Bully or Hero?

The scriptures referred to are Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 and James 2:1-17.

On a podcast about sword and sorcery movies, they mentioned one that I loved as a kid, The Magic Sword. And the host pointed out that the hero is really a bit of a jerk. He is the adopted son of a good witch. But he spends his time looking into her magic pool at a princess he's never met as she bathes in a river. When she is captured by an evil wizard, he tricks his mother, locking her in her laboratory to steal the gifts he was not to receive till his 21^st birthday: a magic sword, magic armor, a magic horse and 6 knights. Then he goes off to the king's castle and forces his way onto the rescue mission for the princess. I had never thought of the hero that way but it was 1962 and that was the concept of a leader: the guy who wants it the most and just takes over. And if he is the hero, his ability to complete the mission confirms he was right to do so, and we are to forgive any bad behavior it took for him to win. Like the death of the other 6 knights. If the villain tries to be a leader or achieve power, he fails, of course, and he pays for his bad behavior. So there was no real exploration of what actually makes one a good leader. The desire and drive seem sufficient, provided you succeed whatever the cost to others. Which makes it hard to tell a leader, or a hero for that matter, from a bully.

In a clergy Facebook page, a Lutheran pastor said he was approached by someone from a more conservative denomination who asked, “Do you think Jesus was just as much of a sissy when he was young as he was when he was older?” When the Lutheran pastor asked for clarification of the question, the person wondered if Jesus ever got into fights with other boys his age or did regular teenage things like carouse. Of course, the Bible doesn't mention anything of the sort but this guy seems to be of a stripe with the Evangelicals whose history is detailed in the book Jesus and John Wayne. Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez documents how they have conflated Christianity with toxic masculinity. So they have a lot of trouble with the whole “turn the other cheek,” “love your enemy” aspects of the faith. And this guy was probably hoping that Jesus had something in his past that made him more like John Wayne and less like what this guy sees as a hippie.

So what does this have to do with our lectionary? Today's readings are about injustice, and the solutions offered aren't about fighting bad guys but about sharing resources, showing respect for others and helping those at a disadvantage. In other words, they're about how you actually make things just. Because merely getting rid of bad people doesn't make the world run better, though you would never know that from most of our entertainment. We are supposed to assume that once the hero kills the main villain and blows up his lair/laboratory/spaceship that the world reverts to everything being just fine. That's like thinking that winning the American revolution was all that was necessary for the US to be a successful country. Actually it's the boring part of trying to work out a constitutional government and a justice system and then continually refining it and fixing mistakes that differentiates a functional nation from a dysfunctional one. And if you don't eliminate injustices and build in effective ways to correct them, another revolution is inevitable. As our passage from Proverbs says, “Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity.”

The problem is that the rich and powerful usually set these things up and they are not going to do it in a way that disadvantages them. In fact, they will usually give themselves extra advantages. For instance, in the original 13 states the South was at an electoral disadvantage. The white landowners were outnumbered by their slaves. They didn't want to give slaves the vote, but without counting them, the northern states would be able to control the federal government. So Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution says that for the purpose of electing members to the House of Representatives, a state's population was considered the number of free persons plus 3/5s the number of non-free people—excluding Native Americans entirely. And since the number of the electors a state sends to the Electoral College to choose the President is based on how many Senators and how many Representatives it had, the result was that 6 of the first 10 presidents were from the South, 5 of them from Virginia alone. Yet in the first census Virginia only had about 200 more free white men over the age of 16 than Pennsylvania but also nearly 290,000 more slaves and thus more electoral votes; 6 more to be precise. Advantage: slave states. For this injustice we reaped the calamity of the Civil War.

The Bible says over and over again that wealth does not convey nor indicate virtue. Because you can become rich by working hard and providing a needed product or service to people at a price they can afford. Or you can cheat, lie, con or even steal your way to wealth. Or just inherit it. At his death, Jeffrey Epstein was worth an estimated $577 million. And yet, nobody knows exactly how he got so rich. Was it through a Ponzi scheme, or money laundering, or did he blackmail rich and powerful people that he hooked up with underage women? No one thinks he did it by being the investment genius he claimed to be. (He only had one client.) Merely being wealthy says nothing about your character. How you got it and what you do with it shows who you really are.

Besides getting it honestly, what God cares about is that you use what you have to help those who are not so fortunate. What makes someone a hero in God's eyes is that he is selfless, not selfish. He helps the powerless, rather than taking advantage of them. As our passage from Proverbs says, “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor. Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils the life of those who despoil them.” The city gate is mentioned because that's where the elders met and decided on legal matters. Those who mistreat the disadvantaged are not on the side of God. That includes those who allow injustice to continue. In contrast, God is both the advocate for the poor, the needy and the weak and the judge of those who harm them.

When I was in college, a pastor who had seen me in a play asked if I would help him at his Sunday service. I was to dress in shabby clothes, not shave or shower or wash my hair, and even use a little makeup to look more like a homeless guy. I was to walk into the middle of his service during the sermon. When I did so, the ushers frantically tried to stop me. I had to shake one off to continue down the center aisle as we had planned. Then the pastor addressed me, I said my lines and he made his point about how God's love and grace is extended to those who were different. I can't remember now, 50 years later, if he was preaching on today's passage from James but it would be appropriate.

Because James shockingly reveals that even in the early church there was discrimination. The rich were treated better than “a poor person in dirty clothes.” And then he goes on to list the sins of the rich. You have to realize that a century before this time, the Roman general Pompey had seized land from Jews and given it to wealthy Hellenized landowners. And the taxes Herod levied for his building projects also drove out small farmers. They either had to become hired hands or tenant farmers, paying rent for the land they worked and used to own. If they refused to pay rent they could either be replaced by slaves or be killed by squads of thugs the landowners employed. James and his audience saw firsthand the poor being exploited and oppressed.

In addition, Roman law favored the rich, who could afford to initiate lawsuits, which the poor were unlikely to win. Jewish courts tried to counter this in accordance with the Torah, which says, “You must not turn away justice for your poor people in their lawsuits.” (Exodus 23:6) But, then as now, folks who can afford to hire the most eloquent to make their defense tend to win.

That's why James condemns favoritism. The Greek word means being partial to someone on the basis of external considerations. And to see this in church just reinforced the unfairness of the inequality of wealth and opportunity people lived with every day. James even says, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom he has promised to those who love him?” He is not saying that God has chosen only the poor but that God does pay special attention to them, as we saw in Proverbs, precisely because they are vulnerable and easily oppressed. And the poor, not having the resources the rich can rely on, tend to put their trust in God.

One big reason James gives for not showing favoritism is what he calls “the royal law,” namely “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Why does he call it the royal law? Because Jesus, our king, marked that out as the law of how people in the kingdom of God treated each other. If you favor some people over others because of external things like wealth, race, disability, nationality or something over which they have no control, you violate the law of love set down by our king. You are a lawbreaker. You might say, “Well, it's not like I killed someone.” No, but even our laws cover more than just murder. They cover everything from refusing to stop your boat when ordered to by law enforcement, to DUI with a suspended license, to forgery and fraud, to home invasion, to all degrees and manner of assaults. If convicted of any, you are a lawbreaker. James isn't letting people excuse the sin of favoritism just because there are more serious sins.

In talking about mercy, James makes an oblique reference to what his brother Jesus said: “Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) He also seems to recall Jesus' parable about the slave who was shown mercy by his master for an enormous debt. But when that same slave refused to forgive another slave a smaller debt, the master says, “Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me! Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?” And he is thrown into prison till he repays his debt. Jesus concludes, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, if each of you does not forgive your sibling from your heart.” (Matthew 18:23-35)

But, as we saw last week, that mercy means nothing if it just stays in your heart and doesn't manifest itself in your actions. Just like one's faith in God. As James says, “If your brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” Some people think that James is contradicting Paul's declaration, “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) But they forget that Paul goes right on to say, “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.” (Ephesians 2:10, my emphasis) We are not saved by good works but for good works. Just like after my accident I wasn't saved by living a healthy life; I was saved by trusting a doctor to cut me open and fix me inside so that I could live a healthy life. That's why he did it, so I could get back to walking and taking care of myself. He didn't fix me up so I could just lie there and exist. In the same way, we trust that what Jesus did on the cross saves us, and not any good works we do. But Jesus saved us so we would be able to do the good works his Father created us to do.

Regarding this verse, Martin Luther says people are justified or declared righteous before God by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Real faith, genuine trust in God, always produces good works, and is accompanied by them. Love works the same way. If someone told you they loved their dog, but didn't feed them or give them water and left them out in all types of weather, both hot and freezing, you would have good reason to believe their “love” is all talk.

In faith and love, actions speak louder than words. As someone observed, when all is said and done there's a lot more said than done. We say we trust God but do we act like it? Do we act like people who believe God is in charge and will back us up when we do what is right even when it is not popular? Or do we let the world dictate what we do and back off when we run into opposition to what God clearly tells us to do? Do we act as if God is love and he wants us to love even people who seem unlovable? Or do we not want to forgive and love some people because it is really difficult? Do we act as if this life is not the only one and that any injuries not healed or any injustices not corrected in this life will be in the next? Or do play it safe and not take risks because we really think that living a life of self-sacrificial love as Jesus did is crazy?

If you really believe in a God of love and justice, it will come out in your life. If you don't, then you can just shrug your shoulders at injustices and do nothing about them. You can even add to them by grabbing whatever you can however you can. And you can try to convince yourself and others that you are really a hero rather than a jerk and a bully.

But if you believe that God intends our lives to be about more than just getting stuff and killing time till we die, if you believe that God calls us to follow Jesus and his example and to grow daily to become more like him, if you believe in the kingdom of God envisioned by Jesus, where there is justice and mercy and love and forgiveness, where the first are last and the last are first, where what we do to the disadvantaged in society will be counted as what we have done to Jesus, our king—well, then act like it!