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(Since my retirement I have been revisiting and revising my earlier unpublished sermons.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.