explain is altruism that goes beyond the boundaries of kinship. Like Ashley Aldridge. The 19 year old mother of 2 looked out of the window of her mobile home and saw a man in a wheelchair trying to cross some railroad tracks. His wheelchair got stuck. He called for help but two cars and motorcycle just passed him at the crossing. Hearing a train horn, Ashley ran barefoot through gravel to help the man. With the train just a half a mile away, Ashley tried to move the handicapped man's wheelchair but it wouldn't budge. She wrapped her arms around his chest and tried to lift the man but couldn't. At the last possible second she heaved again, falling backwards but taking him with her. The train, traveling at 80 miles an hour, reduced the wheelchair to shattered and scattered pieces of metal and plastic. Ashley saved a complete stranger but almost left her 1 and 3 year old children motherless. What motivates such altruism? You might go into a burning building to save your children or grandchildren but why do some people risk their lives for people who are not related to them or not of their race or nationality or religion? Why become a firefighter or a combat medic or a disaster worker? Why give one of your kidneys to someone you don't know?

There are differences in the brains of the very altruistic just as there are in the brains of psychopaths. The right amygdala, the brain structure connected with the perception of emotion and the control of aggression, is about 8% larger in the extraordinarily altruistic and a lot more active than the average person's, making them more empathetic. Psychopaths have smaller amygdalae as well as other brain deficits. So technically both psychopaths and extreme altruists are abnormal, in the same way that both the developmentally disabled and geniuses are also out of the norm. Does that mean we can mentally sideline such people? Can we say “There is no way that I can be that altruistic so why bother?”

Think about how that would sound coming from an athlete or a singer or an artist. “Since I will never be as good as LeBron James, I might as well give up playing sports.” “Since I will never be as good as Renee Fleming, I might as well give up singing.” “Since I will never be as good as Barbara Brown Taylor, I might as well give up writing sermons.” Thinking that way kills aspiration. It doesn't matter whether you can be as far along the spectrum as someone else. The world already has plenty of people who are not really trying their best. That's why laziness is one of the 7 deadly sins. Besides you don't know your potential until you try. Who was the greatest athlete when LeBron started out? Whose excellence stoked up the ambition of Renee Fleming? Who inspired Barbara Brown Taylor? You might surpass the person who lit the fire in you. And even if you don't reach the pinnacle, you can still be pretty darn good.

There is even hope for psychopaths. In a study of 561 children whose birth mothers had a history of antisocial behavior, in other words, children who had a higher probability to inherit the brain of a psychopath, those raised in warm and nurturing adoptive families were less likely to exhibit the kind of callous-unemotional traits that mark the psychopath. The Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center in Wisconsin works with teenagers who have long criminal records, by focusing not on punishing bad behavior but on rewarding the good. Again they see improvements in precisely those traits that make these kids a threat to others. (To read more about all this, go to the National Geographic article here.)

So we are not condemned to act the way we see in nature and in so many societies where might makes right, where the powerful usually get their way and get away with it. Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

In fact, those who follow Jesus should look out for those people who are the least powerful in society: the sick, the disabled, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, prisoners, aliens, widows and fatherless children. Jesus routinely blessed children and said those who seek to enter the kingdom of God must adopt the trusting attitude of a child.

That's why it is dismaying to hear about the ongoing scandal in the Roman Catholic church. The latest report is that hundreds of priests sexually abused thousands of children. And what makes this especially evil is that these men, having a position supposedly based on their spiritual power, used that to manipulate children into satisfying their desires and to stay quiet about it. And in those rare cases where bishops were told about this abuse, they simply moved the priests to unsuspecting parishes.

It is the systematic protection of these predators by a worldwide church that is so reprehensible. You expect a few people to behave badly in any group. As it turns out studies show that only 4% of Catholic priests have abused children. That falls within the estimated 1 to 5% range of pedophiles in the general population. And in doing my research I found that no one has done a study to find out how many teachers are pedophiles, although that is another profession that has been in the spotlight for sexual abuse of children. And we are hearing more and more of coaches and sports doctors abusing young athletes. Pedophilia is a big problem in our world. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are sexually abused, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime.

But the difference is that people in the church should, of all people, be protectors of children, not exploiters of them. They knew this was wrong or they wouldn't have tried to cover it up. Moreover, there is a saying of Jesus that should have burned in the hearts of those who would have to preach on it. After speaking of welcoming children in his name, Jesus said, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) One definition of the Greek word translated “stumble” is “to fall away.” And indeed these wolves in sheep's clothing have caused many of these abused children to lose their faith. I don't know how they continued to work as priests knowing the harm they have done to these little ones whom Jesus expressly said should not be ensnared (the literal meaning of that Greek word).

I am not going to get into a discussion of celibacy, especially since outside the Roman Catholic church most pedophiles are married men. Rather I want to again underline that Christians are to protect, aid and nurture the powerless, not take advantage of them. If there is one common theme in the pedophile scandal and the #MeToo movement, it is that people too often abuse their power to force someone else to give them pleasure. And in case you thought this was exclusively the province of one gender, it has been revealed that powerful women can also sexually harass students, younger actors and employees. As Lord Acton observed more than century ago, power tends to corrupt. And, I might add, it is an equal opportunity corrupter.

God is the champion of the underdog. In the Psalms it says “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing...” (Psalm 68:5-6) In Isaiah it says, “For you are a protector for the poor, a protector for the needy in distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat...” (Isaiah 25:4) In Leviticus God commands, “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind but fear your God. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:14) In the same chapter God says, “Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord.” And “When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19: 32-33) That refrain of “I am the Lord” doesn't follow every command in that passage, just ones that God wants to emphasize. It's like he is saying, “I am serious about this.” How serious? In Jeremiah it says, “'...they do not plead the cause of the fatherless that they might prosper; they do not defend the rights of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?' declares the Lord. 'Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?'” (Jeremiah 5:28-29) That's how serious he is.

And notice that God is invoking empathy in Leviticus. He tells his people to love the foreigner living among them as themselves because “you were aliens in Egypt.” In other words, use your experience and your imagination and put yourself in the other person's place. When Ashley Aldridge saved the man in the wheelchair on the train tracks, she denied being a hero; she was just helping someone. She said she did it “because if that was my grandpa, I would hope somebody would help him too.” That's very close to Jesus' saying that “whatever you did to the least of these, my siblings, you did to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

And this principle of God identifying with the powerless didn't start with Jesus. In Proverbs it says, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” (Proverbs 14:31) And “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.” (Proverbs 19:17) This goes all the way back to when God tells Noah that murder is wrong because God made humans in his image. (Genesis 9:6) What we do or neglect to do to our fellow human beings we do or neglect to do to God.

Christians are called to help those who are in need, who are unfortunate, who are powerless. We are not to take advantage of those over whom we have power, be they poor, or of a different gender or race or religion and especially if they are children. I am becoming increasingly convinced that we have the society we do largely because of the way we treat children. Poor children do not learn to save because when you are poor you have nothing left over to save. Everything goes for food and shelter and the basics. They do not make good choices as adults because they were not offered good choices as children. They focus on what is the least bad choice. Science tells us that poverty lowers your IQ. Frequent toxic stress affects the developing brain and makes it difficult to learn. Abuse and neglect and a chaotic home life for a child will lead to an adult who has a much higher risk of chronic disease, depression, suicide, violent behavior or becoming the victim of violent behavior, social, emotional and legal problems. To paraphrase Alexander Pope, as the twig is bent so grows the tree. I think when the Bible speaks of the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children for generations, it is not speaking of what God desires but describing how these things actually play out in the world. Kids subconsciously imitate the behavior they see in and experience from adults. Many child abusers were themselves abused. We don't remove the chains and then wonder why they don't do better in the race. We punish those dealt a bad hand for not playing it better.

When the church appears to be heartless towards those without power it hurts the gospel. One of the reasons people are leaving churches while still saying they are spiritual is because of the many high-profile betrayals of our principles by those who say they are Christians. Jesus said that the world will know we are his followers by our love. And I still think that is true. Those actually following Jesus demonstrate love for others. People who abuse power rather than use their might for right are likely those who will on the last day call Jesus “Lord, Lord” only to have him say, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” (Matthew 7:21-23)

I want to end with this clarion call from the book of Proverbs 31:8-9: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 

True Wisdom

The scriptures referred to are Proverbs 9:1-6 and John 6:51-58.

You've probably heard of Occam's Razor, the problem-solving rule of the thumb that the correct explanation for some phenomena is usually the simplest. For instance, if two planes crash into twin towers which then catch fire and collapse, you could posit that a massive government conspiracy rigged the place with dynamite in order to trigger a war, or you could simply accept that terrorists known to have been on the planes did it and that the towers were never designed to withstand the heat generated by hundreds of thousands of liters of burning jet fuel. If our space craft show a globular earth, you can say that it's just an illusion and the earth is really flat and that a wall of ice ringing Antarctica keeps the oceans from pouring off the edge or you can accept what mathematicians figured out centuries ago, namely that the earth is round. Most worldwide conspiracy theories fall apart because you have to keep multiplying assumptions and conditions for them to work. And if you are a character in a fictional universe, you should definitely suspect that a global conspiracy of evil people or aliens or wizards or vampires, etc. are behind your troubles. If you live in the real world, however, you should look for other explanations before believing anything that elaborate and all-encompassing. Yes, there have been conspiracies within industries like those involving tobacco and sugar companies and Enron. And there have even been attempted ones in the government, like redlining or the Tuskegee syphilis experiment but they almost always get exposed because of another rule of thumb, laid down by Ben Franklin: 3 people may keep a secret if 2 of them are dead. The truth will out.

There is another principle in explaining bad happenstances and that is Hanlon's Razor. Robert Hanlon was a computer programmer who supposed said, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” And we see this all the time. We live in an increasingly complex world where even a small mistake can have enormous consequences. In 1999 NASA destroyed a $125 million orbiter over Mars. Was it the evil plan of a mad scientist? No, it was due to an error in converting English and metric units. (See! That's why it's important to pay attention is math class!) Did Microsoft intend to create a racist, foul-mouthed AI? No, it just didn't take into account the trolls on Twitter when it put online a program that learns through interactions with humans.

The Bible recognizes that there are 3 causes of people doing bad things. One is being deliberately evil. If you know that what you are doing is going to harm other people or your relationship with God and you do it anyway, that is evil. The Columbine shooters made a video before attacking their classmates at school. And in it they said they knew they couldn't kill all the kids. But that was okay with them because they said they knew they would psychologically damage the survivors. That's evil.

But sometimes a person can do something wrong out of actual ignorance. A child can overdose on gummy vitamins because, hey, Mommy gives them to her everyday and tells her they are good for her. Plus they taste good. The child has no idea that fat-soluble vitamins like A,D, E and K can build up in your body and in high enough doses can make you sick and even cause liver damage. That's why for the first several years of a kid's life she is constantly being told “No” and “Don't touch that!” She literally doesn't know what is harmful. But she can be educated.

The quandary is when people do the wrong thing and they ought to know better. Such as the people who appear on the Darwin Awards website. There was a shark expert with a PhD who decided to test his theory that sharks won't attack a person who controls his breathing, body language and heartbeat. He went into shark-infested waters as his assistants lobbed in fish chunks. If you see where this is going you are wiser than the shark expert. Let's just say his theory doesn't have a leg to stand on and it's only due to medical doctors that the so-called shark expert still does. Not funny are incidents such as the company here in Florida that was installing a pedestrian bridge over a busy road that they did not block off. After it collapsed it was revealed that they had noticed small cracks before but thought they were unimportant. I don't think they meant to kill anyone but their actions betray an appalling lapse of judgment.

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible encourages critical thinking. Proverbs says, “The simple person believes anything but the prudent one considers his steps.” (Proverbs 14:15) It also says, “It is dangerous to have zeal without knowledge, and the one who acts hastily makes poor choices.” (Proverbs 19:2, NET) Paul said, “Test everything. Hold onto the good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Indeed the sciences arose in those parts of the world where people believed in a rational God who created the universe and us. The corollary is that we who are created in the image of God should therefore be able to understand, to some extent at least, the mind of God. It was the church that preserved the wisdom of the ancient Greeks in monastery libraries during the Dark Ages when illiterate barbarians ruled, and it was the church which set up universities. Many of the early scientists of the Renaissance and Enlightenment were clergy. Fundamentalism is a late reaction to rapid societal change. Those who truly trust God accept him as the author of all truth, though different parts of it are best accessed through different methods. Scripture isn't a textbook on chemistry or astronomy or biology and all the scientific equipment in the world won't tell you why it is wrong to commit murder.

So what are some elements of wisdom, according to the Bible? For one thing, wisdom is not the same as philosophy. It is not abstract or speculative. It is practical. The first chapter of the book of Proverbs gives its purpose. It is “for learning what wisdom and discipline are; for understanding insightful sayings; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for teaching shrewdness to the morally naive, knowledge and discernment to the young person...” (Proverbs 1:2-4) Wisdom is about how to live a good life in both senses of the word “good,” that is, a life that is moral as well as one that is pleasant. The two often go together. If you are moral, you are less likely to get into trouble. Honesty, kindness and fairness tend to pay off.

Notice the importance of discipline. Being able to make yourself do tasks that you'd rather not and refrain from unwise behavior when you'd rather indulge yourself are vital to maturity. None of us totally master these things, especially the latter, yet the wise aspire to get better at self-control. Only the fool always does whatever he wants to whenever he wants to and never does anything he doesn't want to when he ought to.

Insight is a key element in wisdom. Anyone can observe what is on the surface. The wise seek a deeper understanding of life and people. Why does a certain person behave as he or she does? Are they motivated primarily by their needs or their desires or their fears? What do they value most highly? Is it money or power or sex or the approval of other people or the approval of God? Does the person respect rules or ignore them? Is he selfish or generous, uncaring or compassionate? What matters in life? Why are we here? How are we supposed to live?

At the heart of wisdom is what the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord.” This doesn't mean we should run from him in terror but rather that even while we love God, we should have a healthy respect for him. It's much the same as the way a sailor loves the sea and yet has a healthy respect for it. He knows that the sea is vast and complex and has its own rules. It is much more powerful than he is. It will not change itself to suit him; he must adapt himself to the sea and its ways. Just so, we must adapt ourselves to God and his ways. He created and runs the universe, which is vast and complex and has its own rules. While God loves us, we cannot expect him to break every rule to suit our whims, like the genie in a fairy tale. All actions have consequences and God is not going to revoke physics so that the damage the fist or the bullet or the car does turns out to never have happened. He is not going to make the harmful words we have uttered be unheard. He is not going to make us unthink the awful thoughts we have entertained. He will forgive and heal us but, as Jesus' wounds from the cross remained after his resurrection, the scars of what was done don't totally disappear. Wisdom is learning to avoid harm and the doing of it. We can learn this from our own mistakes or better yet, from those of others, or best of all, by listening to the wise precepts of the Bible.

Besides maintaining a proper relationship with God, Biblical wisdom concerns two other spheres of life. One is our relationship with others. And so we are encouraged to be honest in our business dealings, to treat workers fairly, to not exploit the poor, to not manipulate the courts to perpetuate injustice, and to respect legitimate authority. When it comes to more intimate relationships, parents are not to neglect their children, especially when it comes to learning and discipline, and children are to listen to and obey their parents. Married couples are to remain faithful to each other. Friendships are to be treasured. Basically we are to treat each other fairly and with respect. And we are to show compassion and be generous to the less fortunate.

The other sphere of life that Biblical wisdom focuses on is oneself. We are to be truthful, trustworthy, humble, forgiving, patient and diligent. We must learn to control our anger and to refrain from quarreling and violence. We are to avoid gossiping and slandering others. We are to keep ourselves from drunkenness, gluttony, envy and greed. We are not to be arrogant.

C.S. Lewis used the analogy of an orchestra to illustrate the 3 areas of ethical behavior. To make music, we must first maintain our own instrument, making sure it is in good shape and properly tuned. And we need to know the music and practice so as to play it well. Secondly, we must be in harmony with the other musicians and keep the rhythm. If the flutes are coming in too soon or the violins are flat, it can ruin the performance. And thirdly, we must follow the conductor and play the same musical composition he is conducting. We must be on the same page as he is. And we need to watch when to come in and when to stop, when to get loud and when to be quiet.

In the same way, as Christians we must look to our own personal integrity, strive to work together with others and follow Jesus. Morality can break down at any or all of these points. If you do not keep yourself in good shape morally and spiritually, neither you nor anyone else will be able to stand you for very long. We see how families and friendships are broken when an individual cannot control himself or herself. I once had a homeless man in his late 50s come to the church and ask me to call his 80 year old mother. When she found out on whose behalf I was calling, she said she didn't want to talk to him and hung up. I don't know what you have to do to so alienate your mother that she won't try to reconcile with you in the final years of her life, but the man admitted it was his fault. I did what I could to comfort him but I could not undo the damage done over the decades.

We also see how groups come apart because they cannot maintain harmony. Movements split because people cannot come together and work out their differences. Instead of acting like a team, they act like rivals or even enemies. Rock groups often do this. The members pursue solo careers, not merely because they want to stretch their creative muscles in new ways, but sometimes because they can no longer make music together. Churches sometimes fracture because schisms develop and rarely is the result a healthier remnant. Unity requires listening and forgiving and compromising at times and even making sacrifices. It helps if we are committed to the same cause.

But it has to be the right cause. Even if people get themselves together and are united in their efforts, it is not moral if their mission is evil. Hitler united Germany under the Nazi ideology but that wasn't a good thing. The Germans who would not go along with him included the Confessing Church. Led by people like Dietrich Bonhoffer, this group of churches, like the prophets of old, proclaimed that the nation was not listening to God and had gone astray. You can not reconcile a philosophy of hate like Nazism and a religion of love like Christianity.

One last quality of wisdom is that it is an argument against determinism. Wisdom is about making the right choices in life and you can't do that unless you have free will. And indeed our passage from Proverbs has Lady Wisdom say, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, '“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”' The invitation is not reserved to the wise. Those who are simple, those who have no sense, and those who are immature are able to learn and become wise. No one is condemned to remain a fool. Nor is mere knowledge the same as wisdom. There are highly educated people who have no common sense. Having a PhD doesn't mean you can't be a fool. Lacking such a degree doesn't mean a person isn't wise.

One last observation. Paul calls Jesus God's wisdom. (1 Corinthians 1:24) And in Proverbs 8 wisdom is depicted as a separate person who helps God create the world. And though wisdom is portrayed as female in Proverbs it still helped the disciples understand how Jesus could be divine. They saw him as the living wisdom of God. 

And just as wisdom is seen inviting us to eat her bread and drink her wine and live, we see Jesus in today's passage from John inviting us to eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life. This is a deeper wisdom. It goes beyond the street smarts and common sense that characterize most wisdom. It comes from knowing that God is vast and complex and that we don't know everything about him. We must go below the surface and let God show us deeper truths about our spiritual life. Jesus is revealing something new, namely that he is not optional. He is as essential to us as food and drink. Because our life doesn't end with the death of this body. Our focus needs to shift from merely having a good earthly life to becoming a person who is equipped to live forever in God's love. And that shift in perspective means we need to see that some things that don't make sense in an earthly context do make sense from an eternal viewpoint.

Such as the idea that God would love us so much that he would become one of us. And that he would not become rich and powerful and conquer the world as others have tried but that he would let himself be killed. And that he would violate the rule that life ends at the grave and upend the wisdom of this world and show it to be foolishness in the light of divine love.

And that reminds us of something we often forget. God can be surprising. As Francis Schaeffer pointed out, what we know about God from the Bible is true but it is not exhaustive. As John's gospel says, one book cannot contain all that Jesus did nor can all the books in the world encompass all that God can do. God does new things. Just as Jesus' mission was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, what God has planned may astound us but it is ultimately in line with what we already know of him: that he is just; that he is merciful; that he is love. And that is the ultimate wisdom: recognizing the wisdom of love.

Building Up

The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 4:25-5:2.

In journalism, it's called burying the lede. It's when you don't start with the most important fact, like when a reporter starts off writing about a congressman's legislative program and doesn't get to the fact that he's under investigation for murder until the 3^rd paragraph. But as with all rules of style, there are times when you may want to break them, like when you don't want to start off with the most startling or important idea. You may want to build up to it. You may want to show how it is the inevitable result of all the facts you lay out or you may want to end with a punchy summary of your argument. And that's what Paul seems to be doing in our passage from Ephesians today.

Paul usually wraps up his letters with a flurry of ethical commands that proceed organically from the theological arguments he makes earlier in the epistle. They are logical deductions that follow from the principles he was discussing, like grace or faith or love. But sometimes he uses inductive logic, going from the specifics to the principle we are to draw from them. This letter does both. In the first 3 chapters Paul is talking about the riches and blessings God offers us in Christ and here enumerates what our response should be. As some have pointed out, the first part of the epistle is about doctrine and the second about duty.

Last week, we saw how Paul was talking of unity. This is a major theme in almost all his letters and I think it is because Paul was on the front lines of the church's ministry to the Gentiles. In whatever city he entered he would first preach at a synagogue. Some Jews would come to see and accept Jesus as the Messiah but it was among the Godfearers, Gentiles who were interested in Judaism, that he saw the greatest response. Since most religions appealed primarily to the ethnic group in which they arose, Paul was finding it hard to make people understand the idea of God's universal kingdom. As we said, he hit upon the idea of the body of Christ, one group composed of individuals with various talents and functions, equipped and united by the Spirit of God.

So what we read today follows from that big idea. If we are one, then first of all we need to speak truth to one another. Truth is at a premium today. For quite a while, people have been “spinning” the truth, giving unfavorable facts an interpretation that renders them less troublesome to this side of a controversy or that. What's odd is that today, with instant access to just about all the facts in the world, people have dropped the “spin” and just out and out lie. It's possible that in some cases people are deluding themselves but in most cases it is a deliberate tactic. In his book The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder explains the way modern disinformation campaigns work: put out as many versions of the facts as possible to confuse and demoralize people and make them despair of finding objective truth. If there is no such thing as objective truth or expert knowledge, then you might as well opt for the version you like, put out by the sources you trust. That's why often our modern discussions consist of people talking past each other, because they don't even share a commonly agreed-upon set of facts. Which makes it easy to stoke up fear about things that aren't really threats and divert attention from things that actually do endanger us.

Though it wasn't as well thought-out and orchestrated then as it is by modern nations, nevertheless Paul saw how people can manipulate others by falsifying their message. He writes Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

In any group of people problems will arise. The predicament is that, just as you can't properly treat a medical condition without an accurate diagnosis, you can't fix problems if you don't know the truth about the situation. That means speaking the truth in love, as we read last week, and listening to the truth, however uncomfortable it makes us. Seldom are problems solely the fault of one side. We all tend to contribute to major problems if only by complicity and complacency. We need to face the truth and then, acting together, work to make things better.

Paul next says something else people really need to hear: “Be angry but do not sin.” Anger is not in and of itself sinful. Reform often comes out of anger at a bad situation. But as Aristotle observed, “Anyone can become angry—that is easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not easy.” Anger can easily slip into rage and then, instead of being wielded surgically as Aristotle suggests, it becomes a blunt instrument, smashing everything, or like an automatic weapon, doing widespread and indiscriminate damage.

One way we can avoid this is by not attacking each other but attacking the problem. Rather than trying to fix the blame, concentrate on fixing the problem. Act as a team and not as antagonists. Even if one person precipitated the situation, our thinking should be, “This is our problem now; how can we fix it?”

Paul suggests another limit: time. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Deal with it now. Lay the issue to rest as soon as possible. Even if you need a cooling off period, it shouldn't last a whole day. The longer you nurse anger the more it will fester. I think that is what Paul means by “do not leave room for the devil.” Don't give those who wish to sow dissension and disunity an opportunity. Don't give discord a foothold.

The next command is a no-brainer. “Thieves must give up stealing.” “Thou shalt not steal” is one of the Ten Commandments that most people actually recall. And it helps to realize that today a growing amount of theft is no longer the taking of physical objects like money or jewelry or art. These days someone on the other side of the world can steal your money from your bank account. Or your information from files held by a company or the government. Or, as 17 different US intelligence agencies have warned us, they can steal your right to vote. While it would be hard (but not impossible) to change votes after they are cast, hackers can simply change the status of voters, so that you go to your polling place and find that you are no longer registered or that your information is so corrupted that the poll workers aren't sure you are who you say you are.

Identity theft is a big problem. A clever person can get a fake ID with your name and information on it and use it to get credit cards or loans, or to do nefarious things online. They can even use it when they get arrested and make it extremely difficult to prove you aren't the person who was arrested in Tucson for DUI or petty larceny or possession of drugs.

And then there is intellectual theft. People can appropriate stuff you have created—writings, videos, artwork—and pass it off as their own. Think of how often you share such things online without checking to see if you are depriving a writer or artist or filmmaker of the money he or she rightfully should get for spending hours or weeks or months creating them. And then there is that old standby of stealing an idea from a coworker at your job.

We need to respect other people's property. A Christian doesn't steal. He or she does not take what is not his or her own, nor use what belongs to others without asking for and receiving permission. And often people will give permission. It's just that people seldom ask.

Paul talks of how in contrast we should do honest labor with our own hands. There are of course a lot of jobs that don't require the backbreaking work that used to be a part of every human endeavor back then but I think Paul would be flabbergasted by people who make money simply by shifting money about. You heard that Toys R Us has gone out of business? You probably think that it as because a lot of people simply shop on Amazon. But it turns out only 8.9% of all sales are online. What's killed companies like Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Payless and 16 other chains are private equity firms. Hedge funds borrow money to buy companies, then strip them of assets to repay themselves and saddle the companies with the debt. So the companies don't have enough money to modernize and improve, decline in sales and go into bankruptcy. The bankers get rich, though. One hedge fund owner bought Sears and Kmart and then spun off a real estate company that is charging them for rent on what was their own land. If they go under, he can simply rent the land to someone else. Is that honest work or sleight of hand?

6% of the workforce is in retail and cashier jobs. That's 8 million jobs. Hundreds of thousands of retail jobs have gone away and more are threatened by this tactic. Paul says that part of the reason to do honest work is so that we can give to the needy, not create more persons in need.

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” The word translated “evil” usually means “rotten.” This is the only place in the New Testament where it is not used of bad fruit or bad trees. So this is one place where I think the King James version is superior in using the word “corrupt.” Or maybe it should be “corrupting” because Paul contrasts this unhealthy talk with speech that builds people up. It's so easy to go negative. It's so easy to say things that tear people down and tear them apart. Rather than denigrate and destroy our words should “give grace to those who hear.” Before speaking we should ask ourselves, “Is this helpful or harmful? Will it make things better or worse?”

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God...” The Greek word for “grieve” can mean “cause distress” or “make someone sorry.” How is it possible that we can cause God's Spirit sorrow? Because he loves us. As the song goes, “Jesus loves me when I'm good, when I do the things I should. Jesus loves me when I'm bad, though it makes him very sad.” If you don't care about someone, what they do doesn't affect you much. If you love someone and you see them embarking on a course of action that will harm them or others, it upsets you. You want them to be the best they can. Paul is pointing to a side of God's love that we don't often think of. Rather than do or refrain from doing certain things because we are afraid God will punish us, we should instead avoid things that will disappoint our loving heavenly Father and instead do things that will please him.

“Put away from you all bitterness and rage and anger and loud quarreling and insults, together with all malice...” Today is the anniversary of the white supremacist rally at Charlottesville, Virginia. All of those things that Paul tells us to do away with were on display then. The anger and rage and loud quarreling and insults came out of the bitterness on the side that still supports two racist causes that lost in wars roughly 160 and 80 years ago. And by the way, the Greek word for bitterness has overtones of poisonous. As someone once said, being bitter is like hating someone, drinking poison yourself and expecting the other person to get sick. As for malice, that is deliberate evil.

And some of these racists have the impudence to call themselves Christian and appropriate things like the Celtic cross. None of these are qualities any Christian should manifest. Rather we are called to produce the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no place for encouraging rage and fear and physical violence in the kingdom of God. Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight....” (John 18:36) At his arrest, Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back in its place for all who take up the sword will be destroyed by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) And then he healed the man whose ear Peter had cut off. (Luke 22:50-51) That is the spirit of the person in whose footsteps we follow.

In contrast with the qualities we should put away, Paul says, “...be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” The word translated “tenderhearted” could also be rendered “compassionate.” Kindness and compassion, I needn't tell you, are in short supply. And that was true in Paul's day. Life was, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The majority of people, by which we mean slaves, women, children, and the poor, had no rights. There was no social safety net. There were no police. If you were disabled, you begged. Or died. No charity was going to help you out.

Christians stood out because of their concern for the unfortunate. They fed the hungry, nursed the sick, buried the poor, helped widows and orphans, ransomed slaves, and visited prisoners as well as the elderly who couldn't leave their homes. Their charitable works caught the attention of non-Christians and what they learned about the Christian God attracted them to the faith. As professor Robert Garland puts it, “here for the first time in history was a religion that was not judging you by the size of your wallet or your status in society or your gender or your ethnicity....The Christian God...will listen to your prayers, no matter what, as long as you are truly penitent. He'll actually love you....In fact, if you're poor or downtrodden or despised or sick, he'll look on you with special favor.” It is that kind of God, mirrored in the actions of his followers, that brings people to Christ.

And so we get to the lede, the principle towards which Paul is building his case: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Children naturally imitate their parents. They develop habits of thought, expression and action based on what they see and hear their parents do. So we should imitate the grace and forgiveness and love we see in the God revealed in the words and works of Jesus Christ. Jesus spoke the truth; he got angry but did not sin (the priests were upset with Jesus driving the crooked money changers out of the temple but they didn't arrest him; they knew he was right); he worked honestly with his hands and gave to the needy; no corrupting speech came from his mouth; his words were gracious and built people up; he did not give the Holy Spirit reasons to be sad; he was kind, tenderhearted and forgiving.

It's unfortunate that the question “What would Jesus do?” has become a cliché but it is still a good rule for living. As someone said, you may be the only Christ someone is exposed to. So let every thought, word and act be an imitation of or an extension of what we see in Jesus, the flesh and blood expression of the God who is love, into whose image we, as beloved children, should be growing up.

Body

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 16:2-15, Ephesians 4:1-16, and John 6:24-35.

To make students understand atoms, textbooks usually include a picture that looks kinda like a planet with multiple moons. To illustrate gravity, we are often asked to imagine a stretched rubber sheet on which have been placed a bowling ball, a baseball, a golfball, etc and then to imagine the effect of a marble rolling across the sheet and how its track would be affected by the indentations of the balls. These mental images help us grasp things that are hard to comprehend. And they capture some of the realities of the things they are trying to explain, but according to scientists they aren't, strictly speaking, accurate. They are useful in underlining certain truths but are not to be taken literally.

And when we talk about God, we do the same thing: we use picture language to illustrate certain aspects of the divine but there is a danger in taking them literally. God is not literally a shepherd, nor biologically our father, nor is he located in the clouds. They are metaphors and like all metaphors, they will break down if extended beyond their purpose. God guides and provides for us like a shepherd but he doesn't shear us. God loves and cares for us and corrects us like a father, but he is not going to braid our hair or give us video games for our birthday. And the reason that a cosmonaut reportedly said he did not see God when shot into space is because heaven is not like a space station, floating above earth.

In today's lectionary readings Jesus' body is compared to the manna God provided the Israelites during the exodus as well as to a human body with various parts. Both comparisons are useful and spiritually insightful so let's take a look at them.

In our passage from Exodus we read about the manna God provides the Israelites in the wilderness. Used to the abundance available in Egypt, they are not adapting to the conditions they are facing now. In a way they are like spoiled kids going on a camping trip. "Why can't they have hamburgers and fries?" Except the Israelites seem to have forgotten that they were slaves in Egypt. And they seem to have forgotten how God has protected and provided for them thus far. So God provides them with meat in the form of a quail migration and bread in the form of a fine flaky substance, that is round and white and tastes like honey. The people ask, “What is it?” Later it is called manna after the Hebrew word for “what.” Essentially manna means “whatever that is.” For that matter, we don't know what it is, though people have suggested it is a secretion of the tamarisk plant or of an insect or some form of moss but none of them really fit. It is better to think of it as the bread of heaven, as it is referred to in Psalm 105:40.

That term is what Jesus uses to make his point in our passage from John. John, as is usual, is supplementing the older gospels with details that give us a fuller understanding of events. All of the gospels tell of how Jesus fed the 5000 and 3 tell of his walking on water. Only John connects the two and gives us this story of the aftermath. The Galileans, after being miraculously fed, realize Jesus is the Messiah and they want to make him their king, by force if necessary. So Jesus goes up a mountain to pray and sends the Twelve off by boat. At night, when the crowds are sleeping, Jesus comes down the mountain and crosses the water on foot, catching up with the disciples in their boat. But when the crowd awakens they find Jesus gone and go by boat to Capernaum, Jesus' base.

Jesus knows why they are there. A leader who can feed thousands is like the goose that lays golden eggs. He can lead a popular revolt against the Romans. They are thinking strictly in earthly terms. Jesus wants them to think even more radically. So he uses the idea of manna and bread from heaven to illustrate a more important truth: that they are spiritually malnourished and they need Jesus to fill them and make them healthy. He is the bread that gives life. They must eat his flesh and drink his blood to obtain eternal life. Unfortunately, taking what he says literally, a lot of his followers walk away from Jesus.

This is still a problem in the church. People try to take Genesis 1 through 3 literally. They argue against what science has discovered, and make the main issue how God created the world rather than why. But aside from “God said let there be...,” the Bible doesn't deal with how creation was accomplished. And the Hebrew word for day (yom) is as elastic as the English word. It could mean “era” as when we say “back in the day.” Yet we have people so hung up on a literal interpretation that there is a $27 million Creation Museum in Arkansas, as well as smaller ones in 11 other states. There are 3 in Florida, if you count the little one in Key West. I'm sure that's what Jesus meant when he said go into all the world and make disciples but first spend $27 million on audioanimatronic dinosaurs because THAT is the important part of the gospel! (BTW, on the big museum's website, under Exhibits, there is precisely one about Jesus.)

If you want to talk about diabolical influences in the church, I contend that it is all the issues, like abortion, homosexuality, arguing the inerrancy of the original manuscripts of the Bible (as opposed to the ones we have), etc., that distract us from the good news of who Jesus is, what he has done for us and how we are to respond to him. I don't see those other issues popping up in the preaching of Jesus, Peter or Paul. In fact in today's passage from Ephesians Paul says, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine...” In his first letter to his protege Timothy, Paul writes, “Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictory arguments of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and thereby swerved away from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21) Even then, there were people who were diverting Christians through their own pet theories and novel teachings and lost focus on what is essential. Back then it was Gnosticism, which taught that all matter, including the body, is evil and only spirit is good. All kinds of bizarre doctrines came out of this: that Jesus' human body was an illusion; that we should either severely deny all bodily appetites, or alternately, we can indulge them since the body is irredeemable anyway; and that salvation depends on special secret knowledge imparted only to the elite. You can see in these things the origin of almost all Christian heresies and cults, as well as the asceticism and persistent suspicion of all sexual activity found even in mainstream Christianity.

God created all things, including our bodies, and pronounced them “good.” The ultimate validation of this is God becoming man in Jesus Christ, with a body that, like ours, got thirsty, hungry, and tired, could touch others and be touched. Creation is good; the problem arises with some of the stuff we do with and to the people and other things God created.

Although Jesus had a literal body, we are more interested for the purposes of this discussion with its uses in the spiritual sense. One we see in our passage from John. Though John's is the only gospel that does not record Jesus saying what we call the words of institution—“This is my body; this is my blood”—in this chapter he gives his Eucharistic theology. Just as God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with the mysterious manna, so God nourishes us with Jesus' body and blood. Obviously Jesus is not talking about cannibalism, so we must seek another meaning. And in the last supper, Jesus takes elements of the Passover meal, the unleavened bread and the wine, and reinterprets them. The focal feast of the Old Covenant for God's people becomes the signature sacred meal of the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus for the new community of God's people called from all nations. Jesus becomes the sacrificial Lamb of God, the bread becomes his flesh and the wine his blood which is shed for us so that the second death, spiritual death, passes over us. Just as God liberated the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, Jesus frees us from our slavery to sin--the thoughts, words and deeds that destroy us and all others created in God's image, as well as destroying the rest of God's creation and our relationship with our Creator.

But not only do we draw spiritual sustenance from Christ's body, we come together as Christ's body to do so. One possible origin of the word “religion” is the Latin word for “to bind.” Religion often serves to bind people together through shared beliefs, behaviors and a sense of belonging. That's easy when you are all related or part of one ethnic group as the Jews were. But Jesus drew all kinds of people and his message was for all the world. How do you say you are one community when you speak different languages and come from different countries and have different customs? That was the problem the early church and especially Paul encountered when non-Jews started coming to Christ. It was clear that God's Spirit was doing this. But how do you make one people out of such a motley group?

Paul seizes upon the brilliant metaphor of the body. Each of us has one body and yet it is made up of numerous parts, both internal and external, with different appearances and different functions. So too we are members of the one body of Christ, though we have different appearances and talents and functions. You don't have to be a copy of someone else to be part of the church. You don't have to be a preacher or Sunday school teacher or assist at the altar. We all have gifts that we can share. Aspects of God are reflected in each of us. Every one of us contributes in some way. Each of us supports and is supported by the other members of the body of Christ.

Paul makes the uniting principle the head, who is Christ. Even today, we have machines that will replace your heart or your kidneys or will breathe for you, but nothing can replace your brain. Without a head you're dead. The head orchestrates everything and directs everything, even the functions that are unconscious. Our head is Jesus. We follow his lead.

I find it interesting that Paul says “we must grow up in every way into him who is the head.” Since he was just talking of us being children, it could be that he is thinking of how large children's heads are in relation to their bodies. A baby's head makes up ¼ to 1/3 of his or her body length. An adult's head is about 1/8 of her or his length. On the other hand a baby's head is about 4 to 5 inches long from crown to chin and about 13 ½ inches in circumference while an adult's head is twice as long and its circumference on average is 21 ¾ inches for women and 22 ½ inches for men. While the proportions change our heads grow. And our brains grow as well, not only in size but in complexity.

And that's because our take on the world grows in complexity. Or it should. There are a lot of people who hold onto very childlike world views even when they reach adulthood. They grossly oversimplify life or people, reducing them to caricatures of what actually exist. Just as cartoons make people simpler, like giving characters 4 fingers rather than 5, enlarging the eyes and giving them super-symmetric features, some world views reduce all people to heroes or villains, human or sub-human, geniuses or idiots, without nuance or shading. Small wonder some people act as if the world were a fantasy movie, where an evil conspiracy controls everything and the only way to stop evil is with physical force, where guns in the hands of the good guys never shoot innocent people and where the solution to every problem is a magic ring or piece of technology or exposure of the truth or the arrest or death of the main bad guy. Those are childish notions. I enjoy them in films and TV shows but I also know they no more resemble reality than shows about detectives or lawyers or doctors give you a realistic idea of what those professions are like.

Wisdom is a cardinal virtue in the Bible. Jesus said, “...be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves,” no doubt thinking of the proverbial wisdom of snakes. (Matthew 10:16; Genesis 3:1) He does not want us to be naive. Seeking the truth is part of our duty as Christians. (Psalm 25:5; John 16:13; Acts 17:11) But notice that Paul writes of “...speaking the truth in love...” There are times to be bluntly honest but generally if you want people to listen and not to get defensive, you speak the truth in love. You find a way to say it that respects them as a person and shows that you are on their side, that you only seek their good. Like “That's sounds good but wouldn't it be better if you...” Or “I see what you're saying but it could also be looked as this way...” Or “I thought so too but then I found out...” Sometimes the truth is hard to take. We needn't make it more difficult by being insensitive to the person to whom we are presenting it.

We are to act as Christ's body on earth. And that means our attitude towards each other should be that of the 3 Musketeers: All for one and one for all. We should use our various positions and strengths to help the whole group, and the group should come together to aid and support each member. As Paul said, “Bear one another's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

We cannot do this without help. So it is vital that we stay connected with Jesus, our head. As is true physically, so it is true spiritually that losing connection with the head leads to paralysis at best and death at worst. One way to keep alive spiritually is to come together as the body of Christ to share the body and blood of Christ. And to “take them in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.”

So Christ is our head and Christ is our food; Christ is our way and Christ is our goal; Christ is within us and we are in Christ. Because, as Paul said, “Christ is all and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11)

Jesus is the lens through which we need to see the world. All things were made through him and he died to save all. Everyone we meet is either our sibling in Christ or our potential sibling in Christ. We are to see Christ in others and serve Christ by serving them. Try to do that this week. Look for Jesus in everyone. He may be obscured by sin, fear, rage, or the person's own ego but he is there. Reach out to him. Appeal to the Jesus in each person—his love, his kindness, his generosity, his mercy. It's there somewhere. It may take some work to find.

And as a reminder I leave you this chorus adapted from David Haas: 
“Christ before me, 
Christ behind me, 
Christ under my feet;
Christ within me, 
Christ over me, 
Let all around me be Christ.” 

(Repeat using “peace,” “light,” “love”and then return to “Christ”)