Of Faults and Secrets and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Scripture: Psalm 19

I wonder whether anyone has ever had a keener understanding of human nature than Mark Twain.  Consider his observations on unproductive anxiety: “I’ve lived through terrible things in my life; some of which actually happened.”  On happiness: “Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”  On maturing—and perhaps also on parenting: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be 21 I was astonished at how much [he] had learned in seven years.”  On shame: “Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to.”  On moral purity: “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”  And on New Year’s resolutions: “Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

We are not a full month into a new year and yet many of us can already see the wreckage of our resolutions strewn about us.  I recall one January 1^st when I discovered that in the course of that first and single day I had laid asunder all three of my New Year’s resolutions—to lose a little weight, get more exercise, and watch less football on television—by engaging in a ten-hour-long marathon of college bowl games interrupted only by stuporous excursions to the refrigerator for more French onion dip.  This was, shall we say, an inauspicious beginning. 

And, of course, the higher we aim the harder we fall.  So if we find ourselves in February or March without a perfect record of keeping our checkbook balanced or sending birthday cards to relatives or reading the New York Times from cover to cover then it is possible that we will feel a tad of frustration—but unlikely we will experience a sense of deep personal disappointment.  We may, however, take our failures harder if our pledges involved making truly profound changes in ourselves: to be more loving, more generous, more grateful, more patient, more forgiving, more faithful, more selfless, more like followers of Jesus Christ.  In such circumstances, we may cry with Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment if the same old law-breaker is to keep them?”

For many of us, this emotional struggle is made worse by the fact that we don’t feel comfortable talking about it with other people—perhaps even those who are closest to us.  After all, our “heroic vows of amendment” often involve a battle with an inner demon, and demons tend to be scary, unattractive, and alienating—not exactly the sort of thing you want to show off in front of your friends, your family, your co-workers, your partner, or your children. 

Yet again, Mark Twain understood perfectly.  “Everyone is a moon,” he declared, “and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”  Trying to bring light to that long-hidden and darkened territory is daunting and challenging stuff, particularly if we think we need to go it alone.

We find references to this problem throughout the scriptures.  One of my favorite examples appears in the seventh chapter of Romans, where we hear Paul’s full-blown exasperation with his own failures of resolve. “I do not do the thing I want, but I do the very thing I hate,” he laments in verse 15.  But he continues.  In verse 18: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it!”  And in verse 19: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do!”  Now, notice this: amidst all this confession, Paul still keeps the details of his transgressions to himself.  “Everyone is a moon,” indeed; even our sainted friend, Paul, who in these passages sounds an awful lot like the rest of us.

Of course, the obstacles are still more imposing when we cannot, or do not, or will not see the faults we need to work on.  This is the special genius of those wonderful lines in Psalm 19, thrown in so casually they are almost thrown away: “But who can detect their own errors?  Oh, cleanse me from hidden faults.”  These verses offset the psalm’s theme of praise with one of humility—we may not even know what we don’t know—that presses straight through to those magnificent closing verses: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

This morning, I want to try to persuade you that this dilemma—how we go about working deep changes in ourselves given our fondness for our faults, and sometimes our blindness to them—is a solvable one as long as we do not engage in three different kinds of mistaken thinking.   If we fall into those errors, we run the risk of convincing ourselves that we are stuck in the mud of our old habits and that our efforts to live differently amount to nothing more than wheel spinning.  But, if we can see those errors for what they are, and move past them, then we have good reasons to be confident that we can shed our old skin and put on some new.

The first error occurs when our self-doubt, prior failures, or observations of the struggles of others convince us that we cannot change—a self-fulfilling prophecy that prompts us to abandon the project.  My friends, this is simply wrong.  Indeed, it is twice wrong.

It is wrong as a matter of human psychology and development; we human beings are hardwired for change—more change than we tend to believe.  Just a few weeks ago, a team of psychologists, led by Dr. Dan Gilbert of Harvard, issued a new report finding that people generally underestimate how much they can and will change.  Based on a study of more than 19,000 people (ranging from ages 18 to 68), Dr. Gilbert and his colleagues concluded that we are inclined to think of who we are as a relatively settled thing—even though later we see how much changing we still had before  us.  Dr. Gilbert says: “[We often look back on our earlier selves] with a mixture of amusement and chagrin.  What we never seem to realize is that our future selves will look back and think the very same thing about us.  At every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we’re wrong.”

Dr. Daniel McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern University who has studied the same phenomenon, offers this example to illustrate the point.  In the 1980s, at the height of the craze over Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dr. McAdams had a conversation with his four-year-old daughter.  When he told her that someday the Ninja Turtles might not be her favorite thing in the whole wide world, she resisted—indeed, she refused to entertain the possibility.  Of course, eventually other things did indeed come to take their place in her heart, but here’s the most interesting point: this illusion is not limited to four-year-olds; studies show that it appears throughout young adulthood, middle age, and even our later years.  (John Tierney, “Why You Won’t Be The Person You Expect to Be,” The New York Times, January 3, 2013).  It goes with the territory of being human.        

More significantly, though, a belief that we cannot or will not change is inconsistent with the central tenets of our faith.  If we cannot change, then the calls we hear to do so from Moses, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Paul, and Jesus of Nazareth amount to nothing more than a cruel joke.  And our faith does not just subscribe to the idea that we can change; it adheres, with a sacred confidence, to the belief that in our searching encounter with God we are already changed.  As Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; everything has become new.”

This reminds me of one of my favorite passages from the writings of C.S. Lewis: “I pray because I can’t help myself.  I pray because I’m helpless.  I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.  It doesn’t change God.  It changes me.” 

So the first error—which, as I say, is wrong both psychologically and theologically—is thinking that we cannot and will not change.  We can.  We will.  By the holy grace of God, we are doing so right now, at this very instant.  

The second error occurs when we think—and therefore behave—as though our faults are hidden.  I think that this, too, is twice wrong.  I suspect that more people know more about our weaknesses than we would like to believe.  But, more importantly, God knows about them, every last one of them, no matter how vigorously we have labored to conceal or deny them.

Indeed, the Bible is so absolutely clear on this point that it makes it two times in its first four chapters.  As we all know, in Chapter 3 of Genesis, Adam and Eve try to hide their disobedience from God, and, in Chapter 4, Cain does the same—and all of them meet with the same level of success.  God is not fooled and, at the risk of an extravagant understatement, is not amused.  Proverb 15 tells us that “the eyes of the Lord are in every place,” and that includes all the places in ours hearts, minds, and souls—even the darkest places.

So the second error lies in believing that we can keep our faults and our need to address them to ourselves.  We cannot, at least with respect to God.  Indeed, God already has a very good grasp on those issues—thank you very much—and already knows, infinitely better than we do, what needs to happen next.

Well, that leads us to the third error, which occurs when we think that we have to effect deep changes in ourselves alone and on our own horsepower.  This, I want to suggest to you, is the biggest mistake of all.  And, to get at just what a whopper it is, I want you to think about what it would mean if it were true.

If this were true, then there would be no reason for God to know what is in our hearts that has anything to do with love.  God would just be like some kind of omniscient CIA agent, spying on us and collecting data and turning us over to the proper authorities when we mess up—as we invariably do.  God would embody the most sinister version imaginable of those unsettling holiday lyrics: “he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”

No, no, and no.  God sees our faults and understands what we need to do differently in these sloppy rag-tag lives of ours.  But God puts this perfect knowledge of us to work on our behalf.  God uses it to bless us, to move us, to illumine us, to inspire us, to connect us, sometimes even to block and tackle for us, always to change us.  And, while we may give up on ourselves, God never gives up on us.

Toward the end of her book “Help, Thanks, Wow: Three Essential Prayers,” Anne Lamott writes this:

“God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back.  [A friend] says this is a scandal, and that God has no common sense.  God doesn’t say: ‘I have had it this time.  You have taken this course four times and you flunked again.  What a joke.’  We get to keep starting over.  Lives change, sometimes quickly, but usually slowly.”

If you are like me, your own change probably seems the slowest and most halting of all.  But I suppose we can take some consolation in a God who could say “You think you’re a tough nut to crack?!  Let me tell you about some guys named Moses and David and Peter and Paul.  And how they struggled!  I know; they talked to me about it ... all the time.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, ours is a God of hope and love.  And, where hope and love are possible, change is possible.  That is not just good news; it is, for our sordid and stubborn old hearts, the best news—ever. 

Amen.

A benediction: When I look out my window on this icy and frozen day, I can see no evidence that God is busily at work on spring.  And, yet, I know that He is.  Go forth into this good day knowing that--even when you cannot see it--God is also busily at work on you, with you, for you.  And know that you are blessed that this is so.

Christmas Stories

Scripture: Luke 2-16

For more than a month, we get ready for Christmas.  At church, we celebrate the ancient tradition of advent, which occupies so much of our time and attention that we call it a “season.”  We read biblical passages that anticipate the birth of Christ; we light candles; we decorate the sanctuary; we gather toys and gifts to donate to those who have fallen on hard times.

Outside of church, we engage in other sorts of rituals.  We unpack the nativity scene, the decorations, and the ornaments.  We put up the tree.  We cook and bake and devour vast amounts of food.  We labor to find just the right presents for just the right people.  We marinate in Christmas music that starts in November and that follows us ubiquitously into cars, malls, stores, elevators, restaurants, even restrooms.

In this connection, I’ve noticed that a number of contemporary Christmas songs ask a question that sounds something like this: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christmas could last all year long?”  And I have to confess: I wonder.  After all, the way we do Christmas is pretty exhausting.  And I’m not sure how many of us would enthusiastically agree to spend the next fifty weeks doing the same things we have done for the last two—let alone at the same pace.

Also, this time of year can seem a little artificial.  It should have a special quality—and it does; it shouldn’t feel like the rest of the year—and it doesn’t; but, as Prince Hamlet said, “there’s the rub.”  After all, we spend most of our lives in the other eleven months of the year.  So there is always the risk that we may elevate this season to such a height—and accelerate it to such a frantic dash—that it will lose its relevance to how we actually spend the overwhelming majority of our time on planet earth.

I think that this is what makes Luke’s description of the events immediately preceding the birth of Jesus so instructive.  It doesn’t seem like a particularly inspiring collection of verses; to the contrary, it reads like a pretty bland recitation of relatively non-momentous facts.  It almost sounds like an entry in the “local news” sidebar of the Bethlehem Daily Tribune: “census brings Joseph home after long absence; ‘gee, it’s great to be back,’ he declares.”

Indeed, everything about the text reinforces its ordinariness.  The emperor issued a decree—that’s hardly surprising.  Decreeing things is what emperors do, and this one did a lot of it.  As you may recall, Augustus came into power after the assassination of Julius Caesar and during a period of political upheaval and military rule.  After defeating his rivals, Augustus restored the trappings of the republic, but historians tell us that in many respects he remained a dictator.  The most famous statue of Augustus—the Augustus of Prima Porta housed in the Vatican Museum—portrays him with his right arm raised commandingly, as if issuing just the sort of decree Luke describes.

Next we’re told that this particular decree required the registration of everyone who was under Roman rule.  Now, this passage has prompted a vigorous and unresolved debate among biblical scholars because little, if any, historical evidence confirms that such a census occurred during this period.  So, what’s going on here?  Was Luke thinking of the census that is mentioned in Acts 5:37 but confused about its date?  Was he giving us a nod toward Psalm 87, which seems to link the registering of people with the birth of the Messiah?  Was he doing a little stage management by offering an explanation as to how Jesus came to be born in Bethlehem, thereby fulfilling an ancient prophecy?

For today, let’s put those questions aside and shift our focus from why Luke tells us about the census to how Luke does so.  If you look carefully, you’ll notice that this passage is characterized by a severe economy of words and by no drama whatsoever.  This seems particularly striking because these verses are surrounded by drama.  Immediately before it, we get Mary’s beautiful magnificat (“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”) and Zechariah’s spirit-driven prophecies about the birth of John (“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and redeemed his people”).  Immediately after these verses, we get angels appearing to shepherds and “a great company of the heavenly host singing ‘Glory to God in the highest.’”  Chapter 2 of Luke comes to us as an interruption in the midst of exaltation. 

The verses about the census are dry, low-key, and journalistic.  They probably have something to do with the government wanting to tax its citizens—a practice, as Ben Franklin observed, that is as inevitable and predictable as death.  Certainly, these verses don’t make particularly good fodder for hymns or Christmas carols or holiday pageants.  In his Messiah, Mr. Handel decided to skip this rather prosaic part of the story entirely.

And that leads us to the most surprising part of this very unsurprising first advent: Luke’s declaration that Joseph went to be registered with Mary, who was “expecting a child.”  Surely, this wins any contest of the greatest understatements in the history of the written word.  In fact, it may be that the only real competition comes in the next verse: “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.” 

So, how does Luke describe the events immediately preceding the birth of Christ?  He portrays them as the stuff of everyday, ordinary life.

But what do we do in the days immediately preceding Christmas?  We labor—sometimes to the point of despair and dismay—to make them as special, as non-everyday, as extraordinary as we can.

Do you sense something of a disconnection here?

Now, permit me to say that I’m as fond of Christmas preparations as anyone I know: I love reading the familiar verses and singing the old carols; rediscovering the silly ornaments that Lisa and I have accumulated over the years; getting together with friends to celebrate the season; searching for gifts that will bring smiles to the faces I adore; smelling the fresh-cut Christmas tree as it warms in the living room and the sap starts to flow again.  I am no Grinch, even if I do wish that my heart was bigger, more accommodating, and open to greater levels of commitment and empathy and forgiveness than it seems currently able to sustain.

So please understand that I am not asking you to downplay Christmas or to ignore its obvious specialness.  I get all that.

No, to the contrary, I am inviting you—as I think Luke does—to see that Christmas also lives in all the simple, mundane, unspectacular weeks that will follow.

It lives in the midst of business as usual, where decrees are issued and taxes come due and people obey laws and couples become engaged and children enter this weary and restless old world.

It lives in the miracle and wonder and blessing that we celebrate on December 25^th —and also in the miracles and wonders and blessings that may cross our paths on all the days that follow. 

It lives in readiness and in celebration—and also in the midst of drudgery and in the uneven and uncertain path that we call work-a-day existence.

It lives when our hearts are filled with inexpressible joy—and also when we are burdened with unimaginable horror and sorrow over the headlines in the newspaper.

I think that the special genius of this passage in Luke is that it moves us past the idea of getting ready for Christmas and into the idea of getting ready for anything—because God may become stunningly present for us even in the highly improbable context of a governmental head-counting.

*    

I am sure that many of you have seen the photograph and the videos that went viral a couple of weeks ago on the Internet about New York Police Department Officer Larry DePrimo.  DePrimo was on patrol on 44^th Street in New York on a very cold night when he noticed an elderly man lying on the sidewalk.  The man had no socks or shoes, and DePrimo became concerned.  He ran into a nearby store and bought the man a pair of sturdy one-hundred dollar boots.  DePrimo knew that this was the kind and compassionate thing to do; what he did not know was that a tourist took a photograph of him doing it.  That picture was posted on Facebook; it promptly garnered hundreds of thousands of “likes”; DePrimo was identified; and the picture and the tale spread like wildfire.  Everyone agreed: it was a great Christmas-time story, and so it is.

But, of course, there are countless Christmas stories.  Many of them happen during the other eleven months of the year.  Many of them unfold over a number of years, or even decades, or even lifetimes.  All of them bring a ferocious light that presses back against the relentless darkness that always threatens to consume us, but that finally cannot, because God won’t have it.

Here are just a few of those stories, gleaned from a single website (the CNN 2012 Heroes page, if you're interested), after only about fifteen minutes of looking around on the Internet:

For the past two years, Dr. Benjamin Labrot has practiced medicine from the decks of a 76-foot-long refurbished ship called the Southern Wind, where he serves not only as the chief physician but often as captain, cook, and lab technician.  Sailing a nonstop circuit between Haiti, Honduras, and Panama, Dr. Labrot and a crew of volunteers have managed to provide critical services to about thirteen thousand people—many of whom had never before received any medical attention at all.  Dr. Labrot acknowledges the challenges and the rewards his work entails.  He says: “I had to postpone many aspects of my own personal life.  I don’t have a home.  I had to give up a lot.  But I gained everything.”  This Christmas story has been going on for two years, now—two years and counting.      

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world.  It has no social safety net.  This means that, when someone goes to prison, they have two choices: they can bring their children to prison with them; or they can leave their children to fend for themselves on the street.  Since 2005, 28-year-old Pushpa Basnet of Nepal has taken those children in.  This doesn’t require much of her.  She just has to feed, clothe, teach, and launder for the forty children who live with her; take them to visit their parents in prison; and help their parents learn a trade so they’re in a better position to be caregivers once they’re released.  This Christmas story has been going on for seven years.  And Pushpa Basnet is still a very young woman.

A common problem bedevils children who are diagnosed with certain types of cancer: the treatment severely compromises their immune systems.  As a result, the disease does not just steal their health—it steals their childhood, preventing them from such basic activities as playing with other kids.  Well, one day a woman named Nancy Zuch, whose daughter Morgan was battling cancer at the time, noticed something: the hospital where Morgan was receiving treatment allowed her to play with another child who was in the same condition.  Morgan went on to recover, and Nancy went on to found a preschool in her daughter’s name.  The Morgan Center is a cheerful, bright, colorful, and meticulously sanitized space—the only one like it in the world—where children who are fighting for their lives can gather together to do the stuff kids loves to do: sing; read stories; make arts and crafts projects; laugh; play.  This Christmas story has been going on for nine years … and it has a beautiful future.

Stan Brock, on the other hand, did not appear to have a particularly beautiful future when he was a teenager.  He dropped out of school at sixteen and found himself herding cattle for a living.  He barely scraped by, sometimes going for days without food or water.  Indeed, just about the only thing he could say for himself was that he was working hard and developing some amazing skills with a lasso.

And that’s where he was when a television show called Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom discovered him in the nineteen-sixties.  It turned out that the show needed someone who could lasso big and unfriendly animals—you can see a video of Stan wrangling with a buffalo on YouTube if you like—so they took him on.  His new role gave him security, a certain measure of fame, and the opportunity to travel the world.  But he never forgot where he came from: “I understand what it is like to be penniless, homeless, and uninsured,” he says.

So, after he learned how to fly an airplane, Stan offered to bring medical support to areas that otherwise wouldn’t receive it.  In 1985, he turned this avocation into a nonprofit organization called Remote Area Medical, which has involved more than 70,000 volunteers, has held over 600 medical clinics worldwide, and has helped more than half a million people.  Stan Brock sleeps in his company headquarters at a ramshackle old schoolhouse in Tennessee; he has no assets other than a bicycle and some tools; and he does not accept an income from the enterprise he runs.  “I guess I’m your basic indigent CEO,” he says.  This Christmas story has been chugging along for more than a quarter of a century.  And it ain’t over yet.

In each of these stories, a moment of clarity, insight, and inspiration came to someone.  Stan Brock realized the importance of medical care in remote areas after a horse kicked him in the head in the Amazon.  Nancy Zuch observed one fragile child playing with another and recognized the potential.  Pushpa Basnet saw innocent children going to prison—because that’s where their parents were—and concluded that this was an intolerable state of affairs.  Benjamin Labrot sat down and wept when he discovered that he could not carry all the medicine that his patients needed in his backpack—and he resolved to find a way to carry more.  Officer Larry DePrimo says that he was moved to buy that pair of boots after the homeless man for whom he had expressed concern looked him in the eye and said “God bless you.”

Maybe that’s how Christmas stories work for all of us.  We stumble across a blessing.  We realize we need to carry more.  We encounter an injustice that we cannot ignore.  We see a new way to bring people together.  We get kicked in the head.  And so we set out to write our own Christmas story—one that may start tomorrow or that may already be underway; one that may last for sixty minutes or sixty years; one that may begin its unfolding in any season, under any circumstances, at any moment, even in the most ordinary of moments—even at this very moment.

So, what moves you toward Bethlehem?

What gifts do you bring?

What causes you to raise your eyes and to look beyond the madness and the malevolence and the materialism of this world and to see—at long, long last to see—the faint but unmistakable glimmer of an irresistible star?

Amen.

On the Solid Rock

Scripture: Matthew 7:24-27

        From time to time, Jesus spoke in terms that were simple and direct.  Consider, for example: “[D]o not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  Today’s trouble is enough for today.”  Of course, we may struggle to do as Jesus urges and to set our worries aside; but at least we understand what he was getting at.  He said it plainly. 

        Often, though, Jesus used language that was more indirect and subtle.  On these occasions, Jesus did not lay out explicit instructions about what to think or how to behave.  Instead, he invited his audience into a space—created by a question or a parable or the irony of their own hypocrisy—where he hoped they might consider things more deeply and see the truth on their own.

One of my favorite examples of this approach occurs in the story of the woman who was taken in adultery.  In confronting her accusers, Jesus might have said something ferociously straightforward, like: “Stop.  All of you are sinners, and therefore none of you is in any position to condemn this woman.  Go home.”  But he didn’t.  To the contrary, Jesus said that they could proceed to stone the woman to death if they liked—provided they could look within themselves and conclude they were without sin.  Of course, Jesus knew what they would find in their hearts; but he wanted them to discover it for themselves.

That brings us to today’s familiar—and deceptively simple—parable:  There once lived two men: one was wise, the other not so much.  The wise man built a house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, but his house stood firm.  The foolish man built his house on sand.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew—and his house toppled over spectacularly.  Jesus explains: a person who hears the word and acts on it is like the wise man; a person who hears the word and ignores it is like the foolish man.  It doesn’t seem all that complicated; but I think it is.

By using a parable, Jesus is able to tell us something simply and directly.  Indeed, he even explains the parable for us, in case we missed the central point.  But his choice of the parable form is important, because it allows him also to tell us lots of things indirectly.

Consider, for example, this idea: a flood attacks a house from underneath; rain from above; and winds from the sides.  In other words, Jesus suggests that in the course of this life—and in the natural order of things—our little houses will be assailed from every possible direction.  Anyone care to argue with Jesus on this point?  I don’t. 

Or how about this: Jesus doesn’t tell us much about the houses the two men built.  We don’t know if they are similar or different; large or small; sparsely or handsomely furnished; two bedroom bungalows without enough room to swing a cat or fifty room mansions with enough room to swing a golf club.  Without saying so directly—indeed, without saying anything at all about the houses—Jesus signals that for purposes of this story—for purposes of this life—only one question matters: how good is the foundation?

But what I want you to notice about this parable today is how much Jesus leaves unsaid—directly or indirectly.  Perhaps most importantly, there are some important gaps (which we’ll discuss) in his description of what makes for a firm foundation.  And this is provocative because the question of how we build such a foundation is critical: it’s one that every person of faith needs to think through—as does every church, including this one. 

Jesus does give us a few clues in this text as to how we should proceed.  Let’s start here: Jesus notes the importance of hearing the word.  This suggests that we should make our church one that takes seriously the business of listening to, reading, and studying the scriptures.  Of course, we won’t all agree on what certain passages mean.  But, through study and discussion, we can work our way toward a collection of understandings that are thoughtful, responsible, defensible, respectful of reasoned disagreement, and consistent with the loving ministry of Jesus Christ—even if they are not entirely uniform.

Now, there’s a related point.  I suspect that most of us—maybe all of us—believe that the Bible is the most important and influential book in the history of the world.  Even those who disagree with that proposition, though, would probably concede that it is the most misquoted, misapplied, and misused of all books.  People have invoked biblical passages to defend and justify everything from slavery to genocide to torture to the oppression of women to the abuse of children.  It is an ugly history … and it isn’t over yet. 

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the character Antonio sums the problem up nicely when he observes that even “[t]he devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”  The devil can indeed, and in fact does so in the fourth chapter of Matthew.  (And, sometimes, when I happen across certain television and radio programs I think he’s still doing it.)   So this church—like all churches—needs a firm foundation in the scriptures not just because they will help guide our steps but because, in all candor, the scriptures need all the friends they can get.

You’ll notice, though, that Jesus suggests that hearing the word isn’t enough.  In this passage, Jesus doesn’t distinguish those who hear the word from those who don’t—the parable isn’t about how people don’t listen.  Rather, he distinguishes everyone who hears the word and acts on it from everyone who hears the word but doesn’t act.  In other words, our foundation cannot just consist of sacred words and faith; those are necessary, but not sufficient.  Our foundation must also consist of actions.

Now, you’ll remember that earlier I suggested that Jesus sometimes creates an open space in the text where we need to do a lot of the work ourselves.  I think that this is one of those spaces.  I believe that Jesus deliberately, intriguingly, and wisely leaves a blank here for us to fill in.  It is as though we say to Jesus “Okay, I get it; my foundation isn’t complete until I act on your word; so what should I do?”  And Jesus says back: “What have you got?”

Can you volunteer to help the homeless?  Do that.  Knit a prayer shawl?  Do that.  Teach children?  Do that.  Feed the hungry?  Do that.  Visit the sick?  Do that.  Make peace with an enemy?  Do that.  Fight injustice?  Do that.  Sing in the choir?  Do that.  Serve communion?  Do that.  Collect clothes for the needy?  Do that.  Write a check?  Do that.  In fact, if you can, write several of them, and be generous, because this business of trying to change the world is many things, but it ain’t cheap.

*

On this very day, thousands of people—including a number from this congregation—are running in the Detroit marathon.  I’ve run a few marathons, but I can’t recall how many because all of them have been, in one way or another, minor disasters so I have repressed most of my memories of them.  It took me a few tries to discover that if you’re a big-boned 200-pound German with a 17-and-a-half-inch neck you can do many things—but you aren’t built for speed.  Still, there is a story about one Detroit marathon that I recall and that has some bearing on what I’m saying here.

A number of years ago, my mother (who passed away earlier this year) went through a very difficult time.  She had begun a long and hard battle with Alzheimer’s disease.  She was packing up, leaving a house she had lived in and loved for decades, and moving to a facility where she could receive the necessary care and attention.  It was an immensely challenging period.

In the course of helping mom pack, we discovered a small pin that she had received many years ago when she graduated from nursing school.  It meant a lot to her, and it gave me an idea.  So I told my mother that I would be running a marathon in a couple of weeks and that, as a tribute to her courage and perseverance, I would carry her pin across the finish line.

So the big Sunday came and the first thirteen miles of the twenty-six mile run went fine.  But, then, at mile thirteen I pulled a calf muscle—severely.  My slow run turned into a trot, which turned into a sort of sideways hobble.  It wasn’t pretty.

Ironically, because of the way the course looped, at mile thirteen I was only a few blocks away from the finish line.  All I needed to do was hang a right, limp along a little, and quit.  The alternative was to go straight, follow the course out onto Belle Isle, and do the best I could for thirteen more miles.  I will be honest with you: if I had not made the promise to my mother, I would have quit.  But I did, and so I couldn’t.  I kept going.

Somewhere out on Belle Isle the pain and exhaustion got to me and my temper started to boil.  At just that moment, a police patrol car with two officers in it pulled up beside me and the window went down.  “Uh, sir,” a friendly face called out, “can we give you a ride back?”  I glared at him and growled: “No thanks.  I am going to cross the finish line if I have to crawl over it.  And, when I do, I’m going to spit on the damn thing.”  He smirked and said “Well, okay then” and the car dropped back out of my sight.

I finally worked my way off of Belle Isle and back to Jefferson and toward the finish line.  As I turned left to limp through the final hundred or so yards of the course, I glanced back behind me.  There was the police car.  I’d had two guardian angels and didn’t even know it.  Those guys had followed me around an island, over a bridge, and down a thoroughfare to make sure I was alright.  In short, they had seen someone who needed watching—and they did that.

*

  And that, my friends, is how you build a church with a firm foundation.  You welcome all who come—because all are called.  You give everyone a chance to study the word—because everyone needs to.  You help them figure out what they can do to help—because everyone has something to contribute.  Then you put them to work—every last one of them—in the name and for the glory of God—because we need every last one of them.  And then you love them and keep an eye on them—because now they’re not just in His flock, they’re in yours. 

Why am I so confident that this will work?  Because these are the construction plans followed by the Master Builder himself.  This is how Jesus himself laid a foundation that has lasted thousands of years.  This is how Jesus himself built a house that has survived floods and winds and rain—and even some inhabitants who have tried to destroy the house from inside of it.

So let me leave you with a few questions to ponder:

What can you add to the foundation?

What have you got?

What are you waiting for?

Amen.