Rehab

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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