Out of Time

The Scriptures referred to are Exodus 16:2-15, Philippians 1:21-30, and Matthew 20:1-16. 

Everyone at work suspected something was going on. We all noticed how much time they were spending together. They always ate together. There wasn't a lot of public display of affection but some people said they saw them holding hands. So everyone was happy when she began to show off the ring he gave her. She confessed that she wasn't sure they were ready for the next step. They hadn't known each other long. And we understood. You don't jump into marriage. But there was another time factor at work. She was 89; he was 83. And most of us at the nursing home were more invested in this wedding than a royal one. Because it reminded us that it's never too late for love.

It's never too late for God, either. Because God is love, and, as Paul reminds us, love never gives up. (1 Corinthians 13:7) Too often it is not God who gives up on us but we ourselves. We see the gap between how we ought to be and how we are now and we get discouraged. It must have been like that for the 4000 men who labored on Henry Flagler's railroad extension to Key West. Originally hailed as “Flagler's Folly,” it must have seemed like an apt name to those working on it. They had to cover 128 miles. It called for the construction of 42 bridges, including a span of 7 miles between 2 islands. It was supposed to take 5 years; it took 7. During that time they endured heat, accidents, mosquitoes, disease, deaths and 5 hurricanes. Flagler was getting old and frail and might not see its completion. Halfway through there must have been doubts. Nothing like this had ever been attempted and its success was not assured. People must have wanted to give up. Had that sentiment prevailed, the majority of the Keys would be uninhabited and we would not be here.

We see a similar sentiment in Exodus 16. After the miracles of the Passover and the parting of the sea, the Israelites were free. They were no longer slaves. But they were also no longer living in the midst of the greatest civilization of their time. Instead they were wandering through a wilderness. Their gratitude evaporated in the desert. They were hungry and cranky. They complained to Moses that God was trying to kill them. They were about to give up. And then God provided them with meat and bread in the form of quails and manna. Their pessimism was upended by God's grace.

We cannot see the future but we like to think we can. Usually all we are doing is projecting current trends into the future. That can get us into trouble. The problems that the financial world had in 2008 came about in part because everyone thought housing prices would continue to rise, apparently forever, making housing loans an investment that would always yield bigger returns. That was unrealistic.

But it is just as naive to believe that bad times will never end and that everything will only continue to go downhill. All of our apocalyptic fiction and conspiracy theories assume that current problems will only get worse until they trigger the end of the world or the end of civilization or the end of humanity. And that's about as far as popular ideas of the apocalypse go. However, as Gabriel McKee of the website SF Gospel notes, the point of the book of Revelation isn't the destruction of the new Babylon but the creation of the new Jerusalem. Even as the old world system fails, it's never too late. God will bring forth a new world built on quite different values.

Some of those values are seen in the parable in today's gospel. A landowner goes to the marketplace to hire workers for his vineyard. He agrees to pay them the usual wage and sends them off to work. He returns to the marketplace every few hours to hire more workers. The final batch are hired when there's only one hour of daylight left. When it gets time to pay the workers, those hired last are paid first...and they get a full day's pay. Those hired first feel they will naturally get more. But no; for a full day's work, they get a full day's pay. They feel cheated—not because they didn't get what they deserved but because others got the same as they did. They are offended by their boss' generosity.

That's the main point of the parable. If God is unfair, it is only because he is generous. And when it comes to those who misbehave, it is not his modus operandi to strike down them the minute they disobey him but to give them a second chance. Or even a seventh or seventy-seventh chance. And some times that offends us. Why does he let bad guys live? Even though Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison, before that, he claimed to accept Jesus as his savior. Was he sincere? And if he was, are you angry that he wouldn't go to hell for his cruelty and murders? Or would you rejoice with the angels over a sinner redeemed? (Luke 15:10) Of course, we don't know if he was sincere or not or where he is now. And that's none of our business. Dahmer's ultimate fate is in God's hands. The point remains: it is never too late.

And that's true no matter who you are. N.T. Wright draws attention to what the last laborers hired say when the landowner asked why they were still hanging around the marketplace: “Because no one hired us.” Perhaps, says Wright, they were the kind of people others avoid hiring. Maybe they didn't look strong enough or reputable enough. But the landowner didn't care. God, too, is not fooled by appearances. He looks upon our hearts. (1 Samuel 16:7) He is not fooled by our personal history either. He knows that while the past can be the prologue to the present, it need not predetermine our future. People can be changed. In fact, that is what God's plan is all about. If his good creation could be changed by our evil, then it can be changed by his grace as well. Contrary to popular belief, the Bible is not basically the story of a war between good and evil but the story of how God seeks to redeem the creatures he loves.

One of the reasons it is never too late for God is that he dwells not in time but in eternity which is outside time. All times are the present to him. It's like we are marching in a parade but he is in a helicopter above it. We can only see where we are at the time, a bit of where we were and a little ways up ahead. But he can see the whole parade and any point in the parade route, both those which we have passed as well as those we are yet to come to. He can also see all the intersections along the parade route, all of those places which can become turning points. He can also see the hazards along the way, like, say, a giant sinkhole opening up ahead of us. And because he loves us, he warns us through his word. But most of us are marching to the same beat as everyone else. We follow the crowd. We don't want to be out of step with those around us. Only a few of us are willing to break away from everyone else and follow the path he has scouted out for us. Only a few care enough to warn others to change direction. Only a few are brave enough to rescue those who have fallen and are in danger of being trampled by the crowd.

Because God is separate from and outside his creation, that is, time, it is not even too late when the end of life is eminent. Paul was in prison when he wrote to the church at Philippi. It was quite possible that he would be executed. If his life was limited to time alone, he should have been sad or frightened or bitter. But he was joyful. Whether he lived or died was irrelevant. Either alternative was fine with him. “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” If he lived, he would continue to serve Jesus. If he died, he would be with Jesus. It reminds me of the attitude of John Adams, which we know from his passionate letters to his wife Abigail. His work to establish the United States kept him from his beloved wife for years at a time. Both of them knew that John's work was important. But one day it would be over and they would be reunited from then on.

Paul knew that as important as his work was, that of bringing the good news of Jesus to the world, the end of his labors would mean that he would go home to the Lord who loved him and died for him. Having met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, death no longer held any dread for Paul. And freed from the fear of the end of this life, he was able to live as few have.

In the film The Bucket List, 2 terminally ill patients resolve to do certain things before they die. The movie asks, in essence, “How would you change your life if you knew death was near?” But how would you live if death were a matter of indifference to you? Generally people either live in fear of death or pretend it won't touch them. But it is quite different when you look at death from a Christian perspective. You live gratefully and work hard at the tasks given you, knowing that when God says you've done enough, he will call you home to live with him. Death is, as Anne Lamott puts it, just a major change of address.

To return to our parade metaphor, when your part in the parade is done, you will leave it and be picked up by the helicopter. And you will finally see the whole parade, and you will see its route in its entirety and you will understand your place in it. Furthermore, you will see that there is more to the universe than just that parade. There is a wider realm which those on the street level cannot begin to imagine. Because you are outside the parade of time, you will have access to that greater realm. And you will be reunited with those rescued before you.

In the meantime, we are in the mass of people moving down the familiar path, a broad and easy road, without a clue of the sinkhole we are approaching. Do we dare break stride? Do we tell all within earshot that there is another way to go? Or do we move in lockstep, lemming-like, down the dusty road to destruction? Some of those around us are unsuspecting of the danger. Others see the precipice but have despaired of halting the mob. There is no other path, they say. We can only go forward. They are so grounded they never look up. Or they say there is no time. But we know both of those sayings are untrue. There is another way, though it is little known and little used. And paradoxically, while time is indeed limited, it is never too late to turn to God. Every moment can be momentous. Every second is a second chance. And at every turning point stands the gateway to eternity. 

Forgiving Nature

Again these sermons are older, previously unpublished ones. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer lectionary was replaced by the Revised Common Lectionary used in most churches in 2006 and so this sermon was originally preached on 9/11/05. But the gospel reading is the same as this week's: Matthew 18:21-35.

A woman comes in from her garden. She notices that the pie she left out to cool has a big ugly hole gouged out of it. There's a mess on the kitchen counter and a big gooey spoon in the sink. She immediately calls her son into the kitchen. “Didn't you promise not to eat any pie before dinner?” she demands. Her son hangs his head guiltily. “And didn't I promise to spank you if you did eat the pie?”

The boy looks up. “Well,” he says, “since I broke my promise, I don't mind if you break yours!”

David Steinberg, the rabbi turned comic, once said, “God is a comedian playing to a room afraid to laugh.” And it certainly seems ironic that on September 11 the gospel is all about forgiveness. But before we tackle the question of forgiving anybody for killing 3000 Americans and non-Americans, Muslims and non-Muslims, let us look at why anybody should forgive anyone for anything. Why shouldn't we just punish everybody who does wrong?

The Bible says people should not put anything before God. So anybody who has ever done that, like skipped church to go golfing or fishing or to Disneyworld or to sleep in, please leave the church. The Bible says not to commit adultery and Jesus said entertaining lustful thoughts about someone you're not married to is a form of adultery. So anybody who's ever cheated on their spouse, either physically or mentally, please leave the church. The Bible says not to steal. So anybody who's ever taken anything that wasn't theirs, whether supplies from work, or toys from a playmate, or food that wasn't yours from the fridge at work, please leave the church. The Bible says not to desire anything that belongs to someone else. So anyone who's ever wanted someone else's house or kitchen or car or boat or outfit or money or spouse, please leave the church. The Bible says not to lie. And since nobody has left the church yet, I think it's safe to say that we are all guilty of being untruthful. (Exodus 20:1-17; Leviticus 19:11; Matthew 5:27-28)

Obviously, then, having absolute sinlessness as a standard for accepting people into society or the church is impractical. In fact, being unforgiving is also a sin, as Jesus points out in today's parable. And when a movie wants to show you how bad a villain really is, it will include a scene in which he kills an underling for failing him. Sometimes you even fell sorry for the hired thug. You feel like saying, “Hey, he's just a guy with an I.Q. of about 50. And he was up against James Bond! Cut him some slack!” But for the master villain, it's all about keeping his other minions in line and loyal. Although I think it would hard for, say, Blofield to hire henchmen once word got out that any mistake could result in being fed to piranhas or suddenly being electrocuted in your nice leather chair.

It's obvious that we have to forgive little things. But sometimes people won't even do that. I've seen families split over the smallest thing—like a ring that one sister wanted to inherit but which another sister made off with. And so they never speak to one another for the rest of their lives. All those opportunities to share good times are lost, thrown away over a shiny piece of metal and minerals. I have a friend whose grandfather had a falling out with his siblings. As an adult, my friend started to research his genealogy and discovered all of these cousins that he never knew he had. Two of them worked for the same company as his wife! Because of his grandfather's unforgiving stance, my friend never knew what a large family he had. He never got to visit his cousins growing up, or attend their weddings, or spoil his nieces and nephews, or get to know some of his aunts and uncles because they died before he was even aware of their existence. Being unforgiving can also hurt those you love, even when they are not the ones you're mad at.

Ah, but doesn't being unforgiving hurt the person who hurt you? Sometimes but not always. I have another friend who hated her job. And then her boss fired her. It was a stupid move on his part because she was better at running his business than he was. Eventually she got a better job with better pay at a place where she's much more appreciated. But she still can't forgive her old boss. And you know how much he is suffering over her attitude towards him? Not a bit. But what he did is still bothering her. By not forgiving him, she is letting him spoil her present over something that is past.

At a clergy conference, Father Paul Edwards used this little cartoon priest he drew to illustrate points in his talks. In one, the priest asks someone, “Would you rather be right or be healed?” And the reply comes back, “I'd rather be right.” To which the priest says, “And how's that working for you?” A lot of people let past injustices continue to hurt and impede them when they ought to just forgive the sins and start healing.

Now my friend's boss did not ask for forgiveness. But if the person who hurt you does, Jesus says you must forgive him or her. In today's gospel, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother. Peter suggests 7 times. And he thinks he's being real generous. William Barclay explains that in those days many rabbis said you need only forgive a person 3 times. They based it on the passage in Amos suggesting that God would forgive certain nations for 3 offenses but not for the fourth. The rabbis took this as a general principle that men need not be more merciful than God. Peter doubled the 3 and added 1 for good measure. 7 was also considered the number of perfection. So that ought to be plenty.

But Jesus says, “Not seven times but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Some translate this “seventy times seven.” Either way that's a lot of forgiving. And if we are to be that forgiving, think of how much more forgiving God is. But the point is if you are keeping count, you really aren't forgiving anything, are you? “Sure, I'll forgive you...just as I have forgiven you all those other times!” That's not forgiving; that playing the martyr. And if you enjoy that role, then you also ought to thank the person who offended you for letting you stage your little drama.

We've all met people who love playing the martyr. They are never so happy as when they are letting out big sighs and acting put upon. Sometimes it becomes a competitive sport. C.S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, has a marvelous comic scene featuring a family of “martyrs.” One member of the family lets on that he really doesn't want to go on a proposed Sunday outing but, if everyone else really want to go, he will. So another family member says that if the first person really hates the outing, none of them will go. The first says, “No, no, I don't want to spoil your day. I'll go.” To which the other person says, “No, we won't make you go if you really don't want to.” Eventually they all go but nobody enjoys it. Sound familiar?

But what if the person isn't sincere in asking forgiveness? What if they are just pretending to be sorry to get back into your good graces? What if they routinely do this and then take advantage of you? Well, I don't see any place where Jesus says to act stupid. If a friend or relative is constantly borrowing money that he can't repay, and asks for forgiveness, then forgive him...and offer to help him find a financial planner. If they have a substance abuse problem, and ask for forgiveness, forgive them...and stage an intervention. If they are violent and ask for forgiveness, forgive them, but tell them they must get professional help. And remove yourself from the possibility of being a victim again. If they have to go to jail to get help, well, that's better than going to their execution for murder. Forgiveness doesn't mean enabling someone to keep sinning. Jesus told the woman taken in adultery, “I do not condemn you either. Go and from now on do not sin any more.” (John 8:11) Because harming a person either financially, psychologically, spiritually or physically is a sin. Letting a person do those things to someone else or to themselves endangers his or her soul as well as the wellbeing of both of you.

But what about the big things? What about murder? What about torture? What about rape? What does Jesus say about forgiveness in those instances? In today's gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a servant who owes his master an incredible debt. 10,000 talents would be the equivalent of many millions of dollars today. According to Barclay, it was more than 10 times the revenue of Judea at that time. How could a servant owe that much? I think Jesus made that debt ridiculously huge on purpose. He's saying there is no limit to God's forgiveness, so there shouldn't be any on ours.

I read of a woman who forgave the man who killed her daughter. Not at first, though. At first she wanted him to die. But eventually she realized that she had to forgive him, if for no other reason than to stop living in a hellish past and start living for her husband and other children. And for herself. Not letting go of what that man did was poisoning her life and making her bitter. If she didn't forgive him, she would be the killer's last victim. She chose to let her life to be about love and life again and not about hate and death. And she started to visit him in prison. She learned how totally screwed up his life had been. It didn't excuse what he'd done but it did explain how he got to where he was. She became the one person in his life who showed him mercy. He didn't deserve it. Which makes it grace.

Sure, there are people who deserve death. But do you want the job? You want to be the person who hunts down every member of Al Qaeda and kills them? Then you'd better kill all their families as well or they might become terrorists because of your actions. Violence begets violence. Remember Nietzsche's warning that he who slays monsters is in danger of becoming one himself. You certainly won't become a more godly person. Unless your definition of godliness is the same as that of terrorists, all wrath and vengeance. “But,” you object, “we only kill bad guys!” What do you think they feel they are doing? The men who took over the planes on 9/11 thought they were punishing evil.

We are all bad guys in the strictest sense. Some are worse than others but none of us is perfect. As we've seen, strict justice would have us all meeting in the parking lot rather than in the church. Strict justice would mean hell on earth for all us sinners and exile from heaven afterwards. Any of us would contaminate the peace of heaven with our selfishness, envy, anger and lack of humility. Thank God there is another option for us than facing absolute justice: forgiveness and mercy.

As Jesus said, only they who are without sin can justifiably cast stones at others. (John 8:7) We need not condone the wrongs people do but we must forgive. But that's a hard thing to tell those who've been wronged. How can you tell someone whose spouse died in the twin towers or whose son was tortured and beheaded by terrorists or who was molested as a child by someone she trusted to forgive that terrible thing? I couldn't. No one could. No one but Jesus.

Jesus was betrayed by a friend, abandoned by his followers, convicted in a corrupt court by his fellow countrymen, beaten and whipped bloody by the soldiers of an occupying order, and nailed naked to a tree outside the religious capitol of his people to die a slow and painful death. And from the cross he asked his Father to forgive all those people. Only Jesus has the moral authority to say, “You must forgive others what they have done to you if you want God to forgive what you have done to others.”

That's not fair, you say. You're right. Forgiveness doesn't balance the scales in the sense of good acts erasing evil acts. But nothing in this life can undo evil in the sense of it never happening. You can't unrape people or unkill them or even unbreak their bones. Forgiveness doesn't replace justice. And it doesn't mean you won't need therapy in some cases. But, as Father Edwards pointed out, Christianity isn't so much about doing as about being. It's about transformation. It's about becoming ever more Christlike. The best way to get people to do good is to make them into good people. God's plan to defeat evil is to transform us, the people who do evil, into people who share his good and forgiving nature.

Forgiveness is difficult. It may take time. You may think you've forgiven someone only to find you really haven't. Then do what Jesus did on the cross. He didn't say, “I forgive you” to his executioners. He said, “Father, forgive them...” (Luke 23:34) So ask God to forgive the person. And ask him to help you get to the place where you can forgive them.

Refusing to forgive is not an option for us. Not if you want to grow into the person you were created to be, full of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. That's the only kind of person who can truly be called a Christian, a follower of Jesus, whose unjustly spilled blood pays for all our sins, if only we accept his forgiveness in the Spirit in which it is offered.

Healing Vs. Curing

From the sermon suggestion box.

This week's sermon suggestion is succinct: “The difference between curing and healing.” And the shortest response would be: “There isn't much of a difference.” The dictionary seems to see them as synonyms. Both mean “to make healthy.” In fact the word “heal” comes from the same root as the word “health,” which in turn comes from the Old English word for “whole.” It's interesting that the word “cure” comes from the same root as “care” in the sense of being concerned. I think the person who wrote the sermon suggestion was thinking of how we use the words today. We use “healing” as the word for the process of getting better and “cured” as the goal of that process, the state of being free from any disease or health problem.

When I was a nurse, I saw a lot of healing but few cures. However I have seen people come back from death and recover to the extent that they were able to get on with life even if they still had to deal with a disease or disability. And now I have had that experience. Still for some people that is not enough. They don't want to have any impairments to total health. They want a cure. But what is a cure? We consider a person to be cured of cancer if they are free from all traces of the disease for 5 years. Still it is possible for some cancer survivors to suffer a recurrence after 5 years. It may even occur in a different site than the organ or system previously affected by cancer. Is that a cure?

Right now it looks like transplanting the pancreas, where insulin is created, can “cure” diabetes. That is, it ends the necessity that the patient inject himself with insulin. Transplanting a kidney at the same time works even better. But it's not for everyone, like people who also have a history of cancer, HIV, heart or lung disease. It is risky and while the person no longer has to check their blood sugar or give themselves insulin, they do have to be on anti-rejection drugs like steroids for the rest of their life. And 1% of those people still suffer organ rejection each year. Half of all transplants fail after 10 years. So it's not perfect. Still it's the best that we have at present. My cousin developed kidney disease in his teens. He received a transplant that lasted decades and lived to be 55, long enough to see his daughter grow up and to enjoy his grandchildren.

Which brings up the fact that, regardless of whatever you're cured of, eventually you will die of something. So all cures are temporary. Still a cure can mean relief from pain, suffering and various restrictions on what you can do. It can mean a longer life. So of course we want cures. And many churches, like mine, hold healing services. But why don't we have curing services? Why doesn't God cure everyone? That, I suspect, is the real question behind our sermon suggestion.

Jesus' miracles of healing fit the popular definition of cures. People didn't just get better; their diseases departed; their disabilities disappeared. The blind saw. The deaf heard. The mute spoke. The lame walked. The dead rose. Why doesn't God do that today?

Well, he does. People do see their diseases go away completely. Sometimes this happens through the agency of doctors and nurses. Most of the healthcare professionals I worked with were believers and their work grew out of their faith. The majority of doctors (65.2%) believe in God. Only 12.4% of doctors are agnostic and only 11.6% are atheist. Healing and faith have gone together for millennia. At the council of Nicaea in 325 AD it was decreed that every cathedral town have a hospital. Until just recently most hospitals were founded and staffed by religious organizations. God works through people who bring healing to others.

Some people are even healed in spite of a poor medical prognosis. Doctors call these unexplained recoveries “spontaneous remissions.” According to the Concise Oxford Textbook of Medicine spontaneous remissions are not that unusual in many disorders, including cancer and tuberculosis. They happen more often than you think, especially in young persons. And we are not just talking about faith healing here. Still, as the Bible tells us all healing comes from God. (Psalm 103:3) Of the 35 miracles that the gospels record that Jesus performed, 18 do not mention faith. Spontaneous remissions are examples of common grace, God's undeserved goodness spread throughout the world.

Of course, God also heals people who ask in faith for it. But why doesn't he always heal those who ask for it? This is a tough question. But to think that by simply saying a prayer or reciting a verse found in scripture you can guarantee God will act is thinking of God as a vending machine. God is a person. We ask him; we do not command him. Like any wise parent, he doesn't always give his children what they desire. And the children do not always understand his reasons.

For instance, one of the hardest things I had to do as a nurse was hold down an infant so the doctor could give him a shot. It hurt. The child felt betrayed by his nurse and his mother who let the doctor jab him with needles. He might even run a low grade fever and feel achy later. There is no way you can explain to an infant that the pain of a vaccination will protect him from a disease or infection later on. To him the pain seems pointless and even cruel. And the benefit is not something positive like superpowers but rather that a bad thing doesn't happen or isn't as bad as it could be. We may be like infants in our understanding of why God allows some diseases.

The truth is I don't know why God does not heal all of his children all of the time. But then I've never tried to create and run a universe of astounding complexity all the while letting my creatures behave according to their own free will. This is an enterprise fraught with difficulties we can't begin to imagine. So what follows are some personal observations about some of the complex forms of goodness, as C.S. Lewis calls them, which can only exist as a human response to the reality of illness.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that none of us is all good all the time, let's imagine a world in which good people were always healthy or could instantly be restored to perfect health by merely uttering a prayer. In that case only bad people would remain sick. And quite naturally the healthy people would look down on the sick. After all, their diseases would be their own fault, wouldn't they? This would tend to reduce compassion towards those who were ill. And indeed we see this in the real world. People disdain those who get HIV or hepatitis or get addicted or get lung cancer through smoking. And, yes, some diseases and disorders are the negative consequences of behaviors like overeating, driving drunk, promiscuous sex, sharing needles with infected people, etc. But not all are. Yet in our imaginary world, all diseases could be attributed to bad behavior and it would become difficult for those who are well not to feel superior to those who are ill. Compassion would likely be limited to those who personally know and love someone who's sick.

And, in fact, that was the basic attitude during Jesus' day. The Pharisees taught that God blessed the righteous with money and with health. Poverty and illness were considered signs of God's disfavor. Essentially they were like those who preach the prosperity gospel today, saying those who really believe are rewarded with health and wealth. Those who don't have these things must be lacking in faith. The Pharisees were ignoring the book of Job, which shows that bad things can even happen to good people. In the same way, prosperity gospel preachers ignore how God would not cure Paul of his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) as well as the fact that this apostle knew times of need and what it was like to be hungry. (Philippians 4:12)

That's why, when encountering a man born blind, the disciples ask whose sin was the cause: the man's or his parents'. Jesus rejects both options. Instead he sees an opportunity to glorify God by healing him. (John 9:1-3) In addition, those who were lame, blind, deaf or mute were not allowed to enter the innermost precincts of the temple at Jerusalem. They were excluded from corporate worship. So every time Jesus healed someone he was restoring not only their health but also restoring them to the community, ending their exclusion which was based on an unbalanced interpretation of scripture.

Since we know that both good and bad people get sick, most of us do not despise the ill. Instead we are likely to think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Many of us go farther. We visit the sick, take them to their doctors' appointments, make meals for them and their families, and pray for them. If they are close family members, we might become their caretakers. These are the complex forms of goodness I was talking about. They are the kind of acts that only exist because illness and pain and suffering exist. And so the seeming randomness of disease can breed compassion rather than contempt.

Still we see the normal human impulse is to ignore the sick unless we know them. 9 times out of 10 the reason some celebrities champion certain medical charities and why some lawmakers push funding for certain diseases and medical conditions is that they or someone close to them suffers from that problem. I hate to say it but if every one of the 535 members of Congress had a chronically ill family member, we would have the best healthcare system in the world.

It is curious, by the way, that the US, the nation with the most churchgoers in the world, has not joined the rest of the industrialized countries in putting in place a comprehensive healthcare system. There are many models out there and not all of them have the government as sole provider. What they do have is a way to cover every citizen. And what they don't have are for-profit health insurance companies. You would think that the richest nation in the world, one that prides itself on innovation, could do better than rank 30^th out of the healthcare systems worldwide, much less last in health outcomes among the top 10 industrialized countries. And this is despite the fact that the US spends the most for healthcare! What do Iceland, Belgium and Malta know that we don't? What are France, Japan, and the Czech Republic doing that we aren't? I don't want to make this political but tell whomever you support that it's time that America stops dragging its feet when it comes to its sick citizens and do at least as well as Uruguay, Slovenia, Cuba and Belarus. Because their healthcare systems all rank higher than ours.

Knowing how human beings think, we can say that if God healed all, there would be no reason for most of us to care about the wellbeing of others. If someone we don't know or like gets sick, we'd think it's their problem, not ours. But Jesus expects us to love others, even those who don't love us. (Matthew 5:46-48) The good Samaritan, who went to the aid of a man left for dead, cleaning and dressing his wounds and making a personal sacrifice to see him get better, is Jesus' example of how we should love our neighbor. (Luke 10:25-37) And just as he challenged the disciples to feed the 5000 themselves (Mark 6:37), he challenges us to help those who are ill. In fact, care of the sick is one of the criteria Jesus uses in judging who is really one of his followers. (Matthew 25:31-46)

If this were the only life we got, then the fact God doesn't heal everyone would not merely be puzzling; it would be cruel and unfair. People would suffer in the only life they ever had. But this life is not the only one there is and physical death is not the end of our existence. Every week in the creed we affirm our faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Those who respond to God's love by showing love for him and for those created in his image will see and live in a world set right.

Still, won't they remember the pain they suffered in this life? Yes, in one sense. I remember that I suffered with pain in my accident and rehabilitation. But I only remember how I reacted and how described it at the time. I don't actually feel that pain anymore. I don't relive it. It is gone. It is in the past. And I am grateful for the life I have now after that pain is over. So it will be in the next life.

And again if, as we are promised, the next life is one in which there is no pain or disease or death (Revelation 21:4), where will we have learned humility and empathy? Only by having first lived in a world where such things exist and where we knew firsthand what it is like to need the compassion of others. Paradise will not be a place where everyone goes about his own business with no thought of the wellbeing of others. Our God is a God of love and we are to mirror that love, not just for our relatives and friends, but for all.

One of the things that cuts across all families, all borders, all classes, both the good and the bad, both the rich and the poor, is disease and pain. Our fragility reminds us of our fraternity with all human beings. Our susceptibility to the smallest of microbes should immunize us to arrogance. Sadly, not everyone learns this lesson, not even when they themselves are struck down. Some choose instead to turn inwards and pity themselves. But I have also seen disease and disability break through such self-centeredness and move people to help others. And you could easily populate a heaven with those who have risen above their own misery to reach out and minister to others as did Jesus, who sympathizes with our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15) and who, when “he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Doubtless God's reasons for not curing us in every instance are much better than the ones I have described. Again we are like infants whose parent is holding us down while we are being skewered by a needle. We don't understand how such pain can possibly be for our own good. But most children recover from the shock of vaccination and trust their parents anyway. And so, trusting in God's wisdom we look forward in hope and outward in empathy for God's other children. And as Jesus went to help those in pain and need, we, as Christ's body on earth, as agents of his goodness and love, must do likewise.

The Big Uneasy

(Since my retirement I have been revisiting and revising my earlier unpublished sermons. I update them and remove dated references. But in this, written in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it felt like those references needed to stay.)

The scriptures referred to are Ezekiel 33:1-11, Romans 12:9-21 and Matthew 18:15-20.

The United States is the first country in the world successfully and primarily founded for ideological reasons. Most countries originated either for ethnic, geographical, political or military reasons, regardless of their current forms. (The separate national status of the Vatican was imposed upon the papacy by Mussolini.) As every school child knows, the original British settlers of North America were puritans. They were rebelling against the Church of England, which incorporated forms of worship they considered “Popish,” superstitious and non-scriptural. They came for religious freedom—their own, that is. Because most of the colonies saw no irony in having their own official religions, or in discriminating against other faiths. They often had religious tests to keep Catholics and Jews from holding political offices. In fact, Maryland was founded as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. Baptists, too, were often imprisoned for their faith. By the time the Constitution was being drawn up, delegates insisted that a Bill of Rights be added to it, and the very first part of the first amendment guaranteed religious freedom not just for some but for all. Consequently, the US became even more attractive to those fleeing religious oppression in their own countries. Today there are more Jews in the US than in Israel. And most of the Palestinians in America are Christians, fleeing persecution by both Israelis and Muslims.

We are the most religious of the Western affluent nations and most of us (63%) claim to be Christians, though half of those actually attend worship regularly. This provides some background to the question from our sermon suggestion box: “Why are people so insistent to keep Christianity out of society but let other religions creep in as they may?”

At first, I thought the question was about the separation of church and state but the writer never mentions government, just “people” and “society.” Then I had to ask myself whether I have seen or heard of or read about instances of people trying to keep Christianity out of society in general. Not really. Instead it seems that those trying to eradicate Christian influence in America are a minority, albeit a very vocal one. What I do see however are some alarming forms of Christianity being welcomed in public life which would not be recognized by either Jesus or the apostles.

One form is pretty obviously not what Jesus preached. That's the form that doesn't believe in turning the other cheek or loving your enemies or forgiving others or helping the poor and unfortunate and sick and immigrants as if they were Jesus' brothers and sisters. It sees no problem with a rich man getting into heaven—just widen the eye of the needle!—nor with giving to Caesar the things that are God's and vice versa. This twisted and mean-spirited version of Christianity takes its spirit not from Christ but from the notion that the main purpose of good is to wipe out evil. In today's gritty movies the only thing that distinguishes the two sides is that good guys kill bad guys, whereas bad guys kill good guys. And since they don't wear white or black hats anymore and there is no difference in how far either side will go to achieve their aims, it's really hard to see much of a difference between the two. For instance, a lot of terrorists love Star Wars. They see themselves as the rebels and America as the evil empire. In this “war on evil” version of Christianity, love, mercy, forgiveness and self-sacrifice are not the chief virtues. Punishing sinners takes precedence over redeeming them. In fact this heretical version of Christianity doesn't follow Jesus as Lord but uses him as a symbol or mascot. The real Jesus would offend them as much as he offended the Pharisees.

But there is another more insidious and seemingly harmless version of Christianity that is acceptable to most people. It starts from the fact that people like the idea that God loves us all. That is a comforting message and if that was all there is to the gospel, society would not object to it. We tend to romanticize love. We look at it through the eyes of adolescent infatuation. Falling in love is wonderful; but as any long-term couple will tell you, living in love takes commitment on both sides.

Psychologists say that one of the things that can really hurt a marriage is going into it with unrealistic expectations. For a marriage to succeed the couple must learn to work together. They must learn to communicate, cooperate and when they argue, fight fair. They must come to agreement on the big issues of children, in-laws, sex and money. Researchers have found that they can accurately predict a marital breakup by videotaping a couple discussing an issue for as little as 15 minutes. They count the number of positive and negative things said about each other. A good marriage should have a ratio of 5 positive comments to 1 negative. They also look for what can be called the “4 Horsemen of Marital Apocalypse:” criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling and contempt. Contempt for your spouse is the most accurate predictor of divorce. The most hopeful sign is that a husband is willing to seriously consider his wife's point of view.

That's not very romantic, is it? Because a good marriage isn't just about feelings. It requires discussion, self-examination, self-restraint, compromises, personal change, forgiveness and putting a lot of trust in your spouse. Small wonder that half of all new marriage end in divorce, and in an average of just under 8 years. They were looking for the Hollywood happy ending, not realizing that there's a reason why love stories tend to end with the couple's wedding, before things get real messy and hard. But what does this tell us about God's love for us?

If we see God's love for us as just like some teenage girl dreamily adoring some boy in class, then we can simply bask in it. There's no obligation for us to reciprocate. But in both the Old and New Testaments the metaphor for the relationship between God or Christ and his people is that of a marriage. God wants a relationship with us and so we must decide to accept or reject him. If we accept his love, then we have accept all of the responsibilities that real love, human or divine, entails. That means faithfulness and giving up our freedom to simply behave in any old way we want to. Real love is a bond with both explicit and implicit promises, duties, and, yes, benefits. The problem is everyone wants the benefits of love without the rest of the package. There is not such thing as maintenance-free love.

What we see, therefore, is a society that accepts this watered-down version of Christianity but not the full-blooded version. In this popular version, God's loving us means that God approves of us without any need to change on our part, and loving our neighbors merely means being nice to them, or, at the very least, not being mean to them. There is no place in this version for love that is more than emotion, or for duties that contradict or inconvenience your lifestyle, or for the concept of sin, or the need for salvation, or, really, for Christ on the cross, except as jewelry. There is no place for personal sacrifice or taking unpopular stands, like Ezekiel or Jesus did. This selectively edited version of the faith would wholeheartedly accept most of today's passage from Romans but recoil from other parts of the same epistle. It is not Christianity but Nice-ianity. It's like white gloves: fine for social occasions but useless when it comes to dealing with or cleaning up real-life messes.

Because Nice-ianity is more about making people feel good than about the rigors of actually being good, it is tolerant of certain doctrines that are foreign to real Christianity. In fact, it is a magnet for anything that makes us feel better. That's probably because it is easier to feel good about yourself if you are in denial about the reality of personal evil. The platitudes of New Age religions are especially welcome. So we hear lots of talk about being non-judgmental and very little about confronting others over their spiritually and personally unhealthy choices, something that only matters if you really love others. (Galatians 6:1) We hear a great deal about personal empowerment but nothing about how God's power can be manifest in our weaknesses. (2 Corinthians 12:9) We hear oodles about inner peace that comes from accepting yourself and zilch about the peace that comes from letting God transform you into a holy person. (Romans 12:1-2)

If our society has a devout belief, it's “Live and let live.” That sounds very pleasant and enlightened, with the added benefit of not obligating anyone to lift a finger. You simply let people do whatever they want to, as long as you don't interfere with them or they with you. However that's not loving your neighbor but being apathetic about them. As Paul McCartney and Wings reminded us, in this crazy world, it's a short step from “Live and let live” to “Live and let die.” I heard an echo of that sentiment in the words of those who felt that anyone who chose to live in New Orleans, or didn't evacuate in time, somehow deserved what they received at the hands of Hurricane Katrina. Compare this to Jesus' response to the question of whose sin caused a man's congenital blindness. He said, “He was not born blind because of his sin or that of his parents, but to show the power of God at work in him.” (John 9:3, J.B. Phillips translation) Jesus wasn't interested in fixing blame but fixing the problem. He saw someone who needed healing and he healed him.

“Live and let live” doesn't require you to go out of your way to help someone. Which suits our society since, unlike a genuinely Christian one, ours doesn't like dealing with issues like disease, disability and death. Mental illness is still mired in misunderstanding and viewed as a stigma. And if we do need treatment, we want it to involve a few pills or thinking pleasant thoughts. We certainly don't want to change our life or our favorable perception of ourselves. But true healing means admitting that there is something wrong with you. It means not only admitting it to yourself but to someone else, and ultimately to someone who can get you help or heal you. And it means cooperating with your own healing. You can go to the best doctor in the world but if you don't trust him and follow the doctor's orders, he can't do anything for you. The same is true with God.

Today our society expresses its admiration for those who go into recovery. But we feel that's for addicts and others with obvious problems, not for us. We don't feel we have to admit we are powerless over our problems, or that we need help, or that we ought to apologize to those we've harmed or make restitution. We don't don't feel we need a discipline to practice every day or that we should regularly attend meetings with others suffering the same problem. Most people who believe in Nice-ianity would be surprised that a lot of the insights upon which those 12-step programs are based come directly from Christianity. They are the basics of repentance and turning your life over to God, but targeted to a specific problem. But if you substituted one of the 7 deadly sins, like arrogance, laziness, lust, greed and materialism, rage, envy and gluttony, in place of alcohol or drugs, the 12 steps would make a pretty good spiritual rule of life to follow.

Unfortunately ours is a sick society that celebrates or tacitly approves of arrogant people, provided they are successful or appear to be. We approve of envying those same people as a motivation to be more ambitious. We approve of rage as political discourse and as entertainment. We approve of lust as a natural desire to be indulged. We approve of gluttony, greed and materialism as the engines of our economy. We see laziness as the ultimate goal of the good life. If we were to truly deny ownership of ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus, our society would have to change drastically. And many would see it as a change for the worse.

Mentions of Christianity and lip service to the Judeo-Christian tradition and values might never disappear from our society but displays of the real thing may diminish. If we continue to admire the shiny surface of the faith and ignore the Spirit, if we continue to try sucking out the sweetness and spitting out the substance, if we try to extract the benefits and reject the demands, we will continue on the path that the rest of the Western countries are following. We will become just another post-Christian society. And all the legislation by politicians on the Christian Right will not change the hearts of the populace. What can reach them is what changed the world of the first and second centuries: the practice of real Christianity by real Christians. The way Christians stood up for their beliefs, even at the cost of their lives, surprised Roman society. Their impeccable moral lives impressed many pagans. And the fact that during times of plague and disaster, Christians stayed and helped the poor, sick and dying is what attracted others to embrace the faith.

Just as our cozy lives lulled us into forgetting that there are those in this country so poor that they cannot afford to evacuate from certain disaster, so also our tame unchallenging spirituality has insulated us from the fact that the resulting spiritual poverty puts eternal lives in jeopardy. Only the danger isn't as obvious as a frontal assault on Christianity. It is insidious, a slow eroding of the foundations of our faith. The problem is the shifting of our focus from Jesus Christ—who he is, what he's done for us and continues to do in us, and our proper response—to our personal feelings and comforts, likes and dislikes.

We need to sound the alarm like the watchman in Ezekiel 33. We need to work hard at bringing people back to following Jesus, which entails disowning ourselves and taking up our crosses. We need to do for our society what was supposed to have been done long ago for the Big Easy: build up what needs to be built up, abandon what's indefensible, and put what's important—the well-being of people—ahead of all other considerations. We can do it. God calls us to do it. We ignore him at great peril to ourselves and to those we say we love.