Winnerism

(I apologize for the smaller font size. Every time I tried to upload this, Blogspot kept messing with the font sizes, mixing large and small randomly. It does this from time to time inexplicably.)

The scriptures referred to are Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19 and Luke 16:19-31.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't.” Humorist Robert Benchley was joking about the fact that we tend to see people in binary terms: male and female, black and white, rich and poor, friends and enemies, our side and the opposing side. Yet we keep finding out that human beings are not that simple. The DNA of the average African American is about 20% Caucasian, because of slave owners raping their slaves. And if you are a white supremacist, I am afraid that a DNA test is likely to show you are not a pure white European descendant. Socio-economic classes are somewhat permeable and not fixed. And to explore all the possible genders and orientations would take a book. I myself think that most things in the world are a lot more complex than having just two alternatives and I tend to mistrust the overly simple explanation. But I confess that I am going to get close to that in this sermon.

I have noticed that almost everyone tends to think that folks do fall into 1 of 2 categories: winners or losers. Folks are either succeeding at life or some aspect of it or they are not. They are doing well or doing poorly. And because of the competition we see in sports and business and in life, we see those doing well as winning and those who aren't as losing.

We can call it winnerism. Just as racism means people are perceived as superior or inferior and treated better or worse depending on their race, winnerism is the tendency of all humans to think of and treat people differently depending on whether they are perceived as winners or not. I think it underlies racism, sexism, ageism, nationalism, etc. We rank people according to whether we see them or their group as winners. And we attribute their success to their inherent qualities and virtues. And even when there are obvious flaws in their character or behavior, we make excuses for the winners. In fact we don't mind if they cheat to win, provided they are on our side.

One of the main things we us to keep score on winners and losers is money. In Jesus' day they thought the rich must have been blessed by God. When Jesus said a camel could squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle easier than a rich man could get into heaven, the disciples, shocked, said, “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:24-27) One problem is the causes to which we attribute wealth and poverty. Some people see it as a matter of black and white: smarter and harder-working people accrue wealth and dumber and lazier people do not. This interpretation falls apart if you look at it in any depth. Not all smart people and not all hard-working people become wealthy. For instance, college professors are generally considered very smart and they usually make more than the average person but they aren't necessarily rich, depending on their subject. According to salary.com if you are a law professor you are likely to make on average $70,000 more than a professor in nursing or biology. Because we need more lawyers than nurses?

And in the same industry other smart people make a lot less. Assistant professors, who don't have tenure but do teach lots of classes, usually make anywhere from half to 2/3s of what a full professor does. And a teaching assistant, who often teaches in place of the professor whose course you signed up for, makes a lot less. They are often poor, making from $7.95 to $15 an hour here in Florida. That's anywhere from 30 to 45% less than the median income in the US.

And we all know of people who are both lazy and dumb and yet are wealthy, especially if they inherited it. Sadly, the world is not a meritocracy. Hard work and smarts certainly increase the odds that you will get ahead but they don't guarantee it. They are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to become what the public sees as a winner.

The real dark side of winnerism is how it explains why people are losers, and it's usually by impugning their virtue or intelligence or their work ethic. And we often hang this deficiency on some superficial but easily identifiable characteristic, like their race, or their country of origin, or their religion or their socio-economic class. Yet should a member of one of these groups become an indisputable winner we hold them up as proof, ironically, that others in their category could do as well if only they tried. Yes, George Washington Carver was the child of slaves but he was also a genius. There are lots of perfectly good people of color who aren't geniuses and consequently can't use that to achieve a life on par with likewise ordinary white people, who are not burdened with going upstream against societal prejudice.

Usually a person who gets very far ahead of the pack has some advantages that are beyond their control. They may have inherited their advantages, be it wealth or genes. Even with the best trainer in the world, you won't win the regular Olympics if you have muscular dystrophy. You are also unlikely to become rich if you have a severe physical or mental disability. Sure, we can think of exceptions: Stephen Hawking had ALS. But again, if he hadn't been a genius, something over which he had no control, he would have died decades earlier in obscurity. Helen Keller's family was able to hire a full-time private tutor in sign language. Without the means to learn about the world and to express herself her gifts would have never been known.

Studies also show that where you are born profoundly affects how well you do in life. People born into impoverished areas rarely get rich; people born in rich areas rarely end up poor. Again there are exceptions. But they are just that: outliers to the norm, anomalies in the general trend of how things go. And the reason why geography has such an influence on people's mobility may be due to economic opportunities, schools, available choices of spouses, etc.

Your family is another thing that affects you but over which you have no choice. If you come from an upper class family, you will likely have connections that will help you get into better schools, give you introductions to powerful people, get you the inside track on a well-paying position or entry into a restricted field, like Wall Street banking.

Having factors that are beyond your control but very favorable to you can be a sufficient condition for worldly success. We all know of celebrities who become rich and famous merely for being good looking, another advantage in the real world. A large number of actors start as models. Not only that but behavior typically considered characteristic of the lower classes, such as sexual promiscuity, drug use, and the desire to party all the time, only makes a celebrity more infamous and thus a better subject for news coverage, reality TV and social media. The fact that such conduct in a poor person makes him or her an object of condemnation just goes to show that, again, merit has little or nothing to do with a person's position in society. We give “winners” slack that we deny to “losers.”

Race is also a factor, of course. Studies have shown that if you send both a person of color and a white person to apply for the same job, even if they have identical resumes, the white person is much more likely to get the job. The same phenomena can be seen in housing, loans and other vital areas of getting ahead financially. Consequently white households have on average 9 times the wealth that black households do. As someone pointed out, being white doesn't mean you won't have obstacles in life; it just means that race isn't one of them.

History, as they say, is written by the winners which is why it takes a while for their stories to cease being hagiographies. It may take decades or longer for biographers and historians to take a critical look at the person, or the group. And during that lag time the people they were “victorious” over get portrayed as total losers. The pilgrims, we were taught, conquered the new world because Native Americans were primitive savages. Yet we now have evidence of vast and intricate Indian civilizations, which were decimated by a plague that killed as many as 80% of the population, much as the Black Death had in Europe 300 years earlier. Ironically, the pilgrims would have starved in the very first winter had it not been for the kindness of the Native Americans. So it was not better brains or technology that made the colonists “winners.” They just arrived at a time when the native population was devastated by an epidemic.

Professor Jared Diamond wrote his book Guns, Germs and Steel to refute the idea that Europe and the West achieved their material success due to some sort of genetic or intellectual or moral superiority compared to the global South or the East. As a geographer he could see that the area of Europe had the advantage of a wider variety of plants to eat, of animals to domesticate and a more equitable climate. The relatively compact area of Europe and its connection with Asia and North Africa was better for spreading the knowledge of agriculture, technology and innovation than larger, less populated continents. The North and West simply had more resources to begin with.

Now how does this relate to our lectionary. In Amos, he excoriates the so-called winners in this life who have lots of luxuries and care about nothing else. Psalm 146 says, in part: “Put not your trust in princes...” In other words, the world's “winners.” And then it goes on to praise God, who not only creates everything but “Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the alien; he sustains the fatherless and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.” God is the champion of those the world sees as “losers.”

In our passage from 1 Timothy, Paul writes, “There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” Then he goes on to speak of the pain and temptations and evil to which the pursuit of wealth opens a person. The person who has more must be generous and do good with what they've been given.

Finally, we get the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus begins this way: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.” Then both men die and Lazarus goes to heaven and the rich man ends up in Hades. But the rich man's fate is not due to his wealth but to his lack of concern for the poor. He who feasts well daily cannot be bothered to feed the poor man lying at his gate, nor get him care for his sores. He violates both the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated (Luke 6:31) as well as the second greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And you may remember that just 2 chapters ago, Jesus said that if you have a feast invite the sick and the poor, precisely because they can't repay you and you will be repaid in the afterlife. (Luke 14:12-14) In this parable, Jesus shows what the repayment is for neglecting to do anything for the disadvantaged, the least of Jesus' siblings (Matthew 25:31-46).

Why do we allow such blatant disparities in life? Because, as the saying goes, to the victor belongs the spoils. When we look at life as a competition, then we look for winners and losers. And we feel that the winner should take, if not all, then the lion's share of what is at stake. But as we've shown, winners rarely start off on an equal footing with others. They have a head start or an advantage. The Horatio Alger “rags to riches” story we've been sold is rarely true. Had Bill Gates' parents not been wealthy, he might not have been able to drop out Harvard to start Microsoft. Rappers often talk of gritty street life because that is where the art form began. But there are plenty of rappers like Drake, who grew up in middle class and upper class homes.

Some times it's a literal head start. Had Elisha Gray made it to the patent office a few hours before Alexander Graham Bell, the person we attribute the invention of the phone to would be different. Gray would have been the “winner” of that race. But we try not to think about that, lest it mean that factors other than merit determines winners. If it's hard work alone or following some set of rules, then maybe we can be winners too. The idea that factors beyond our control could determine such things scares us.

Another big problem with winnerism is, as we've said, once you are a winner, people tend to ignore or cover up or make excuses for your behavior. People at Miramar and the Weinstein Company were complicit in their boss Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults on actresses. Ditto those who worked for or were friends with millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. It is undeniable that Bill Cosby was a great comedian and educator. It is also undeniable, after 60 women accused him and after a court convicted him, that he was a rapist. It really hurts me to acknowledge that. But did we not have the attitude that winners are entitled to a lot more leeway than others, I don't think he would have gotten away with it for as long. Someone in the industry would have outed him decades ago.

The things the world highly values are not the things God values. He doesn't see this life as a competition. So, no, he who dies with the most toys does not win.

If God sees this life as in any way analogous to a game, the goal would be not competition but cooperation. God is love and we were created in the image of God. In love you don't compete; you work together. You are on the same team, so to speak. You each have different talents and gifts and you may take on different roles within the team effort but with the same end in mind: that everyone be well-served and no one be left out. On Team Jesus it is all for one and one for all. Jesus gave his all for us; how can we do less?

And if we stop looking at life as a competition, then we stop looking at others as the competition. They are not the enemy. They are either members of Team Jesus or potential members of Team Jesus. We don't exclude people; we invite them. We do not reject people; we recruit them.

And lest you feel that a life without competition would be boring, let me assure you there are a host of problems that we need to tackle together. Like racism, poverty, sexism, ageism and all the ways in which we have not yet gotten to the place where we treat every single person as we would like to be treated. There are challenges to face, such as how do we distribute the gifts God has given this world so no one is without the basics. If you want to defeat something, defeat ignorance by teaching others the truth and how to think clearly and critically and what is of eternal value. If you desire real stakes, rather than fighting aliens online, fight fires and flooding; fight injustice. Rather than wrack up scores of how many people you kill in a video game, concentrate on saving lives in real life. Always wanted to save the world? Work on countering the crushing climate crisis. Again the people who will be affected the most are those who have the least to start with.

No one created in the image of God is a loser. And if we did things right, everyone would have one major advantage: a worldwide family of people who will use their gifts of talent, time and treasure to help you overcome obstacles. Teammates look out for one another. 

Spoiler alert for a 30 year old comic book: In The Watchmen a very brainy superhero decides to save the world from eminent nuclear war by creating a convincing alien menace that threatens the entire planet. Every nation on earth stops fighting each other and focuses on their common enemy. In real life humanity is its own worst enemy. We divide ourselves into opposites and label one side “winners” and the other “losers.” And then fight about who's who. But we have reached the point where, as Ben Franklin put it, "we must all hang together or most assuredly we will hang separately." Besides the ever-present specter of nuclear war, biological warfare and cyber-warfare, which can cripple our intricately interconnected world, our exploitation and abuse of nature is coming back to haunt us. The situation is not hopeless but it requires immediate action, not just by a few people or nations but by all of us. And we on Team Jesus can lead the way. We can be the glue that brings humanity together to help one another and thus to help us all. Our Lord encouraged reconciliation, peacemaking, not calling people names or dismissing those who are not flourishing. We are called to be the ongoing embodiment of God's love. We can bring to each person the good news: "You are not a loser. God loves you and Jesus gave his life so as not to lose you. So join the side that is about love and life and saving and healing. Join Team Jesus. The entrance requirements are simple: offer up a limited and limiting life that is all about you and receive in return eternal life in Jesus that will give everything in it meaning. It's a win/win."

What's A Little Dishonesty Among Friends?

The scriptures referred to are Luke 16:1-13.

Every culture has an archetypal trickster character. In Norse mythology it's Loki. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, it's Odysseus. In European fables it's the fox. In Native American lore, it is Raven, or Rabbit, or Coyote. In England, it's Robin Hood. In the Bible, it's Jacob. Right now my favorite musical is The Greatest Showman, despite the fact that its take on P.T. Barnum is so very far from the truth. So I guess he would have loved it.

We enjoy tales of people achieving success through cleverness, even if they are thieves or conmen. But we rarely think of their victims. Bernie Madoff's pyramid scheme cheated 37,000 people, including more than a dozen charities. His con harmed people to the tune of $18 billion. Jho Low passed himself off as a financial expert, took over a sovereign wealth fund wholly owned by the Malaysian Minister of Finance, stole $4.5 billion and put the whole country into deep debt. He is still a fugitive. And of course there's Charles Ponzi the collapse of whose scam brought down a half a dozen banks. His investors lost $20 million in 1920, worth well over $200 million in today's money. We have given his name to all schemes that pay off early investors with the money put in by later investors, rather than by, you know, actually investing the money.

So it is weird that we have Jesus seemingly praising a conman who cheats his boss after he gets fired for fudging the books. But I don't think that's what Jesus is doing, though I seem to be almost alone in my interpretation. Most commentators twist themselves into pretzels trying to make it look like Jesus is advising us to emulate at least some aspects of the conman's cleverness. But I don't think he is. And the problem arises for two reasons.

The first reason is that we usually examine this parable out of context. Several of my colleagues were complaining last week on Facebook of how our lectionary texts tend to be wrenched from their context, leaving us to supply it in our sermons before we can get down to our main points. Often by simply starting the passage a few verses before or ending it a few verses after the edited version we get, the scriptures would be clearer. In this case however, that would not work. The necessary context is too large.

The divisions of the Bible into chapters didn't happen for centuries. The Torah was broken up into sections to be read in the synagogues, an early form of lectionary. In Israel they divided it into 154 sections so as to get through it in 3 years. In Babylon they made it into 53 or 54 sections in order to read it in just a year. Similarly by the 4^th century AD, the New Testament was divided into parts for public reading during worship. However, the chapters we have today come to us courtesy of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury under King John.

Like the lectionary selections, we can quibble about some of the places Langton chose to begin and end the chapters but they are overall not bad and so are generally followed by most Bibles, including the Hebrew Bible. Oddly enough it took another 300 years for someone to devise the numbering of verses we use today. And that someone was Robert Estienne, a French printer who put them into his 1551 edition of the Greek New Testament. Obviously this made it easier for people to find and make sure they are discussing the same verses.

Unfortunately it also make it easier to prooftext. Many a shaky theological argument has been buttressed by verses torn from their contexts and combined into a Frankensteinian body of Biblical “evidence.” And it makes us forget that originally the books of the Bible were meant to be read all the way through and not in bite-sized chunks. We are so used to thinking of scripture as an index of stories and verses that I remember how struck I was by British actor Alec McCowen's one man show, in which he recited the entire Book of Mark. The effect was like watching a whole movie that you had previously only seen in clips or on commercial TV, interrupted by ads. I had never felt the flow of the gospel before. And one of the reasons people have trouble understanding what Jesus is really saying in the first part of Luke 16 is that we have isolated it from the flow of the longer block of parables Jesus is telling.

This block begins 2 chapters earlier, either when Jesus is dining at the house of a prominent Pharisee or in Luke 14:25 when Jesus turns and speaks to the crowds traveling with him. First he tells them about the cost of following him. And then we are told, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'” (Luke 15:1-2) In response Jesus tells 3 parables: the one about the search for the lost sheep, the one about the lost coin, and the one about the lost son, better known as the parable of the prodigal son. If you remember, in that story there are 2 sons, the one who left and the one who stayed. And the son who stayed with his father resents the joyous welcome his returning, repentant brother gets. It's pretty obvious the lost son stands for the sinners and tax collectors coming to God through Jesus. That makes the resentful son the representative of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. And that resentful son says to his very forgiving father, “Look! All these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” This works in the story but was that really how Jesus saw the Pharisees and scribes?

Not going by what Jesus says about them earlier in Luke 11. “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but your neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” (Luke 11:39-42) Jesus is saying that the Pharisees paid more attention to the external rituals than to the moral laws God has given us. And that is a criticism that can be leveled at many religious people in every era. It is easier to do overtly religious things than to work for real justice and go out of your comfort zone to actually practice God's radical love and see that the poor are treated properly.

Jesus continues, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourself will not lift one finger to help them....Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” (Luke 11:46, 52) By adding rules that aren't actually in the Bible, they are making it harder for those who want to get closer to God and enter his kingdom. And instead of making it easier to understand what God says, they are making it more obscure, the way secular lawyers can make what should be a straightforward procedure impossible to navigate without a lawyer! Luke is giving us a shorter version of Jesus' condemnation of the religious leaders of his day. Matthew devotes a whole chapter to this speech. (Matthew 23)

So the upshot is that the brother who stays and obeys his father really isn't  a good stand-in for the Pharisees and law experts after all. They are hypocrites, more concerned with looking good than in actually being good. I want to point out one accusation Jesus makes in Mark. He says, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions. For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother,' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if anyone says to his father or his mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:9-13) In other words, in an age where there is nothing like Social Security, if someone made their estate a gift to the temple in their will, they did not have to support their aged parents. Of course, the offspring could use the interest themselves during their own life. In other words, the Pharisees manipulated God's law to make deals with others that ultimately benefited them.

And isn't that what the dishonest steward is doing in today's parable? If, as usual in the parables, the master represents God, who is the manager more likely to represent than the Pharisees and those who are supposed to be in charge of administering God's law? And when the master finds out his employee is not doing his job properly, he asks for an accounting and gives the man his notice. Not willing to do hard work or beg, the man decides to pull a scam in order to ingratiate himself with his master's debtors. He cuts 50% off the amount one guy owes and 20% off another man's debt. And then—plot twist!—the master commends him for being so shrewd! The Greek says, “his master praised [or “applauded”] the unjust [or “wicked”] manager because he acted sensibly.” Seriously?!?

Commentators try to explain this bizarre conclusion in various ways. For example, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary, which I usually find helpful, says that perhaps the steward used his own authority as manager to give such discounts. Or that he removed the interest charges, which were unlawful anyway according to the Torah. Or that he simply removed his own commission. All of which are plausible except that (A) Jesus nowhere says that is what he is doing and (B) he is not reducing prices but the amounts of goods. He is fudging the books as to how many actual gallons of olive oil or bushels of wheat they were sold by the master or which they promised to give his master. Elsewhere Jesus does use money that people owe to or manage for a master. But here it is stuff people eat or which can be sold for whatever is the going price at the time. This is fraud and theft. And Jesus is telling us this is good?

Which brings me to what Jesus says immediately afterward: “For the sons of this age are wiser in respect to their generation than are the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by using unjust money so that when it fails they might receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Is Jesus seriously telling us to use what he essentially calls “ill-gotten gains” to make friends on earth as worldly people do and their pull will get us into heaven? Again: seriously?!?

No. That is, I don't think Jesus is being serious here. The second reason I think we have a problem with this is that we forget Jesus' frequent use of irony. Just before this section begins we are told, “At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, 'Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.' He replied, 'Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will reach my goal. In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem.'” (Luke 13:31-33) You can hear the dripping sarcasm in that reply. And when a crowd is picking up rocks in preparation to stoning him Jesus says, “I showed you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you stoning me?” (John 10:31-32) Again Jesus is being sarcastic—and brave! And when the man born blind finally sees Jesus, our Lord, surrounded by Pharisees, says, “For judgment I have come into the world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” That last part is quite pointed and the Pharisees know he is referring to them. (John 9:39-41) In fact Matthew's whole chapter of woes aimed at the Pharisees is full of zingers and things not meant to be taken literally.

I think Jesus was deliberately causing cognitive dissonance with his conclusion of this parable. He wanted people to go “Wait! What?” when he says a master would applaud a conman who cheated him to make wealthy friends. What the master is more likely to do is throw the guy in jail. In the parable of the unforgiving servant that's what happens to the miscreant who owes his master a lot. (Matthew 18:23-34) Jesus' point is that the Pharisees, far from being the righteous ones who have been working hard for God and never disobeying him, have in fact been fiddling with God's rules to let influential people off and make powerful friends. (Gasp! Religious leaders excusing the rich and powerful? Unheard of!) And do they really think that God will praise them or that their clever use of filthy riches or their worldly friends will get them into heaven? No. Of course not.

The real moral of the story comes after the tongue-in-cheek one. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” Well, duh! Former writer for Sports Illustrated and ESPN, Rick Reilly, once voted NSMA National Sportswriter of the Year, did a whole book about a rich and famous man who owns a lot of golf clubs and not only cheats when he plays, often against professional golfers, but actually makes sure he is listed at his clubs as always having the best score in each, regardless of who really achieved that. Reilly was not at all surprised that his man was not honest in his businesses nor at his present job. He who is dishonest in little things can't be trusted with larger matters.

As Jesus says, “If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” And in Jesus' parables, like those about the buried treasure and the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:44-46), riches usually mean the kingdom of heaven. In other words, if you do get up to funny business with money, you can kiss heaven, eternity with God, goodbye.

Jesus goes on: “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” In reality it was rare for a slave to have two masters, unless, say, twin sons inherited one from their father. And there is a reason that would be a bad idea anyway. The slave will not likely be treated equally well by both nor would he feel the same regard towards both. But what Jesus is getting at is that you cannot put both God and money as your top priority. Try and you will have to betray one of them. And, humans being what they are, you will probably choose the security and power money affords over the uncertainty and lack of worldly power following Jesus gets you.

And as final evidence that this parable was not really about the wise use of ill gotten gains but about his critics, the very next verse, left out of our lectionary passage of course, is this: “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.” They knew he was talking about them. His sarcasm did not go over their heads. And the passage continues, “He said to them, 'You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people hold in high esteem is detestable in God's sight.” He is identifying them as the ones the parable is about. God is not like the master in the story. He doesn't admire dishonest cleverness; he sees it as an abomination. That's literally what the Greek says. It's interesting that some people seize upon that word when describing certain acts but not cheating, lying, arrogance and stirring up dissension, which the Bible tells us are abominations before God. (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Money is built on trust. Otherwise it's just paper or, today, lines of code in the cloud. That's why the Stock Market falls: when investors no longer trust that what they put their money in is worth what they thought it was. The word “worship” is a contraction of “worthship.” You worship what you think is of ultimate worth. And how you use your money reveals what you really value.

What value do you put on God? Is he worth more than money? Than possessions? Than the other things you spend most of your time or talents or treasure on? When this life is over, and you can't rely on the transient things of this world, when you have to give account to God, how will you look to him? Did you squander your life? Did you sell God short? Or will he truly commend you for the way you've used your gifts, not to make friends for yourself, but for him? Did you bring him people he could make into children of light?

Rehab

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, Psalm 14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and Luke 15:1-10.

I read a report on Politico about Liberty University, which was founded by Jerry Falwell Sr., and its questionable financial dealings under the leadership of his son, Jerry Falwell Jr. The report details nepotism and sweetheart financial deals with friends involving things like a shopping center, a tourism business and a motel. The entire enterprise is worth more than 3 billion dollars. Not bad for something that began as a church-run school from one of the creators of the Moral Majority. Except as one senior university official says, “We're not a school. We are a real estate hedge fund.” (Story here.)

In the first century, there were no mega-churches or church-run schools. Christians met in private homes. Now these tended to be the homes of wealthier members of the church so they could accommodate all the worshipers. Because churches depended on the generosity of those better off, there were tensions. James condemns the favoritism towards the rich and bias against the poor that he saw in churches. (James 2:1-7) Paul lists among the qualities Timothy should look for in deacons and bishops that they not be lovers of money or dishonest gain. (1 Timothy 3:3, 8) In the same letter Paul writes, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:9-10) And now you know the context of that famously mistranslated verse. Paul is referring to people whose love of money ruined their faith.

And of course Paul is in perfect alignment with Jesus on this. Jesus saw money as a potential rival for God, saying you cannot serve both. (Luke 16:13) In his parable of the sower and the soils, he says, “The one who received the seed that fell among thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22) Jesus told one man who wanted to follow him to sell all he owned and give it to the poor first. The man couldn't, because, we are told, he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22) Or should we say that he had many things in his life that owned him. Wealth is powerful, like fire. Used properly it is a great boon. Used badly it can bring pain and destruction.

But my point is not to focus on wealth but corruption. What Falwell Jr. is doing is not unusual in the business world. But a Christian ministry should not be run in a way to make the CEO and his friends rich. Sadly this sort of thing has a history in the church. In the stories about Robin Hood, despite his devotion to the Virgin Mary, some of the robber's favorite targets were rich abbots. Why? Abbeys often owned lots of land and possessed much wealth. Medieval audiences probably got a kick out of their champion reducing those who supposedly took a vow of poverty to actual poverty. Then as now, fiction tends to reflect real world concerns.

And of course the church has had other scandals, notably about sex. But these are not unique to the church. Just as many legitimate business have been involved in shady dealings, many organizations like the Boy Scouts have had cover-ups of child sexual abuse. But we expect Christians to behave better. The problem is that some Christians think they are automatically better people and don't realize that they are as susceptible to sin and corruption as non-Christians. And if you don't anticipate problems in certain areas, you don't take precautions against them.

The good news for us is that our church does take precautions when it comes to sexual abuse and the misuse of church monies and property. We have to make reports and do audits and get training and follow policies. And, unlike a preacher who runs his own non-denominational, independent church, we are accountable to people above us, who in turn have authorities over them. One reason for that is the realization that we are all sinners, even those of us with any kind of power in the church.

Non-religious people may not like the idea that we are all sinners, yet it's the people who think they aren't who cause a lot of the world's griefs. Raised a devout Catholic, Phil Donahue noticed the unexpected temptations he encountered when he became famous. He got preferential treatment. Restaurants that were booked solid could get him a good table at short notice. Planes might be held if he were a few minutes late. Businesses offered him wares and services for free. It's very hard for a person to say “No” to all these perks and very easy to slowly start to accept and then to expect them. Corruption is often a gradual process. Unless you are unscrupulous to begin with. Then it's full steam ahead.

Our susceptibility to sin is something we have to be reminded of. But being the person who reminds people of that is not a path to popularity. The prophets we have in the Bible are those who told the people what they didn't want to hear. And a big reason they were included was that the people compiling the Hebrew Bible were those exiled to Babylon. They realized they were there because they didn't listen to these prophets originally.

Jeremiah was perhaps the most unpopular prophet of his time. From his name we get the word “jeremiad,” which means a long, mournful list of woes. One of the kings who reigned during the prophet's long ministry heard a scroll of his prophesies read aloud and as each prophesy was read, he would cut the statement off the scroll and burn it. (Jeremiah 36:21-24) People in power don't like hearing bad news, especially if it concerns their conduct.

Today's reading from Jeremiah concerns all the people of Jerusalem. It is not complementary. God's people are called stupid children. While they have become quite adept at doing evil they have not figured out how to do good. The result is that the earth returns to what it was before creation: it is a formless void again, empty of life and light. It has reverted to its primeval chaos. And this uncreation, if you will, is the consequence of what the people did to themselves. Our lectionary passage skipped the part where God said, “Your own conduct and actions have brought this upon you.” (Jeremiah 4:18) What are their sins? They have worshiped other gods (Jeremiah 2:11) and they have not stood up for the rights of the poor (Jeremiah 5:28) Essentially, they have disobeyed the two greatest commandments, to love God with all you are and to love your neighbor as yourself. Break those laws upon which the world is built and you wreck both the world and yourself.

The reason a sticker on your iron tells you not to iron your clothes while wearing them is that someone must have done it and then tried to sue the manufacturer. So lawyers mandated the warning. On Facebook someone posted a picture of a sign outside a convenience store bathroom telling people they were forbidden to bring a horse into the restroom and wash it. Wouldn't you love to hear the story behind that? Every time you come across a law or rule, especially an oddly specific one, it usually means someone has done that prohibited action, no matter how stupid or self-destructive it is. The rules in the Bible are, like the one on the iron, meant to spare us needless suffering. Yet we keep breaking the rules and then wondering how we got into this mess.

There are people who think religion is the cause of all that's evil in the world. And yet, officially atheistic nations like the old Soviet Union or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge or modern communist China have proven to be anything but utopias. It is not religion that makes the world worse. It's that we, like the people who iron their clothes while wearing them, decide to ignore even their most obvious moral insights and laws, albeit selectively. As the prophets say, people ignore the fact that God is watching, or assume he will do nothing. As today's psalm says, deep down in our hearts we doubt that there is a God and even the most loudly professing believers often act like atheists, going about their business with little or no regard for God. Maybe that's because we act as if baptism were a vaccination that means we will never become spiritually unhealthy again. Actually, like diabetics who need to check their blood sugar daily and take their meds regularly, we need to check our spiritual health daily and take action when we are morally compromised.

Jesus said if we wish to follow him, we must disavow ourselves and take up our cross daily. Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) Which sounds like something that happened in the past. And indeed Paul says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4) Paul refers to this elsewhere as crucifying our old self. (Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9) But he also saw it as an ongoing process. He said, “For if you live according to human nature, you are going to die; if however by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” (Romans 8:13) The verb for “put to death” in Greek is in the Present Indicative Active tense. That means it is a continuous action being done in the present. As anybody in touch with, and honest about the spiritual life will admit, our old nature keeps trying to reassert itself. My 8^th grade teacher told of how he gave up cigarettes when the first reports of their link with cancer came out in the 1960s. Yet whenever he went fishing, his hand would automatically go to his left breast pocket where for years he kept his pack of cigarettes.

Old habits die hard. They are like those movie monsters who keep coming back in the sequels and need to have a stake driven through their heart all over again. Too many people are like the folks in those films who say, “Oh, you don't really believe in vampires, do you?” Or “Wasn't Jason killed last summer at the lake?” You just know those people are going to be the next victims. In the same way, out of ignorance or arrogance, many people end up falling prey to their human nature either because they think they don't have a moral problem or they think that since they are Christians, they no longer can do real wrong. Or, to switch the metaphor, they are like patients I've had who either deny they are truly ill or who think that during their hospitalization they have been cured, even though we tell them they still have to monitor their condition and take their meds on time to stay healthy.

In the movie version of the parody of Gothic romances, Cold Comfort Farm, Sir Ian McKellen plays Amos Starkadder, a lay preacher of the Church of the Quivering Brethren. In an hilarious sermon, he tells his flock they are all damned and proceeds to describe in excruciating detail how they will be tortured and burned, while they shiver in fear, almost masochistically. And some people think the church likes to do that: go on and on about damnation and doom. But it's really about salvation and rescue.

The point of knowing what's wrong is to find out how to make things right. Millions of people who don't feel right go to doctors hoping to find out that there is in fact something wrong with them and there is a treatment. In that case, having someone tell you there's nothing wrong with you is not good news. On the Netflix documentary show Diagnosis people whose doctors can't work out what they have contact Dr. Lisa Sanders, who was a medical consultant on the show House MD. After talking with them, Dr. Sanders decides whether to put their story in her online column for the New York Times. And then people all over the world with ideas or the condition itself make suggestions. The first episode featured a 23 year old woman whose high school athletics were ended by excruciating pain that came up from her legs. Also, her urine was the color of coffee. None of the doctors could figure out what she had. After Dr. Sanders put her story online, out of 1600 responses, two diagnoses for rare genetic disorders seemed promising. A medical researcher in Italy finally nailed it and after sequencing her entire DNA, they were able to give her not only a diagnosis but a method of treatment. And they assured her not to worry about having children. She was elated. And she was able to keep going to school to become a nurse.

What made the difficult, fictional Dr. House tolerable was the fact that he would not give up until he figured out what was wrong and what could be done for his patients. In that way only he was like Jesus, who is willing to go above and beyond to save us from ourselves. Jesus is willing to search for the lost, wherever they end up and bring them home.

Paul was such a person. In our reading from 1 Timothy he describes himself as “formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.” Not “I was” but “I am.” As a person in A.A. still calls himself an alcoholic, Paul, though saved by Christ, still called himself a sinner. Reminding himself of that kept him from getting arrogant.

Which reminds me of how Luther pointed out that we Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners. He wrote, “This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”

When I was in rehab, learning to walk again, I had good days and bad days. Getting better is not an unbroken upward curve on a chart. It's like climbing a mountain range, with valleys as well as peaks. The Christian life is similar. We are in rehab for our spiritual brokenness and if we forget to follow doctor's orders and pretend we are cured and need no help or precautions—well, as it says in Proverbs, “Pride precedes a disaster, and an arrogant attitude precedes a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18, GWT) When you fall, you break something.

Paul wrote, “Brothers and sisters, if a person is overtaken by sin, those of you who are spiritual should restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness, taking heed that you not be tempted yourself.” (Galatians 6:1) Paul is saying that even the most spiritual of us can slip, so we must be aware of temptations. Billy Graham made it a policy never to spend time alone with any female other than his wife. A current high official does that and gets ridiculed because of it, though that means at least we won't have that scandal to deal with. And at Pixar they did institute similar rules to keep women safe from their sexual predator CEO. After all, alcoholics try to stay away from bars. Matthew, a tax collector, apparently elected not to be the treasurer for the twelve disciples, possibly because of the temptation of handling money. Being aware of your weaknesses is just as important as knowing your strengths.

The Bible talks of salvation using 3 tenses: We have been saved (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5), we are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18; Ephesians 2:8 [Present Indicative Active]) and we will be saved (Mark 13:13; Romans 5:9). Because, as Luther pointed out, being saved is a process. Through Jesus' death we have been saved from the penalty of sin. Through the Spirit's action within us, we are being saved from the power of sin. When Jesus returns and establishes his kingdom, we will be saved from the very presence of sin. Jesus, like a surgeon, has done what he can to fix our brokenness. Right now we are in rehab, working with our therapist, the Spirit, and relearning how to walk with God. One day we will be discharged. The door to God's larger world will open to us and we will leave this toil and pain behind, throwing our crutches away, walking and leaping and praising God.