May 5, 2002 - Sixth Sunday of
Easter
Psalm 66: 8-20; Acts 17:21-31; I Peter 3:13-22;
John 14:15-21
DOING THE RIGHT THING
Theme: Balancing
principles and life
ILLUMINATING TEXT AND THEME
A Christian psychologist once remarked, "The problem is that we have
learned to fear man instead of God." Peer pressure is not confined
to the teenage years. It is a conflict of will that each person is subjected
to on a daily basis. "We're born originals and we die carbon copies."
(Rev. Zan Holmes) Peter's antidote lies in establishing a spiritual standard
which is our guiding principle: "Do not fear what they fear, and do
not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord." (vv.
14, 15)
Ed Friedman was known to ask rhetorically, "Which do you value more:
your relationships or your principles?" Friedman was also known to
answer his own question—one's principles should be valued more. Relationships
may compromise our integrity but principles confirm our integrity. Peter
confirms this thought: "Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you
are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ will be
put to shame." (v. 16b) Those who guide themselves on principle never
need be intimidated. (v. 14). But we need to know that principles are not
set up to destroy relationships, but to make loving and long relationships
possible. Principles come first because they make better relationships.
It has long been said, "No good deed goes unpunished." The source
of this wisdom may be lost in history but the essence is conveyed in Peter's
third chapter: "But even if you do suffer for doing what is right,
you are blessed." Doing what is right will not be lost in history but
will be remembered, "...you are blessed (by God)." Yet, those
who have sought to do good to do the right thing, to act on principle, are
aware of the price that is to be paid, regardless how pure our motivation.
An employee was called on the carpet by his superior and was subjected
to a demeaning monologue in the presence of his colleagues. He made no reply.
Following the meeting the employee remarked, "He's not a very nice
man." His calm, thoughtful reply not only reflected his self-control
but also called his superior's behavior into question. The employee fulfilled
Peter's admonition to "...be ready to make your defense to anyone who
demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with
gentleness and reverence" (vv. 15-16).
Those who follow the path of Christ may be misunderstood. Certainly, we
will not always be appreciated (v. 14). But those who accept the yoke of
Christ are following the path Christ walked (v. 18a). The balance is elusive:
How to assert our Christian convictions without becoming aggressive? How
to take a stand for our Christian convictions without infringing on another's
rights? Christ is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2) in
practical matters. Those who accept the path of Christ may anticipate opposition
from those who have not yet accepted him, but in suffering for Christ comes
the assurance of God's love (v. 14).
ILLUSTRATING TEXT AND THEME
"Lord, deliver me from the lust of vindicating myself." (Saint
Augustine)
**************
Being criticized is not a problem if you develop a positive way of dealing
with it. Winston Churchill had the following words of Abraham Lincoln framed
on the wall of his office: "I do the very best I can, I mean to keep
going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me
won't matter. If I'm wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won't make a
difference." (
Bits & Pieces, April 29, 1993, pp. 15-16)
**************
Someone in a pastor's congregation had pointed out several faults in him
and his preaching. Instead of retaliating, or trying to defend himself,
he looked at the woman and said, "If what you say is true, would you
mind praying for me?" (source unknown)
**************
English evangelist George Whitefield (1714-70) learned that it was more
important to please God than men. Knowing that he was doing what was honoring
to the Lord kept him from discouragement when he was falsely accused by
his enemies. At one point in his ministry, Whitefield received a vicious
letter accusing him of wrongdoing. His reply was brief and courteous: "I
thank you heartily for your letter. As for what you and my other enemies
are saying against me, I know worse things about myself than you will ever
say about me. With love in Christ, George Whitefield." He didn't try
to defend himself. He was much more concerned about pleasing the Lord. (
Daily
Bread, August 18, 1992)
**************
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." (Elbert
Hubbard)
**************
A young musician's concert was poorly received by the critics. The famous
Finnish composer Jean Sibelius consoled him by patting him on the shoulder
and saying, "Remember, son, there is no city in the world where they
have a statue to a critic." (Haddon Robinson)
**************
Someone asked C.S. Lewis, "Why do the righteous suffer?" "Why
not?" he replied."They're the only ones who can take it."
(source unknown)
**************
Of the 318 delegates attending the Nicene Council, fewer than 12 had not
lost an eye or hand or did not limp on a leg lamed by torture for their
Christian faith.
**************
In 1962, Victor and Mildred Goertzel published a revealing study of 413
"famous and exceptionally gifted people," called
Cradles of
Eminence. They spent years attempting to understand what produced such
greatness—what common thread might run through all of these outstanding
people's lives. Surprisingly, the most outstanding fact was that virtually
all of them, 392, had to overcome very difficult obstacles in order to become
who they were. (Tim Hansel,
Holy Sweat [Word Books, 1987], p. 134).
**************
The author of the First Letter of Peter late in the first century of the
Christian era is preparing his readers for tough times that he can see just
over the horizon. His advice amounts to a spiritual training program so
that Christians will be able to endure the suffering of persecution. In
the film about the civil rights movement in Mississippi
Freedom Song,
would-be demonstrators are put through an intense training program before
they are allowed to go forth to sit-in at a lunch counter or a library.
Teenage Owen Walker thinks he is tough enough to enter the fray, but after
just a few minutes of a training session he discovers what a tremendous
amount of discipline is required to endure persecution. In role play other
civil rights workers assume the role of bigoted whites and yell curses and
insults at him. They dump catsup, mustard and flour on his head and push
him. Owen lashes back at them in anger, learning the hard way how much more
it is to take abuse without retaliating than it is to inflict it on someone
else.
**************
Many people have regarded Gandhi as an unrealistic dreamer because of pacifism.
The film named after him shows at least one instance in which Gandhi's followers
marched on a government salt works in defiance of the British law. The demonstrators
made no attempt to protect themselves against the steel-sheathed staffs
of the troops guarding the facility. The soldiers slammed their weapons
into the heads of the marchers, toppling row after row of them. But more
kept coming on, the ordeal lasting all afternoon. As one row of men sank
to the ground, volunteer medics hastily placed them on stretchers and carried
them to a field hospital. The soldiers prevented the demonstrators from
entering the salt works, but their brutality cost them dearly in prestige.
One of the reporters covering the event for an American newspaper declared
that no longer would Asians respect the British rulers. What the film did
not show was the strict training program Gandhi insisted that his "soldiers,"
satyagrahis as he called those who vowed to follow "satyagraha"
("truth" or "soul force"), must accept a strict discipline
so that they could control both their anger to strike back at their oppressors
and their fear that might cause them to shrink back from the blows. This
discipline included prayer and meditation, as well as role play and singing.
In his writings Gandhi argued that the new nation of India should break
with the violent tradition of others and set up an army of satyagrahis.
They would defend their borders against aggressors, but if any blood was
to be shed, it would be their own, and not their enemies. This proved too
idealistic even for such a trusted disciple as Nehru, so Gandhi's tactics,
although adopted by such groups as the African Americans fighting for civil
rights, has never been tried by a nation.
**************
Father Gabriel in
The Mission struggles with his conscience to do
the right thing, and like Christ, ultimately suffers unjustly for his decision.
He is the head of a Jesuit Indian mission far up a great river in a South
American country. Under the wise and kind tutelage of the Jesuits the Indians
have prospered, producing not only bountiful crops but art and music as
well. The Mission has grown so prosperous that the white settlers come to
covet their land and wealth. They press the church to open up the mission
lands for settlement. In Europe the Jesuits are under siege from both the
church and secular governments because of their ever expanding power and
wealth. Banned already in France, the Jesuit order is fighting for its life,
and so its distant Indian mission becomes a pawn in the game of power politics.
The Vatican sends a nuncio, ostensibly to study the Mission and decide what
to do about it. In reality the decision has already been made. It must be
closed and turned over to the greedy white settlers. Father Gabriel does
not know this when he and his new convert Rodriguez travel to the provincial
capital to meet with the nuncio and the government officials. Rodriguez
is indignant at the lies told by the colonials about the Indians and the
Mission, but Father Gabriel keeps his silence and rebukes his associate.
When at last they learn that the Mission is to be closed and they are to
pack up and move on to other assignments, they meet with the Indian leaders
to tell them of the decision. The Indians cannot understand the duplicity
of the whites. Rodriguez, a former soldier of fortune, urges armed resistance.
Father Gabriel, while coming to the decision to disobey his orders to leave,
refuses to take up arms. He reminds Rodriguez that to do so would be to
sink to the level of evil. The two part, Rodriguez to train and prepare
those Indians and brothers willing to fight, and Gabriel to the chapel where
he prepares the host for mass. Rodriguez and his defenders manage to hold
off the attackers for a while, exacting a toll of them in dead and wounded,
but the soldiers have canon, which soon destroy all fortifications and attackers.
Father Gabriel, holding the chalice of the host, marches at the head of
a procession of the faithful toward the attackers. Both he and Rodriguez
are cut down by the canon and musket fire. He shares Rodriguez's fate in
death yet we can believe that his martyrdom ushers him into the presence
of the martyred Christ and his host. Far down river in the provincial capital,
when the nuncio and officials learn of the fate of the Mission's defenders,
the former writes a report to the Pope in which he wonders who has really
won.
**************
A doctor in Saranac Lake, New York, was fired from the medical facility
where he worked when he mistakenly operated on the wrong knee of his patient.
But that was not the first time something like that had happened. Five years
earlier that same doctor operated on a patient's wrong hip. After that incident,
the medical center instituted a procedure that required the nurses to write
the word "yes" on the body part that was to be operated on. Yet
apparently that procedure was not enough. Following the operation on the
patient's wrong knee, the medical center is now asking the nurses to not
only write "yes" on the body part that is supposed to be operated
on, but they're also expected to write "no" on the body parts
that are not to be operated on. It would be much easier to do the right
things in life if all our choices were labeled by God as either "yes"
or "no."
**************
Sometimes when you try to do the right thing, it doesn't come out sounding
that good in the end. William Willimon, in
The Last Word, tells a
story about the trouble that a certain minister was having with his organist.
The organist apparently chose to show up for choir rehearsals dressed rather
casually. As warm weather arrived, the organist even began to wear rather
short shorts. This drove the minister crazy. He was a traditionalist, who
believed that people who entered the church building should be dressed appropriately.
Finally he decided to confront the organist about her attire. Afterwards,
the minister told a fellow clergyman about what he had done. The minister
said, "I took the organist into my office. I read the Bible to her,
and I talked to her about how her clothing was contrary to what we stood
for in the church. Then I prayed with her, and in fifteen minutes, I had
her out of those shorts."
**************
Some people will go to almost any length to avoid doing the right thing.,
which brings up another point, some principles at first sound silly but
after a little thought, they sometimes make sense.This eplains a new law
in Colorado was enacted to ban the wearing of aluminum underwear. In order
to crack down on shoplifting, many stores have installed sensors at their
exits to detect if stolen merchandise is being removed from the store. But
shoplifters have found that if items are wrapped in aluminum foil, the sensors
are not able to detect them. As a result, some thieves have begun wearing
aluminum underwear and hiding the stolen goods inside the underwear.
**************
There is a Roman Catholic church in Marbella, Spain, which is a resort town
that is frequented by many foreign tourists each summer. But when people
come for confession, the local priest found that he had a difficult time
communicating with the people who didn't know Spanish. So what the priest
has done is that he's drawn pictures of nineteen different kinds of sins.
The idea is that the people can then just point to the pictures of what
they've done, and the priest can respond to them accordingly to pointing
to pictures of three different kinds of penances. That priest is trying
his best to help people who have done the wrong thing to move toward doing
the right thing.
**************
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, worship attendance skyrocketed
in many churches. Yet, only two weeks after the tragedy, many congregations
discovered that their attendance had fallen back to their previous levels.
One commentator suggested that the fault for that might lie with President
Bush. In an address to the country, the president told everyone "to
go back to normal." And since "normal" for many people means
not going to church, they heeded the president's advice and stopped going
to worship.
**************
Mahatma Gandhi offered some advice about the correct balance that is necessary
in order to do the right thing. Gandhi proposed the following litany of
seven social sins: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce
without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character,
science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
**************
"Sin is the wrong recipe for good health; sin is the wrong gasoline
to put in the tank; sin is the wrong road to take in order to get home."
(Cornelius Plantinga in
Not The Way It's Supposed To Be: A Breviary Of
Sin)
**************
"Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right than to be responsible
and wrong." (Winston Churchill)
**************
"Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening."
(Seneca)
**************
"Inside each and everyone of us is an authentic swing. Folks forget
how it feels....You can't make it happen. You let it! You got to seek that
place with your Soul, Son...."
"They say that God is happiest, when his children are at play!"
(From the Movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance)
**************
One of Karl Barth's favorite composers was J. S. Bach...maybe due to his
name. It is a memory of those who heard him teach or preach that Barth said,
"God must love to listen to Bach. Yet, the angels often slipped in
the music of Mozart when God was not around."
Barth was remembered for simplicity in stating the great truths of his
theology. One of the best known statements came as a summary of Jesus' teachings:
"Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
**************
Walter Rauschenbusch was professor at Colgate Andover Newton in Boston when
the city fathers voted to veto the funding of the sewer lines in the poverty
section of downtown Boston. In his morning theology class, he read the front-page
story from the newspaper, bowed his head on the lectern, and after weeping
he dismissed the class for the day.
Here is an excerpt from one of his more famous prayers:
In the castle of my soul is a little postern gate,
Whereat, when I enter, I am in the presence of God.
In a moment, in the turning of a thought,
I am where God is...
This world of ours has length and breadth,
A superficial and horizontal world.
When I am with God I look deep down
and high up, and all is changed....
**************
"Reality as actually experienced," writes Aldous Huxley in a personal
testimony, "contains love, beauty, mystical ecstasy, and intimations
of Godhead." (James S. Stewart in The Strong Name, Published in 1941)
**************
I have been suspected of being what is called a fundamentalist. That
is because I never regard any narrative as unhistorical simply on the ground
that it includes the miraculous. (C.S. Lewis from, The Joyful Christian)
**************
By transformation we mean change. A person or thing goes from being hopeless
to hopeful—or moderately hopeless to moderately hopeful. Doors open.
People walk through them.
We also mean the shifting of power. People who had no power have some.
Perhaps they even get a taste for it.
People who felt locked in a cage or box find the oomph to lift the top
off the box or bang down the door to the cage. Or sneak out through a window
someone forgot to close.
People who were down are up. Maybe not totally or forever—but some
joy sneaks into the place where depression reigned.
People who had no money get some money. They use it. They change from being
poor to being not so poor.
Christians often speak of these kinds of transformations as "salvific"
or deriving from salvation. Salvation—as in are you saved—comes
from the root word Shalom, which is the Hebrew word meaning a combination
of justice and peace. Inner and outer security spreads to all not just some.
A secular word for salvation is safety or security. Salvation is a freedom
from anxiety.
A small and secular word that we often use when we speak of transformation
is "systemic." That the systems change. A family system, for example,
changes when the weather changes in a family. When the mood goes from scared
and closed to open and loving. Likewise, our current economic system doesn't
spit out poverty unintentionally. It spits it out intentionally. It is designed
to include some poverty. To change the weather in this system is a complex,
long-term matter. When we speak of transformation, I believe we have meant
long term change in the weather. What the gospels call a redistribution
of power.
Walter Brueggeman, a leading First Testament scholar, says that God's actual
purpose in history is and always has been to "redistribute power"
so that all God's people share in the abundance. I think when we speak of
transformation we can't forget God or God's purpose. We join God's transforming
purpose— to bring the creation back to its origin in God.
**************
Chardin's treatment of work entitled "the sanctification of human endeavor"
in
The Divine Milieu, with so many apt quotations, easy to recall
in the midst of one's work, e.g., the closeness of our union with him is
in fact determined by the exact fulfillment of the least of our tasks"
..and " there is a sense in which he is at the tip of my pen, my spade,
my brush, my needle...of my heart and of my thought... and "Never,
at any time...consent to do anything without first of all realizing its
significance and constructive value in Christo Jesu, and pursuing it with
all your might."
**************
Everyone knows that a cat, when dropped, will land on its feet. Everyone
also knows that if you accidentally drop a slice of bread or toast with
butter (peanut butter, jam, etc.) on it, the sticky side will be the one
to hit the floor. So if you fasten a piece of buttered toast (sticky side
up) to a cat's back (two rubber bands would probably be best) and drop the
cat, will it land on its feet or its back?
**************
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo decide to rob a bank. The
note to the teller is 1,200 pages long, not counting footnotes, complete
with a promise of damnation if the teller does not accept immediate Baptism.
In the middle of the heist, they engage in an extended debate as to whether
or not the money really exists.
Are they committing a mortal or a venial sin?
Speculate on what the current status of salvation history might have been
if Abraham had just stayed in Ur.
**************
Every time one does the right thing it is an attempt to proclaim the dignity
of humankind in the midst of the Fall.
**************
The motto: "Be sure you are right, then go ahead." is not license
to rush headlong into our desires and pleasures. The first part of the motto
requires quiet reflection and determination.
One is never right at someone else's expense. One is never right cheaply.
Shortcuts are never a part of being right. There are no shortcuts
on a straight road! This motto served Davey Crockett throughout his lifetime,
both in and out of public office.
**************
There are those who say, "The apple is only half rotten." Others
say, "If the apple is rotten, it is rotten to the core." Suffering
for doing good is insane by worldly standards. Self-righteousness is the
defender of life that suffers unjustly. One does not have to take it. When
someone "bites the hand that feeds them" he or she deserves to
be hungry. Surely no one would expect anyone to keep trying to feed one
who bites at his benefactor! If the world was only half rotten, one could
work with the other half and have a good time of it, but if the world is
rotten to the core, then one can expect those closest to him or her to do
the most damage. The one receiving the greatest service will complain the
loudest, and the people one is dying for assume it is one's privilege.
**************
To do right and be praised and honored for it is still hard. To do right
knowing that one will be vilified and killed for it is unthinkable, except
in Christ.
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2nd
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