Doing Nothing

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 146, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, and Luke 16:1-13.

I hope you have been watching Ken Burns' latest documentary on PBS. If not you can see the whole thing on pbs.org or on the PBS Video app. It's called The U.S. and the Holocaust. And, through the Nazi attempt at wiping out all the Jews took place in Europe, there are connections to our country. It turns out that Hitler's laws restricting Jews were inspired by our Jim Crow laws. The idea for removing Jews (and anyone else troublesome) as the Nazis expanded East was inspired by our removing and moving Native Americans as we moved West. Reservations became industrialized and turned into concentration camps. The near universal endorsement of eugenics and sterilization of the unfit by everyone from President Teddy Roosevelt down to even Helen Keller provided the pseudo-scientific basis for gassing the mentally and physically disabled. Hitler just saw the things we did and and took them to their logical ends.

But as the series goes on, you get horrified not so much by what we did but by what we didn't do. We didn't pay attention to the few reporters and newsreels, like the March of Time, that revealed quite early what Hitler was doing to the Jews, despite his denials. We didn't increase the number of Jewish refugees we took in. All the countries could have done more in this regard but even those European countries that did take in refugees were eventually overrun by the Third Reich. Jews who came here didn't have to worry about that. But widespread antisemitism, especially in the U.S. bureaucracy, along with public indifference to what was happening to other people so far from our shores let the Nazis get their hands on enough Jews that they killed 6 million of them, which was 2/3s of the number of Jews who lived in occupied Europe at that time. 1.5 million of those killed were children.

When we think of sins, we tend to think of sins of commission, what people do: murder, steal, lie, commit adultery, and actively harm others. But the Bible also reminds us that there are sins of omission, of not doing good when you can and should. I've mentioned social experiments where an actor falls and lies motionless on a busy city sidewalk and most people do nothing. They don't stop to see if he or she is all right. They don't even call 911. They just keep walking. Jesus knew of that phenomenon when he told his parable of the Good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite who pass by the man beaten and left for dead don't actively make his plight worse. Their sin is not doing what they can to help him, whereas the hero of the story does. And in the parable in today's gospel, the rich man is not punished for being rich but for ignoring poor, hungry, sick Lazarus who is lying at the man's gate. He could have helped but he didn't. His most grievous sin is not doing something bad; it's not doing anything.

Jesus also points to the importance of such sins in Matthew 25, where the Son of Man passes sentence on those on his left, saying, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a foreigner and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me...I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.” (Matthew 25:42-43, 45) In this parable of the last judgment, Jesus doesn't mention any sins of commission, just sins of omission. The uncaring are condemned.

As awful as the effects of abuse are on children, studies have found that neglect is even worse. And it makes sense. To suffer neglect is to be left with the conclusion that you don't matter enough to merit any attention, not even negative attention. Under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the 170,000 children in Romania's overcrowded orphanages were fed, diapered and bathed on a set schedule but received no affection because the overworked staff had no time. Many children died from “failure to thrive” while those who survived were left with severe psychological damage, resulting in problems such as poor impulse control, poor intellectual functioning, poor emotional regulation, and pathological behaviors like tics and self-punishment. Being loved is not a luxury but a deep human need. Withhold it and the spirit starves.

Of course, the withholding of what the body needs, like food, can also harm and kill. The Romans used starvation to defeat and destroy Carthage in 146 BC. It was a factor in the Irish Famine of the 1800s and the Armenian Genocide during the first World War. Hitler starved 4.2 million Russians to death during World War 2, perhaps inspired by his sometime ally Josef Stalin who used mass starvation to subjugate the Ukraine in 1933. Today this ancient tactic is a war crime. But as with all crime, laws don't make it cease to exist. It is being used today in Yemen and, once more, in Ukraine.

Willful neglect of others is a sin. When giving Israel their land, God says “there should not be any poor among you....” (Deuteronomy 15:4) But God knows humans all too well so he goes on to say, “If a fellow Israelite from one of your villages in the land the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive to his impoverished condition. Instead, you must be sure to open your hand to him and generously lend him whatever he needs.” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8) In other words, God is saying our reaction to another's need cannot be inaction. We must help.

One big problem is a misunderstanding of why some of us are blessed with more than others are. Some think it is simply a reward for hard work or being virtuous, though only 35% of the super rich come from poor or even middle class families and therefore can be considered self-made. Over 60% of the super rich inherited wealth. And, let's face it, no one works harder than the poor to survive, though few make it out of poverty. Nor are the numbers of the rich overly endowed with saints.

As Christians, we know that everything we have, including our talents, our intelligence and other advantages, come from God. And they can, and one day will, all go away. We are stewards of what we are and have. And God wants us to use what we have to help those who lack what we have. If we are well off, God has been generous to us and expects us to pass it on, being generous to others, as Paul says in today's epistle. (v.17)

We know that kids tend to imitate their parents. Paul said, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” (Ephesians 5:1) Jesus gave this as the reason we are to obey his hardest commandment. “But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:44-45) We are to love even those who don't love us because God does the same.

And today's psalm tells us some specific ways we can be like our heavenly Father.

God “gives justice to those who are oppressed.” The Hebrew word for “oppressed” can also mean the “wronged or extorted.” So, as his children, we are to also bring justice to those who suffer injustice and are exploited and oppressed.

God also gives “food to those who hunger.” The only miracle Jesus performed that is recorded in all 4 gospels is the feeding of the 5000. And while we may not have his gift for stretching food that far, as God's children, we can feed those in our community by, say, skipping the chips and soda and buying some extra food to give to the local food pantry.

“The Lord sets the captives free.” This isn't calling for holy jailbreaks but we should certainly support efforts to clear the unjustly convicted. And we should give those who have paid their debt to society a fair chance at a new life. Often a person who is incarcerated, even if later found not guilty, will have lost their job, their home, and their reputation. They may have to start over from nothing. There are programs and ministries that help former inmates transition but there are very few here in the Keys.

“The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.” We can do this spiritually by studying God's Word and helping others understand his love and grace. And we can do this physically thanks to advances in medicine. For one thing, you can donate your corneas, so when you die, they can enable someone else to see. And by donating your liver, kidneys, heart and other organs after your death, you can, in a sort of imitation of Jesus, give new life to others.

“The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.” This may mean those bowed under crushing burdens. It could be the same people as in Psalm 145:14, where it says, “The Lord upholds all who fall down and lifts up all who are bowed down.” It may also be referring to those mentioned in Psalm 113:7, where we read, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.” When you are down, for whatever reason, the Lord will lift you up. And as his children we should do this for others.

“The Lord loves the righteous.” That means those who are in the right relationship with God, forgiven and trusting, but also, as we said a few weeks ago, those who are just in their dealings with other people. And so we get some examples of those who typically need help and are victims of injustice because they have little or no power in society.

“The Lord cares for the stranger.” This word really means “alien” or “foreigner.” God has a special concern for those not born in the land who later came here. He reminds the Israelites that they were once foreigners living in Egypt and therefore must love the foreigner as they do themselves and treat him fairly, like a citizen. (Leviticus 19:34)

“The Lord sustains the orphan and widow.” Women without husbands and children without fathers were especially vulnerable in the ancient world. And sadly, it's still true. Women experience poverty at higher rates than men, with 10 million women living below 50% of the federal poverty line. And 36% of all poor people in the US are children. We have the highest poverty rate for children among all wealthy democracies. This doesn't make God happy. It shouldn't be something we tolerate either.

Finally, we are told that God “frustrates the way of the wicked.” The Hebrew literally says “He turns the way of the guilty upside down.” Guilty of what? Guilty of causing or perpetuating the injustices just mentioned. And by turning their ways upside down, it means God reverses those injustices. And as his loving children, we should too.

God's ways seem upside down to humans. We think we can actually own things, whereas they are really on loan from God. We think we can do what we want with what we have, whereas God gave them to us to share with others. We think we are righteous if we don't do harm to others, whereas God wants us to get involved and not stand by and let injustices happen. He wants us to help, to actively show his love to others.

In the book of Esther, a young Jewish woman finds herself the new wife of the Persian king. Her cousin Mordecai uncovers a plot to kill all the Jews. He tells Esther in order that she might get the king to stop it. But, she says, to go into the king's presence without permission means death. Mordecai counters with the fact that to stay silent means death for others. So Esther fasts and asks her cousin to get their fellow Jews to fast as well. She says, “I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16) She takes the risk of doing the right thing and tells the king and her people are saved.

Jesus did the right thing to save us but he did perish. God raised him, though, and if we put our trust in him, he will raise us also. With that assurance let us deny ourselves all rights to ownership as the world understands it. Let us instead be stewards of God's gifts and use not just our money but our time and our talents to serve God by serving others, especially those who are suffering. As the recipients of God's grace and love, ignoring those in hunger, in pain, in prison or in some other need is not an option. As beneficiaries of his self-sacrifice, we cannot refuse to make sacrifices to help those who haven't the luxury of giving up what little they have.

Most of us do have the luxury of doing nothing when evil is happening to others. And as we've seen, God considers that evil as well. God has seen the world he created and which he pronounced good go bad. War, oppression, slavery, poverty and other evils have been normal features throughout our history, experienced by the majority of human beings who have ever lived. That's still true today.

God has not been silent. God has not been inactive. Through his word, through his prophets, and especially through Jesus, his Word made flesh, he has denounced evil and displayed his justice and love. He stood up to evil at great cost to himself.

And Jesus has passed on his mission to us, his followers, called to be children of God and imitators of Christ. Jesus started his ministry by reading a passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) And to us he says, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37) 

Funny You Should Say That

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

There are a lot of things in the Bible that people don't know are there. And I don't mean Bible codes or secret knowledge that is intended only for the elite and initiates. God wants his message spread and understood, and he isn't as picky about the forms he uses as we think. So a lot of people don't realize the Bible contains many different literary forms. It's not all preaching, theology, history, and prophesy. There are proverbs, riddles, letters, love poems, hymns, and humor. That last category will surprise most people. Part of the reason they don't know this is that we read the Bible in translation and those translations are usually very reverent in how they express things.

But in the original languages, the Bible is full of wordplay. You really see this in the names. Isaac's name means “he laughs.” It's a callback to when God tells Abraham that his aged wife will give birth to a son and Sarah, eavesdropping, laughs at the idea. There is even a little comedy here in that God calls her out on this but she denies laughing. (Genesis 18:10-15) And since Isaac means “he laughs” and not “she laughs,” maybe this is Abraham and Sarah admitting God had the last laugh in this matter and joining him.

Some of the stories are humorous as well. If I were to make a movie of the story of Jacob, I would make it a comedy. He is basically a conman who tricks his brother out of his birthright and blessing and then has to flee his brother's murderous mood. He encounters Laban, who turns out to be a bigger conman. Jacob falls for one of Laban's daughters, but is given the other in a classic bait-and-switch scheme. He ends up with 4 wives due to an arms race of each sister trying to gain his affection by pumping out babies. At one point whom Jacob sleeps with one night is decided by which wife gives which a vegetable for dinner. Then there is a battle of wits with Laban over Jacob getting paid fairly, with each man trying to out-trick the other. Finally, when Jacob returns home to reconcile with his brother, he is told that his brother is coming out to greet him—with 400 men! Jacob has a very bad night trying to figure out how to save his family from being wiped out by his brother...who turns out to have gotten past their old rivalry and welcomes him. The conman is fooled, but the comedy has its happy ending.

The humor in the gospels is more often found in the bizarre mental pictures Jesus creates, as Elton Trueblood points out in his book The Humor of Christ. We are so used to hearing Jesus' words that we forget that he came up with some truly funny images, like people walking around with 2x4s in their eyes trying to help out those with splinters in theirs. (Matthew 7:3-4) Or the purity-obsessed Pharisees, picking gnats out of their cups before drinking, but then swallowing camels. (Matthew 23:24)

Jesus used sarcasm, too. When warned that Herod wanted to kill him, Jesus said, “Go and tell that fox, 'Look, I am expelling demons and finishing up healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will complete my work. But I simply must journey on today, tomorrow and the next day for it would be impossible for a prophet to meet his death outside Jerusalem.'” (Luke 13:32-33) In other words, tell that genius that if he wants to kill me, he has to wait till the proper time and place. It simply wouldn't do to martyr a prophet of God anywhere but in the city of God. Burn!

Which brings me to my apparently unique interpretation of the truly bizarre parable Jesus tells in today's gospel. A rich man tells his manager he wants to look at the books because he's heard the man is cheating him. The dishonest manager decides to pull one last scam and, in cahoots with his master's debtors, reduces what they owe, so they will help him out when he is fired. So far the story makes sense. But then Jesus says, “And the master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly...” Seriously? You might chuckle appreciatively at some clever con pulled on someone else but not if you were the one losing money to some crooked employee of yours!

Then Jesus says, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Jesus is praising this generation? The same generation he called “evil and adulterous?” (Matthew 12:39) The generation he called “faithless and perverse?” (Luke 9:14) The generation by which Jesus would “suffer many things and be rejected?” (Luke 17:25) Jesus is praising them? Really?

And Jesus gives the moral to this parable thus: “And I tell you make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” So...Bernie Madoff and Jeffrey Epstein and several other crooked businessmen are destined for heaven rather than where you would think they belong?

Then Jesus does a 180 and says, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in much; and whoever is dishonest in very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” Now this sounds more like Jesus. But how could he say the things that went before?

I am apparently alone in saying this but I think the only logical answer is that Jesus was being sarcastic at the end of the parable. And to see why, let's look at the context.

This is part of a long passage of Jesus' teaching. It starts in the previous chapter when the Pharisees and teachers of the law are muttering about Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them. Jesus responds with a series of parables. First he compares the joy of a shepherd finding a lost sheep and a woman finding a lost coin with the joy in heaven over the repentance and return of one lost sinner. Then Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. In that story, the father throws a party to welcome back the son who wasted what his father gave him but who came to his senses and humbly returned home. But the other son, the good one who stayed and obeyed his father, is angry at this. If the father is our loving and forgiving heavenly Father and the younger son is the sinner who repents, who does the angry older brother represent? The righteous religious leaders.

But are they as righteous as they think they are? In Matthew 23, Jesus gives a long excoriating denunciation of the Pharisees who oppose him. He accuses them of making it hard for other people to enter the kingdom of God, while enjoying the best things in life for themselves. He calls them hypocrites whose converts are twice as fit for hell as they are. Their priorities are askew, focusing on the little stuff but neglecting what's important like justice, mercy and faithfulness. They are supposed to be the custodians of the law but they are terrible at it.

So who does the dishonest manager in today's parable represent? The Pharisees and teachers of the law, who have let themselves be corrupted. The Essenes called the Pharisees “those who seek the smooth,” that is, those who take the easy way. In Mark chapter 7, Jesus gives us an example. He reprimands the religious leaders for using tricks to let a rich person get out of supporting his aged parents by designating his wealth as a future contribution to them, God's representatives. (Mark 7:9-13) That's just like the dishonest manager in the parable, who reduces what people legitimately owe his master. The religious leaders were letting people who can benefit them get out of doing things that God commands. Jesus says that sinners who repent will be welcomed into heaven. Do his opponents really think that those who are unrepentant will be welcomed into heaven by their co-conspirators?

Jesus is sarcastically telling this parable with an ending and a moral that shows just how distorted his critics' values are. If it sounds wrong, it's because it is! And the targets of Jesus' sarcasm know this is directed at them. I really wish those who decided on what goes into the lectionary just let this passage go on for 2 more verses. Because immediately after this it says, “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were ridiculing him. And he said to them, 'You are the ones justifying themselves in the eyes of men. But God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is utterly detestable in God's sight.'” (Luke 16:14-15) That's the whole point of the parable.

When someone hacked the adultery-arranging website Ashley Madison and revealed thousands of their clients' names, some social scientists decided to see if there was a connection between CEOs and CFOs cheating on their wives and their companies being fined for conducting shady business. And lo and behold! There was! If a guy can't be trusted in the bedroom, he can't be trusted in the boardroom either.

If you don't accept that Jesus is telling this parable sarcastically, then how do you reconcile it with all he says about integrity right after it? I have read commentators twist themselves into knots trying to make sense of this. But this is not the first time the Bible seems to immediately say the opposite of what it just said. In Proverbs it says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.” And the very next verse says, “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 26:4-5) These back to back verses seem to contradict each other, but with a little thought, the paradox makes sense. First, don't let yourself go down the rabbit hole that some fool is trying to lead you. The belief in a flat earth has increased because of all the conspiracy videos on You Tube. Some critics of the flat earth theory have tried to debunk it, got caught up in its bizarre logic and became flatearthers themselves. As Mark Twain said, “Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

On the other hand, as the second verse in Proverbs says, sometimes you can, if you keep your own feet planted firmly on the ground, show someone the logical contradictions in their own argument. In an interview with a very smart reporter for Time magazine, Richard Dawkins had to face the basic flaw in his position. He had to admit that atheism is a logically untenable position. You can't prove a negative. You can't prove there is no God; you don't have all the necessary data. You can only assert that you don't think there's enough evidence to convince you. Dawkins conceded that logically he can't be an atheist; he can only be an agnostic. He simply doesn't know whether there's a God.

In Jesus' satirical parable he is saying that real integrity is thorough-going and it is important to God. After all, faith is just another word for trust. And God expects his followers not only to trust him but to be trustworthy themselves, and not just in some things, but in all things. We've seen the fallout when Christians aren't trustworthy. People who have been abused by priests, pastors and elders, as well as those who have left cults, often lose their faith. This form of betrayal destroys not only their ability to trust other people but also their trust in God, whom we are supposed to be representing.

James says that those who teach the gospel will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1) While he is probably talking about being judged by God, it is also true of how we are judged by people. If what we say with our lips is contradicted by what we do with our lives, people will call us out. And rightly so. Not only does it affect our own integrity and faith, it affects that of others. It can get them to do things the Bible clearly forbids.

Jesus says, “Stumbling blocks are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble into sin. So watch yourselves. If your fellow believer sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.” (Luke 17:2-3) Paul says, “Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore such a person gently. But pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too.” (Galatians 6:1)

Jesus warns us specifically about trying to serve both God and money. And that has always been a big temptation. But what Jesus says about not serving two master applies to anything else we try to put on the same level as God. Eventually you have to choose one over the other. Singers have abandoned gospel music in order to become big mainstream pop stars. Politicians have abandoned Christian ethics to gain popularity with extremist groups and win elections. Pastors have abandoned preaching the gospel to gain a bigger following by focusing on hot button issues that are fringe at best or not even Christian. More and more people say they are Christians not because they put Jesus first but because they think Christianity supports some issue that actually matters more to them. When confronted with what Jesus actually said on a matter, they will go through some amazing mental gymnastics so as not to give up their conflicting belief. And I think that's another reason why people miss the irony in this parable. They want to believe that you can somehow achieve salvation while using questionable practices to win friends and influence people and make money.

Honesty and conscientiousness and trustworthiness are not like a costume you put on when you are going to give a performance and then you can take off when you leave the stage. They must become part of you. We are in the process of becoming like Jesus and he didn't say things like “Your sins are forgiven...Just kidding!” Or “I'll unblind your other eye if you kick in some coins.” Or “Lord, let this cup pass or I am outahere!” No, he told the truth and did what he said he would. He healed all who came to him, even if it meant not having time to eat or rest. He did what God sent him to do even if it meant going to the cross. He didn't compromise on God's message. He didn't preach only what people wanted to hear and he wasn't willing to cash in to have a comfortable life or sell out to save his skin.

But Jesus wasn't dry and dull either. He used thought-provoking stories and sharp quips, uncomfortable questions and brutally frank statements, hilarious hyperbole and subversive humor to get his message across: that while people often love things like money more than other people and will use other people badly to get them, God loves people more than anything and he will use even satire and sarcasm to let them know.

Ultimately the gospel is a comedy in the classical sense. The hero wants something but runs into obstacles. So he tries something crazy. More problems arise and things look real bad for him. But in the end he triumphs. Good wins out over evil, things are restored to the way they should be and the hero marries his true love. In the same way, God wants a good world filled with loving people. When they choose not to love him back or love one another, he tries to get them back. Then he comes up with a crazy idea. He becomes one of them in order to teach and show them his love. Things go very badly for him but they can't keep him down...or dead. In the last book of the Bible we see that he triumphs, not merely putting the world to rights but recreating it as a paradise once more. And then comes the wedding supper of the Lamb, where Jesus, the bridegroom, marries his true love, the church. (Luke 5:34; Revelation 19:7) That's the happy ending to the love story between God and his people.

Of course, when you are in the middle of the story it may not look or feel like a comedy. It may seem to be veering into tragedy. But the story is not over. The last act has not played out. As the hero in the comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel says, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it's not yet the end.” So let's put our faith in God and our hope in Jesus. Because God will get the last laugh. And he wants us all to join in with him. 

The Heart of the Problem

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 51:1-10 and 1 Timothy 1:12-17.

In the internet comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the title character, an aspiring and not very successful supervillain, says, “The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.” And in that short statement we have a diagnosis of the world and a proposed solution. Unfortunately the solution is one people have been trying since the beginning of history: dictatorship. Give one human being absolute power and our problems are solved. And we've seen that solution fail time and again. And those who seek such power tend to have as their primary qualifications not wisdom or a sense of justice but strength and aggressiveness. History is littered with the results of the damage done by emperors, kings and conquerors.

But the diagnosis in Dr. Horrible's statement is rather vague. Yes, the world is a mess but why? In what way? Pinpoint the specific disease and its cause and you can start to look for a way to treat or even cure it. Which people have been trying to do for most of history as well. And various diagnoses and cures have been suggested and tried.

For many the problem is chaos and the solution is a strong highly organized country, with a strong leader and a strong military and strong laws and a strong enforcement of the laws. One problem is, as we've seen over and over, giving a person too much power tends to corrupt them. If you can do just about anything, what's to stop you? No one is completely immune to that temptation. Even the philosopher/emperor Marcus Aurelius, considered the last of the Five Good Emperors, was accused of putting friends and relatives into positions of power. And he is memorialized by a 130 foot marble column in Rome celebrating his wars against the barbarians. It depicts the destruction of their villages, the killing of unarmed civilians and the cruel punishment of his enemies. His stoic philosophy did not make him any less susceptible to committing atrocities. He was succeeded by his son, the dictatorial Commodus, whose reign marks the end of the Pax Romana or era of Roman Peace.

But another problem with that solution is the lack of content of those laws. If the main idea is simply that the laws must be strong and zealously enforced, then the Nazis or North Korea would qualify as a viable solution to chaos. But if they are not just laws and if the enforcement is harsh, that's not so much an improvement over chaos as it is the opposite extreme. The trains may run on time but you might notice your fellow passengers are gradually disappearing into concentration camps or mental asylums or prisons or killing fields. I'm not sure suffering and death at the hands of a police state is better than suffering and death at the hands of random marauders.

But even if the laws are just and their enforcement done with understanding and mercy, that will not magically eliminate crime and violence. Those problems come from people.

The sociological diagnosis is that poverty is the root cause of all the world's problems. And I don't wish to minimize poverty's real and terrible effect on people and their physical and mental health. A lot of problems would be solved if we made sure everyone had enough to eat and a place to live and the necessary healthcare to live a full and healthy life. There's a reason you don't see unrest or riots in the suburbs or in wealthy gated communities. The majority of people in those places are happy with the status quo. You don't usually see a lot of crime there. Well, not violent crime. Well, not outside homes where it can be seen. They are not immune from domestic violence or neglect. And those people are more likely to be the victims of pyramid schemes or other forms of financial fraud than the poor are, for obvious reasons. Not being poor does not bestow moral superiority, though people often think it does. It just means that problems don't come from folks just trying to survive. The problems such people cause are different.

Some see the root of our problems as ignorance. Education is the answer. But again while education is definitely a good thing and preferable to ignorance, it is not a panacea. Mere knowledge does not make people better. There have been a number of serial killers who were medical doctors. The Unabomber had a PhD in mathematics. The BTK killer had degrees in electronics and in Administration of Justice. Being smarter doesn't necessarily make you good; it just makes you more clever at doing bad things.

Some, however, think the real knowledge that people need is esoteric. The Gnostics, the Theosophists and plenty of conspiracy theorists on You Tube have lured people in with the idea that learning the truth about the the hidden and mystical laws governing the universe will somehow save them. So do cults, giving people the feeling that they know the real score and are therefore part of the elite, as opposed to the ignorant people, some of whom, they feel, are perversely and willfully ignorant of the truth.

Which leads us to the thing that conspiracy theories and cults and everyday bigotry have in common: the idea that what's wrong with the world is “those people.” Each group fills in the definition of “those people” with some other group they didn't like in the first place: the Jews, the Catholic church, Muslims, religious people in general, atheists, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, corporations, the rich, the poor, this race or country or that.

The problem with all these diagnoses and solutions, even the ones that have some truth to them, is that they leave out one key factor: our own moral failures. All humans are incapable of doing the right thing all the time and in every area of of their life. This problem is not confined to “those people”; it's in all of us. Good laws and the elimination of poverty and good education can help. But ask yourself this: what stands in the way of those good things being more widespread? Why do some laws favor certain people and groups over others? Why do some neighborhoods have better schools and resources? Why have even middle class wages, adjusted for inflation, stayed basically stagnant since the 1970s? The answer is greed and shortsightedness based in selfishness. These are moral problems. We know how to fix these things. We don't want to.

As our psalm and epistle this week show, the beginning of the solution is recognizing your own moral failures. Psalm 51 is traditionally attributed to David when his adultery with Bathsheba was exposed by the prophet Nathan. But let's not forget his engineering of the perfect crime: having her husband Uriah sent to the front in a war and then having the other troops withdraw so he is killed. (2 Samuel 11) Even David, a man after God's heart (Acts 13:22), could not resist abusing his power. But when it comes out, rather than pass the buck and blame others, he admits his sin and the evil he has done. He acknowledges that his impulse to do what he wants, regardless of the consequences, goes all the way back to his start in life. He asks God not just to forgive his sins but to cleanse him through and through. He pleads, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Jesus diagnosed what is wrong with the world. He said, “For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” (Mark 7:21-22) The heart was considered the seat of the mind and will and emotions. The heart of the world's problems is the human heart. The world is a mess because our hearts are. What they pump out into the world is not healthy.

Medically if you are in heart failure, you are beyond cutting out salt and junk food and exercising more. You need a new heart. And you need faith in your cardiac surgeon who is going to cut you open and cut out the heart you were born with and put in the new heart which will restore you to life. And, by the way, for you to receive that new heart someone has to die.

In a spiritual sense David realizes that what's wrong with him is his heart. He knows this is fundamentally a moral and spiritual problem. He needs to change internally and he needs to do so in a deep and profound way. And he knows he can't do it by himself. He needs God to come in and fix him by giving a new heart and a new spirit.

In our epistle Paul admits something similar to his young colleague Timothy. He says, “...I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.” Before he was converted, Paul, then called Saul, was a zealous persecutor of the first Christians, trying to wipe out this heresy by wiping out “those people” who spread their belief in Jesus. As he admits to King Agrippa in the book of Acts, “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison and I cast my vote against them when they were sentenced to death.” (Acts 26:9-10) So this future hero of the faith was responsible for the death of Christians!

But then the risen Jesus appeared to him while he was on the way to arrest more of them in Damascus. Saul is left physically blinded, and later healed through the prayer of a believer, while Jesus healed him of his spiritual blindness. As Paul later puts it, “...the grace of our Lord overflowed for me in 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.” Paul calls himself that because, when he was attacking those who were part of the body of Christ on earth, he was in essence attacking Jesus. After all, Jesus did say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4) What we do to others we do to Jesus. (Matthew 25:40)

And this is why sin is at the heart of the problems the people of the world have. God created everyone in his image. He created us to love him and to love one another. Because God is love. God is the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And so we, his creatures made in his image, are to be united in love. The night before he went to the cross Jesus prayed for the church, “that they may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us...” (John 17:21) But when we harm and deceive and rob and neglect one another, we break the unity God intended for his creation. Jesus continues his thought about Christians being part of the oneness found in the Triune God “...so that the world will believe that you sent me.” Jesus prays that the world will see in his followers, the body of Christ, the unity it lacks and so desperately needs.

And it must break Jesus' heart that the world doesn't consistently see the unity and love of God in us. He said the world would know we are his disciples by our love for one another. (John 13:35) When the world doesn't see it, it's because we have put something other than Jesus, the God who is Love Incarnate, at the heart of our faith. We put various details of theology or ritual or unbiblical qualifications for belonging at the center of our faith. A person once told me that my denomination having a headquarters was bad! I told them that my salvation did not rely on that or anything other than Jesus: who he is, what he has done for me and is doing in me, and my response to him. And, thank God, that person, a Christian from another denomination, recognized that as true.

What we need is Jesus. Because, like David, we all need a change of heart. And only Jesus can do that. Only he can give us his Spirit, as he promised. (John 14:16-17) As Paul says, “...God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:5) Or as Jesus put it, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) Again Paul tells the church at Ephesus that he prays “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:17) Jesus changes our hearts by entering into them.

But he will not force his way in. That's the way of the world: “I know what's you should do and I'm going to force you to comply.” Instead Jesus says, “I am standing at the door and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter and dine with him and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20) It's up to us to open our hearts to Jesus and invite him into our lives.

But he will not be content to sit in the corner and just watch us as we go about business as usual. If we invite him in, we can expect him to make changes. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace.” Of course he is; he's going to live there and rule as King.

Dr. Horrible was right in that the world is a mess but wrong in that he or any mere human being should rule it. That arrogance is why the world is broken, shattered by our competing desires to be in control of everything, when we can't even control ourselves. The only one fit to rule us is both fully man and fully God, Jesus Christ. He knows what it is like to be one of us but he also knows what we can become.

And he will not reign from some distant capital but somewhere much closer: the heart. Jesus said, “The kingdom is within you.” (Luke 17:21) The kingdom of God exists wherever people have surrendered their lives to Jesus and let him rule their hearts. The seat of their minds and wills and emotions become his throne. The body of the Christian becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19) We become his ambassadors. (2 Corinthians 5:20) And we spread the kingdom not by forcing others, nor by shunning sinners and the lost as “those people,” because all of us were “those people,” the ones responsible for making the world the mess it is. Instead, we spread the kingdom of God by sharing the the royal proclamation, the good news of Jesus, wherever we go, so like seed it scatters far and wide and takes root in the hearts of those who hear it. (Luke 8:11, 15)

We also need to show the love for one another that Jesus said would be the mark of his followers. But as it says in 1 John, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:18) So let us also make good laws and educate people and see to it that those who are not as fortunate as we are have their needs met. Because giving good laws, teaching, feeding and healing people were all things Jesus did and things he told us to do.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it as the world does.” (John 14:27) And the Greek word for peace comes from a root word meaning “to join together into a whole.” The peace Jesus gives is wholeness. The opposite of a world that is broken is one that is whole. And the world can only become whole when we all love one another as Jesus loves us. Real love is wanting the best for the beloved and then acting in order to achieve that. It requires patience and forgiveness and self-sacrifice but when everyone is working together for what is best for every person, not just themselves or a few, the world will know peace. And all will be one in Christ, the Prince of Peace. 

On Purpose

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139: 1-5, 12-17, Philemon 1-21, and Luke 14:25-33.

Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov hated the Frankenstein trope: the creature that turns on and destroys its creator. He really didn't like it in stories about artificially intelligent robots. Because, he said, we would program the robots not to do such things. His ideas eventually became codified in the 1940s as “Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics.” The first is that a robot may not injure a human being, nor through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. The second law is that a robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except when those orders would conflict with the first law. So you can't order a robot to harm someone. And the third law was that a robot must protect its existence, except when doing so would conflict with the first or second laws. This last one exists because an artificially intelligent robot would be expensive to replace. All in all, it is a pretty neat moral code—for robots. And unlike human laws, these couldn't be violated because they were part of the robot's basic programming. There would be a limit on their free will. (The word “robot,” by the way, comes from the Czech word for “forced labor” which comes from the Slavic root word for “slave.”)

Asimov's laws would not work for humans, because they essentially force the person to obey the orders given by another human being. Dictatorships would love that. But not free societies. So while the Uniform Code of Military Justice says it is a duty for a member of the military to obey “the lawful orders of his/her superior,” that implies there are also unlawful orders. And, indeed, a soldier can refuse to carry out orders to, say, murder civilians, or willfully cause great suffering or serious bodily injury to a prisoner or war, or conduct medical experiments on them. This is to prevent atrocities such as those committed by the Nazis or the Soviet Union or or by Americans at My Lai or those which are being perpetrated in certain countries today. Even police officers have some discretion as to whether to arrest someone or not depending on the seriousness of the crime. That's why sometimes you get a warning.

Unlike preprogrammed robots we have free will. God did not engrave the laws he wants us to obey in our brains. He tells us what they are and we are free to obey them or not...and to suffer the consequences. When it comes to human laws, sometimes the consequences are natural, such as when you don't obey laws intended to protect you. If you don't wear seat belts, the consequences could be injury or even death. Sometimes the consequences are not natural but legal, such as being arrested for speeding. Even so, such an law is based on protecting both you and others. Speeding can also result in injury or death. Admittedly some consequences are arbitrary, like the exact amounts of the different fines for speeding. This is not to say it's unfair, just that there is no deeply rooted reason why the fine should be, say, $286 as opposed to $285 or $287.

While people often think God's laws are like legal ones, and the consequences arbitrary, most are actually akin to natural laws. They are built into the universe he created and are similar to the ones that govern our physical health. By now we all know that if you want to be healthy, you should cut out smoking, drinking alcohol, abusing drugs and overeating. If you don't, you may not suffer serious injury or death immediately but the consequences will add up over time. But if you stop soon enough, your body should recover.

For instance, when you quit smoking your heart rate and blood pressure begin to drop after 20 minutes. After 12 hours, your body cleanses itself of the excess carbon monoxide. After just 1 day, your risk of heart attack starts to go down. After 2 days, the nerve damage that dulls your sense of taste and smell begins to heal. After a month, lung function improves. After a year, the risk of heart disease is cut in half. After 5 years, the risk of stroke from blood clots decreases. After 10 years, the risk of lung cancer is cut in half and the risks of developing mouth, throat and pancreatic cancer go down significantly. After 20 years, your risk of death from these things is the same as someone who never smoked.

When you quit drinking, the first 72 hours can be the worst in terms of withdrawal. But after a week, your sleep should start improving. After 2 weeks, if your liver has become fatty but is not too damaged, it will start recovering. In addition, you start losing the weight alcohol packs on. After 3 to 4 weeks, your blood pressure should start lowering. After 3 months you should have more energy and feel healthier. After a year, you are almost back to normal. And of course, not drinking dramatically reduces your chances of accidental death from falls, burns, drownings, and traffic accidents. It also reduces your risk of dying by either homicide or suicide. And because alcohol dulls your immune system and your body's ability to repair itself, quitting means you'll get sick less often.

My point is that while the consequences of ignoring or following the rules of good health are not always immediate, they are real. And the rules of spiritual health work much the same way. Changing your behavior will change your life.

In today's passage from Jeremiah the prophet is instructed to go to the house of a potter and learn a lesson. The potter is working with clay and you would think that he could make it into anything he pleased. But in fact he has trouble making it into the vessel he had intended and so he reworks it into another. God turns this into a parable. Israel is compared to the clay. But just as the potter could not make what he initially wanted to out of the clay, God cannot always make his people into what he wishes. Unlike clay, we have free will. The nation God is trying to shape can do “evil in my sight, not listening to my voice....” And the consequences? “...then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.” It works the other way too. If a nation “turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.”

Some people are bothered by the idea that God changes his mind. But you will notice he doesn't change it about his goals and purposes. He wants people to be good, to love him and to love their neighbors as themselves, to practice justice and mercy. That never changes. But, depending on whether we are working with him or against him, God does change how he will achieve that. If we persist in doing evil, he will let us suffer the consequences. But if we change our minds and turn from evil to him, he will change his mind about letting us suffer the full consequences, or as our passage reads, the disaster.

Because God will not suspend the laws of the physical universe if what the person has done is already well underway. A bullet fired at someone in a flash of anger will not mysteriously change its trajectory. Money stolen and spent will not magically reappear when the thief repents. An abusive word hurled at a child will not be suddenly unheard when the parent sobers up. But if we truly change our ways, the healing will begin. Our past need not determine our future. If we change our response to God, he will change his response to us.

But some wonder that if God is in control, if he will accomplish his purposes no matter what we do, do we really have the power to do anything for ourselves? I think the problem is we overstate the amount of control, not that God has, but that he chooses to exercise. God can do anything. But when he created us and gave us the freedom to choose, he limited what he would do, the way a parent does when she lets her child learn how to feed himself. Were she to jump in and spoonfeed him forever, the kid would not learn how to scoop up things with a spoon and not drop them or how to stab them with a fork and get them into his mouth. Every parent knows the hardest thing to do is, after learning to take total responsibility for a helpless baby, to then gradually relinquish your control and let your child learn how to do things for themselves. So while nothing can limit God, he can and does limit himself in order to let us grow and learn.

But doesn't the fact that he knows the future, as it implies in our Psalm, mean it is fixed and cannot be changed? It might if God existed in time, like us. But God dwells in eternity. (Isaiah 57:15) He is outside the flow of time the way a videographer in a helicopter is outside a marathon run. He can visit and revisit any segment of a marathon. He can hover over one part and know what is going on without changing it. Now let's say he sees a water main has busted and is flooding the road the marathon was supposed to take. He can use a megaphone to warn the people to turn at a different street and detour around it. It is then up to each person in the marathon whether to change course or not. Those who listen and follow his directions will be able to get to the finish line by a different route. Those who don't will face the consequences. The man in the helicopter can see ahead but that does not determine who will listen to him and who will plunge ahead into the flood of troubles.

Or have you ever seen a chess grandmaster play a large number of players lined up at their own chessboards. He goes from board to board, assessing the situation and making his next move. No matter what move his challengers come up with, he has a counter-move. They have the freedom to play however they want but he will win every match.

Proverbs says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will prevail.” (Proverbs 19:21) God's purpose is to re-create the earth and transform its people into new creations in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17) That will not change. And he will accomplish his purpose in the end, but we can choose to be a part of it or not. If we choose him, we are told “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

We see this at work in today's epistle. Paul had a problem. Onesimus, a slave of a church leader named Philemon, had run away and apparently stolen some money too. Onesimus encounters Paul and becomes a Christian. He helps Paul in his ministry. But unlike the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 23:15-16), Roman law required that any runaway slave must be returned. And his master can punish him by branding him on the face or he can even have him executed—by crucifixion! What is Paul to do?

He writes this letter and sends it along with Onesimus. We have 88% of the letter in our lectionary reading today. It is short but powerful. He begins by thanking God for what Philemon and his house-church have done for the faith and for him, Paul. Then he mentions Onesimus and how Paul sees him as his spiritual child. He says Onesimus is now Philemon's brother in Christ. He asks Philemon to treat the slave as he would Paul. Paul says he will repay Philemon for anything he is owed, and then mentions that Philemon owes Paul his life. Without asking him in so many words, Paul is obviously saying he wants Philemon to free Onesimus and send him back to Paul to serve in his ministry. And Philemon must have done it because why else would he have let this letter be copied and sent to all the churches? And we do have evidence of an Onesimus who was consecrated bishop of Ephesus, where Paul once stayed for 2 years. If it is the same person, then God took a runaway slave and not only saved him from execution but raised him to be a bishop, showing how in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

Of course, that doesn't mean everything will look great from a human perspective. Onesimus, according to Ignatius of Antioch, was martyred in 95 AD, 40 years after being made bishop. But as Jesus says in today's gospel, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Just as a soldier upon taking his oath is essentially signing over his life to his country, we as Christians are giving our lives to Jesus, who first gave his life for us. And because he doesn't want any half-hearted followers, Jesus says “count the cost.” While he doesn't want us to literally hate our “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters” because that would go against the second greatest commandment, he knows that it will look that way to others. And indeed the second century Roman historian Tacitus called Christians “haters of humanity” (Tacitus, Annals 15:44) because they worshiped Jesus and not the Roman gods, supposedly provoking their displeasure on the empire and endangering the welfare of their fellow man. Even the religious leaders of his own people saw Jesus' claim to be the son of God and to forgive sins as blasphemous (John 10:36; Matthew 9:2-3) and they would expel anyone who followed him. (John 9:22) To non-Christians choosing to follow Jesus seemed like a slap in the face to those who didn't, especially loved ones. But Jesus said we have to make the choice, despite the consequences.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Jesus has a mission for us and that means, like a soldier, we must be willing to give up everything for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. (Mark 8:35) He knows that's a lot to ask which is why he tells us to count the cost before committing.

Of course, at the present time, and where we live, we may not have to literally die for our faith. But there are other things which can impair our following Jesus wholeheartedly. We have accumulated a lot of possessions that make our lives easier and more comfortable. Would we be willing to give them up? Do we possess them or do they possess us? If aliens came to earth, they might think that we are slaves to the little devices we carry with us everywhere, looking at them in a trance-like state, listening to and believing everything they tell us and making our decisions accordingly. They set our values: wealth and power and entertainment and looking sexy and always being happy. Those priorities are not healthy. Small wonder that studies have found a link between overuse of social media and depression. Or that children have been driven to suicide not by physical bullying but cyberbullying. The idols of the past were often little statues of gods. Ours apparently are little screens. Could you give them up? I know I would have trouble doing so. And not just because I have several good Bible apps on them.

Which brings us back to the fact that God did not make us robots. He has given us his laws, to love him and to love other people as we love ourselves, but he did not program us to follow them involuntarily. We can choose to obey him or not. And, really, it only makes sense that we follow the instructions of the one who created us and knows what is best for us and loves us. But we don't always do what makes good sense for us, do we?

We can choose to do evil, to harm others or ourselves. Or we can choose to love God and love those he created in his image. Love is why God gave us free will. A robot can be programmed to simulate love but since it can't choose otherwise, it isn't really love. God chose to give us the freedom to choose to love. He took a big risk doing that. We could and often do choose not to. And he took the consequences of his decision, letting those who chose harm rather than love crucify him.

But he wasn't defeated. He rose again. He will not fail to achieve his purpose, to make the world a paradise again, populated by those who voluntarily choose to be citizens of the kingdom of the God who is love. Does that sound good to you? Then stop fighting him. Start trusting him. Disown all that holds you back, take up your cross and follow Jesus. Nobody's forcing you. It's your choice.