The Sin That Can't Wait

A Sermon based upon 2 Samuel 13: 1-22

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

April 3, 2011

About 25 years ago, not long before the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government experienced a deep embarrassment at the hands of a nineteen-year-old German youth.   This German youth FLEW HIS SINGLE ENGINE CESSNA Skyhawk airplane HUNDREDS OF MILES OVER RUSSIAN TERRITORY completely undetected, landing SAFELY IN THE MIDDLE of Red Square!  While the WORLD WAS AMAZED by such a feat, the Communist government reacted by immediately arresting the young man and tossing him into prison.  Apparently, the young man was SO WRAPPED UP IN THE CHALLENGE of accomplishing this feat that he had SCANT REGARD for any of the possible CONSEQUENCES.
LUST IS A LOT LIKE THIS YOUNG MAN'S ESCAPADE: people who allow their lives to be filled with lust DO NOT THINK  OF THE CONSEQUENCES; lust doesn’t consider WHAT MIGHT LIE AHEAD; lust simply SEEKS THE THRILL of a particular moment.

In order to GUIDE US IN OUR DISCUSSION of this delicate but relevant topic, especially in light of the covenant these youth are making today, I want to draw from 4 Bible passages. 

This first story is one the church likes to keep quiet about.  IT IS A TRAGIC STORY OF RAPE AND INCEST.   While this tragedy may be uncommon to us, the INNER STRUGGLE with Lust in not.  We can learn from this tragedy how not to create our own.

THIS STORY BEGINS WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF A WOMAN NAMED TAMAR.  Tamar was the daughter of King David, the King of Israel. The Bible tells us that she was “YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL.” The story also shows us she was WISE AND COURAGEOUS, which was a sharp contrast to the ugliness of her brothers and the spiritual weakness of her father.  TAMAR HAD EVERYTHING GOING FOR HER in terms of worldly status, as much as a woman could in that day.  But with everything going for her, TRAGEDY STRIKES.  Tamar's tragedy is a story in the church because, again, her story belongs to MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE THE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE, which is running rampant in our culture.


How many of you SAW NBC’S DATELINE STORY about a sting which was recently set up to catch sexual predators.  By using a computer, Dateline officials PRETENDED TO BE CHILDREN who engaged in INAPPROPRIATE, SUGGESTIVE CONVERSATION with adults on the internet.  In the conversations these ADULT MALES WERE LURED to the child’s home.  Most alarming was that all kinds of men from all walks of life engaged in the suggestive computer chats and came to the house when invited.  SOME of them were UPSTANDING CITIZENS; many of them married, one a high school teacher and the other a police officer.  IT WAS A SAD MOMENT to have the camera show a yard full of adult men being nabbed by police in the sting operation.  WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT so many ADULTS WOULD HAVE SO LITTLE CONTROL over their own passions that they would be willing to destroy what they thought to be the life of a child?


Sadly, THE CULTURE IN WHICH WE LIVE has all kinds of people who are ALLOWING THEIR LIVES AND OTHER LIVES TO BE WRECKED and RUINED BY UNCONTROLLED PASSIONS and lusts.  But the story is not new, and the tragedy of uncontrolled human passion is AS OLD AS THE BIBLE ITSELF.    That brings us to the OTHER MAIN CHARACTER IN THIS STORY.  King David HAD MANY WIVES AND MANY CHILDREN as was the custom 3000 years ago.  As was also normal in a royal family, the TWO OLDEST SONS WERE IN A STRUGGLE FOR POWER.  BOTH WANTED DAVID'S THRONE, and both would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.  AMNON WAS THE ELDEST and therefore the apple of David's eye.  His younger, step brother was ABSALOM, who was also Tamar’s brother.  ABSALOM HATED AMNON, but dared not risk his father's favor by doing anything against him.  THE LUST FOR POWER, the greed and arrogance of Amnon and Absalom EVENTUALLY BROUGHT BOTH OF THEM TO AN EARLY DEATH.  I tell all of this as a way TO SET THE STAGE FOR WHAT HAPPENED to Tamar. 


Now, our text tells us that Amnon FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS HALF SISTER, TAMAR (2 Sam. 13:1).   The Bible says he fell in love, but it was more like he FELL IN LUST for her.  Here is the first lesson of this tragic story:   MANY OF US CONFUSE LUST WITH LOVE.    True love, has little to do with sexual passion.  According to the late, Christian psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled, LOVE IS THE COMMITMENT TO YOUR PARTNER'S SPIRITUAL GROWTH.  LUST HAS a lot more to do with HORMONES than it has to do with love or respect.  Love is about CARING FOR ANOTHER person; but lust is ABOUT WANTING something from that person no matter what.  


Several years ago A MOTHER CAME TO ME WITH HER SON and his girl friend.  The girl friend was pregnant out of wedlock.  He was in school working on his education and they had only known each other for a short time.  This mother was insistent. She told me that her son WAS GOING TO DO “RIGHT” BY MARRYING this girl and raising that baby.


While she was talking and I was listening to her desperation, I thought to myself: “I WONDER IF HE REALLY LOVES HER, because I know in my heart that “TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT.”  You can’t build a marriage on lust or accidents.  I knew she meant well and wanted her son to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for his actions.  Of course, I was thinking to myself that it would have been better IF HE HAD TAKEN RESPONSIBILITY A LITTLE EARLIER.  I attempted to prevent them from getting married too quickly and to think this over.  But the mother was adamant.  She DEMANDED AN IMMEDIATE WEDDING.  Of course if I didn’t PERFORM THE CEREMONY, then it would appear that I WAS AGAINST the “right” thing.  So, I did what she wanted.  I preformed the marriage ceremony.


Tragically, ONLY TWO MONTHS AFTERWARDS, the young woman HAD A MISCARRIAGE.  Within a few months AFTER THAT, they were divorced.  You CAN’T BUILD A MARRIAGE or a life based upon lust.  Unless we learn to distinguish between lust and love our LIVES CAN BECOME MORE THAN COMPLICATED, it can BECOME TRAGIC.  


Let’s move on.  We quickly come to another piece of enlightenment from this story. We read that AMNON WAS SO “IN LUST” with Tamar that he “MADE HIMSELF ILL” (2 Sam. 13:2)   If Amnon had really “loved” his half-sister, he would have been committed to protecting her.  But because he was not “in love”, but “in lust”, it seemed to him that HE COULD DO NOTHING ABOUT HIS LUST BUT FANTASIZE. 


Here is another IMPORTANT TEST IN OUR OWN HEARTS to decipher love from lust.  When we are so strongly AND OVERWHELMINGLY PHYSICALLY ATTRACTED to someone THAT we can’t seem to have any kind of relationship with that person WITHOUT BEING POSSESSED BY A STRONG PHYSICAL DESIRE OF WHICH we have little ABILITY TO ABSTAIN, THEN we are in dangerous territory.


 LUST MAKES ITSELF SICK WANTING ONLY WHAT IT WANTS.  Love thinks mostly about WHAT THE OTHER PERSON NEEDS and what is best for that person and what is best for everyone else around them.  PEOPLE WHO ARE IN LUST WITH EACH OTHER GET “LOVE SICK”.  People who are in love with each other, never LET THE PHYSICAL ATTRACTION GO TO THEIR HEAD or hinder them FROM THEIR DEEPER RELATIONSHIP with others and with God.  People in love, don’t get love sick, but their love for each other love MAKES THEM BETTER, MORE FOCUSED PEOPLE, staying on track for life and its everyday demands, and causing them to care more about all of life, not less.  The person who gets “lust sick” will find a way to GET WHAT THEY WANT, AT ANYBODY’S EXPENSE: at the expense of the other person, at the expense of society, at the expense of parents and family, and even at the expense of their own witness to God. 


And this brings us to THE THIRD PART OF THIS TRAGEDY.   You’ve heard of the expression, “where there is a will there is a way.”  Well, in this story the way to tragedy is enabled by so-called FRIENDS who will join in with you to help you get what you want in order to gain something else for themselves. 


In this story, AMNON HAD A SCOUNDREL OF A FRIEND BY THE NAME OF JONADAB.   When Amnon became so lust sick that he didn’t know what to do, it was his friend Jonadab who DEVISED A CRUEL PLAN so that Amnon could have his way with Tamar.  In the story, JONADAB TOLD AMNON TO ACT LIKE HE WAS SICK and ask to have Tamar come to take care of him. "Then," he said, "you can have your way with her." 
  
THERE ARE PLENTY OF AMNONS AND JONADABS around even today.  You know what IS OFTEN DONE AT A PARTY.  Bartender, Jonadab will dutifully pour twice as much alcohol in the girl’s drink AS HE DOES IN THE BOYS, with A SLY wink and a nod.  People can become so arrogant; such products of a sexist and abusive culture that friends join together to look down on women and use them as objects.”  


Friends can BECOME DANGEROUS ALLIES when they TRY TO HELP US GET WHAT WE WANT so they can get From Us What They Want.   That is the third lesson of lust.  LUST IS NOT JUST ABOUT SEX, ITS ABOUT POWER and it’s about everyone going after WHAT THEY WANT with no thought of who gets hurt.  Remember WHAT HAPPENED IN ARUBA?  That young girl spent one night with her so-called friends and her family will probably never know  what happened to her.


Young people, you and I know that ONE of THE GREATEST PRESSURES in your life right now comes from your so called friends.  We call it “peer pressure”.  Let me tell you that I HAD A LOT OF GOOD FRIENDS when I was in High School and I hope you do too.  But let me help you put something into perspective.  BEFORE YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO DO WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING, no matter what it costs you, let me tell you that there is NOT ONE SINGLE FRIEND WHO WAS IN MY LIFE in high school WHO IS REALLY IN MY LIFE TODAY.  Yes, I see a couple of my old friends occassionally, but they have little to do with my life TODAY. 


I’ve told you this to GIVE YOU SOME PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS that you need for making good decisions.  The very friends who help shape your decisions today probably WILL NOT BE WITH YOU TOMORROW, no matter how good and close they are.   That’s how life is.  But let me tell you WHAT WILL BE WITH YOU:  every person you’ve hurt or helped; EVERY WRONG CHOICE YOU’VE MADE will stay with you.  And it is very possible, young folks, that the RESULT OF THE PEER PRESSURE you let yourself get caught up in, could stay with you for the rest of your lives.   AMNON HAD A SO CALLED “FRIEND” who led him to the trough to drink of lust and sin.  Ask yourself: We know where Jonadab was when he was helping to lead Ammon to fulfill his lust, BUT WHERE WAS JONADAB THE DAY AFTER?   The so called “friend” was gone, but the guilt and hurt was there.


There’s a lot more in this terrible story. TAMAR CAME TO INNOCENTLY TAKE CARE OF HER SUPPOSEDLY SICK HALF-BROTHER. Amnon fantasized as he watched her make cakes for him.  When the cakes were ready, he refused to eat the food. HE SENT EVERYONE OUT of his bed chamber except for Tamar. He said to her, "bring the food into the chamber, so that I may eat from your hand."(2 Sam. 13:9)   You know what happened next.  When Tamar came into the bed chamber, AMNON GRABBED HER AND SAID, "come lie with me, my sister." But she said, "NO!"  Any sexual contact that happens after someone has said "no" is considered rape.  Very clearly she said, "No, my brother, DO NOT FORCE ME; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do anything so vile!"(13:12)


AMNON DID NOT LISTEN TO HER.  He was stronger than she, and he raped her.   But remember, TAMAR NOT ONLY REPRESENTED HIS SEXUAL LUST but also his LUST FOR POWER.  To shame Tamar would also SHAME ABSALOM, her brother, his nemesis. TAMAR WAS AN INNOCENT PAWN IN THIS SIBLING RIVALRY; a victim of Amnon's injustice.  LUST IS NOT ALWAYS ABOUT SEXUAL DESIRE, it is often ABOUT OTHER KINDS OF HIDDEN UNCONTROLLED DESIRES we may or may not always be fully aware of.  IF WE LET OUR DESIRES GO IN OTHER PARTS OF OUR LIVES, it will START TO CONTROL ALL of us. 


Now, we see ONE MORE TRAGIC THING about lustful passions.  Not only do lustful passions GET MISTAKEN FOR LOVE; not only do they make us SICK IN OUR HEARTS; not only do they bring to us so called “FRIENDS” WHO ARE NOT GOOD for us; not only can they be SIGNS OF OTHER ISSUES that are set loose in our hearts; but finally we can see in this terrible anatomy of lust, that lust WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD US TO “HATE” THE ONE WE SAID WE LOVED.   The Scripture says as soon as Amnon had finished with her,  HE WAS "SEIZED WITH GREAT LOATHING FOR HER. Indeed his loathing was even greater than the lust he had felt for her." (13:15)   After Amnon GOT WHAT HE WANTED, he could CARE LESS ABOUT TAMAR.  Do you see how disposable people are?  From one day to the next your lust can quickly turn from “love” to hate and revenge.  Amnon’s interest wereNOT LOVE, BUT LUST.  Remember what the Christian Psychiatrist said:  “True Love is YOUR COMMITMENT to your partner’s spiritual growth.”  Any feeling that DOES NOT HAVE YOUR PARTNER’S WELL BEING and spiritual growth in mind is lust, not love.  This is WHY SO OFTEN COUPLES WHO SAY THEY REALLY LOVE EACH OTHER, BREAK UP and can’t be friends afterwards; they were experiencing lust, not love.


This loathing, or DISRESPECT FOR THE OTHER PERSON WAS THERE ALL ALONG, but it is especially revealed in one specific word Amnon used at the end.   After he was finished with her, AMNON TOLD HER TO GET OUT.   But TAMAR WAS A COURAGEOUS WOMAN who would not shed her dignity so easily. She pleaded with Amnon, "This wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me." (13:17)   It was NOT THAT UNCOMMON FOR A MAN TO MARRY HIS HALF-SISTER in those days if the Father consented.  BUT AMNON WOULD NOT LISTEN to her and now, pay attention to what he said next.  HE SAID: "GET THIS OUT OF MY PRESENCE and bolt the door."  In most translations, verse 17 is translated something like “Get this woman out of here." But in the original Hebrew, Amnon says, "Get this out of here." Tamar, the SUPPOSED OBJECT OF HIS LOVE, WAS NO LONGER EVEN VIEWED AS A PERSON in his eyes!  She was JUST AN OBJECT OF LUST and now she is nothing more than AN OBJECT OF HATE.  This is what lust does: It turns people into objects, things, and destroys the real human relationships we really need.


What we see in this text is the destruction of a person, who was TURNED INTO AN OBJECT AND EVENTUALLY DISCARDED as trash when all used up.  This is unfortunately what happens to people, even Christians, when they use others.  More sadly, this is HOW MUCH OF SOCIETY STILL TREATS WOMEN who become victims of sexual abuse.   THE LAW WAS AGAINST THE WOMAN THEN, and it still is.  AS A VIRGIN, TAMAR WAS ADORNED with a long-sleeved robe.  After her violation, she tore the sleeves off her robe, PUT ASHES ON HER HEAD AND WENT AWAY CRYING.  She had lost her dignity and her power.  A WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN INVOLVED IN AN INCIDENT OF INCEST, according to Leviticus 18 and 19, WAS TO BE PUNISHED.  Tamar's punishment was TO REMAIN BARREN for the rest of her life.  In a society in which a WOMAN'S WORTH WAS MEASURED BY HOW MANY SONS she could bare, this served to MAKE HER A NON-PERSON in most people's eyes. The Bible says that SHE SPENT THE REST OF HER YEARS LONELY AND DESOLATE.


BUT THAT IS NOT WHERE THE STORY ENDS.  Tamar's brother Absalom asked her what had happened, even though he already suspected that Amnon had violated her. ABSALOM HEIGHTENED HER SHAME BY SAYING, "Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother; do not take this to heart."(13:20) Like Job's so-called friends, like our culture's MINIMIZING OF VIOLENCE against women, ABSALOM ALL BUT SAID TO HIS VIOLATED SISTER, "Don't worry so much." "It ain't so bad."  "Boys will be boys." "He is your brother after all, it's not like he was a stranger." "Too bad YOU ARE SO GOOD-LOOKING, maybe this wouldn't have happened to you if you were uglier."  The WOMAN, IT SEEMS ALWAYS GETS THE WORST END of this SITUATION.   Even when King David heard, and became furious, HE WOULD NOT PUNISH AMNON, his son, because, it says, he loved him.


This mention of David brings us to another tragic point in this story.  If you remember, DAVID HIMSELF COULD NOT CONTROL HIS OWN LUSTFUL passion.  The tragic rape of Tamar his daughter by his son Amnon is “dejavu” all over again for him.  DAVID’S  OWN LACK OF SELF-CONTROL IS NOW PASSED DOWN TO HIS SON and continues to hurt his family. 
Most of you know and recall the story I’m referring too: the story of DAVID AND BATHSHEBA in 2 Samuel 11.  I don’t have time to get to that story, except to make ONE IMPORTANT POINT.   As you might recall, King David was in leisure walking around on his royal rooftop, when he notices down below A WOMAN TAKING A BATH.  Stop.  It has been our tendency to soften this story, at least from the man’s perspective, saying that if BATHSHEBA HADN’T BEEN TAKING HER BATH outside, all THIS WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.  He would NOT HAVE SEEN her.  He would NOT HAVE BEEN TEMPTED.  He would NOT HAVE EVENTUALLY SENT HER HUSBAND URIAH off to war to be killed after it was discovered she was pregnant.  All that sounds true, but I want you to REMEMBER ONE THING ABOUT THE KIND OF “BATH” Bathsheba was taking.  It was not just any kind of bath, but it was most likely some kind of RELIGIOUS PURIFICATION CEREMONY which was required, as the text later explains. 


What I want us to see is this: LUST CAN HAPPEN TO THE BEST OF PEOPLE.  It is not just about sex but it is also about power, greed and giving in to our lower nature or passions.  It can happen at Church.    When our DESIRES HAVE SO MUCH CONTROL OVER US that we care about nothing except WHAT WE WANT, with no thought of consequences, no thought of who gets hurt, and NO THOUGHT OF THE HIGHER SPIRITUAL PURPOSES of love and life.   


The ONLY GOOD THING THAT COMES OUT ALL THIS TRAGEDY is that David ends up repenting and CONFESSING HIS SINS TO GOD, asking God to bring back the “joy of his salvation.” (See Psalm 51).  God does forgive, but more than that, HE WANTS US TO HAVE SPIRITUAL POWER OVER OUR THE DESTRUCTIVE DESIRES of our flesh.  God can HELP US BEFORE WE NEED TO ASK FOR FORGIVENESS.  HE CAN HELP US DISTINGUISH BETWEEN LOVE AND LUST before we get hurt. 


This brings us to the FINAL STORY from the Hebrew Bible and another young man, NAMED JOSEPH.  WE find his story in Genesis 39.  Here WE SEE THE SHOE IS ON THE OTHER FOOT.  It is not a man taking advantage of a woman, but A WOMAN TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A MAN.   
If you recall, JOSEPH WAS ORIGINALLY SOLD INTO SLAVERY by his brothers who were jealous of him.  He ENDED UP IN EGYPT being the servant of Potiphar,an officer of Pharoah’s army.   Potiphar trusted Joseph so much that he was made overseer of his household. GOD HAD BLESSED JOSEPH and he was becoming successful and powerful.  On top of all this power given to Joseph, the text says in Genesis 39: 6, that HE WAS ALSO “HANDSOME AND GOOD LOOKING.”  We are then told that “the master’s wife “cast her eyes” on Joseph and propositioned him.


WHAT JOSEPH SAYS TO HER REVEALS THE SPIRITUAL STRENGTH HE HAD over his flesh.  When the temptation was put before him, Joseph “refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and HE HAS PUT EVERYTHING THAT HE HAS IN MY HAND.  ⁹ He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. HOW THEN COULD I DO THIS GREAT WICKEDNESS, and sin against God?"   


JOSEPH WAS ABLE TO KEEP HIS FOCUS.  How?  Because he had DECIDED beforehand UPON A CLEAR SET OF VALUES IN HIS HEART.  Joseph KNEW WHERE HE CAME FROM and where he WANTED TO GO; most of all he wanted to KEEP HIS PROMISE TO GOD and to others and be TO BE responsible. Because Joseph’s own personal and SPIRITUAL VALUES WERE SO STRONG, and his SENSE OF MORAL SELF was so high, even when this woman kept on approaching him, HE KEPT ON SAYING NO, NOT ONCE, BUT MANY TIMES.  And even when one day, she threw herself on him and tore his clothes off him, HE LEFT EVERYTHING AND RAN.   EVEN WHEN POTIPHAR’S WIFE set a trap FALSELY ACCUSING JOSEPH AND HAVING HIM THROWN INTO PRISON, Joseph REMAINED strong.  He HAD NOT VIOLATED HIS OWN HIGH SENSE OF VALUES, nothing could tear him down.  LONG BEFORE this moment of temptation, he HAD developed an INNER, SPIRITUAL AND MORAL STRENGTH that would help him overcome when temptation came.  WHAT HE DECIDED BEFOREHAND, not in the moment, is what made the difference.


WHAT JESUS TEACHES us about lust gives us this same lesson.  In his own words, JESUS BELIEVED THAT WE CAN GAIN SELF-CONTROL AND INNER STRENGTH over the powerful urges of the flesh.   In his great sermon on the mount, where Jesus talks a lot about the INABILITY OF THE LAW TO CONTROL OR CHANGE OUR HEARTS, HE GIVES A REMEDY for lust THAT IS SHOCKING INDEED.   Jesus doesn’t pull any punches when he says in Matthew 5:27, “YOU’VE HEARD it said in the law, ‘You shall NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.’ But I say to you that “EVERYONE WHO LOOKS…WITH LUST has already committed adultery in their heart.” 

Some experts of the human psyche have BEEN CRITICAL OF JESUS SAYING THAT  his demand for us to control our innermost thoughts CAUSES UNDO GUILT.  THEY SAY he should have focused ON THE POWER TO CONTROL ONLY OUR ACTIONS. 

 LET IT BE KNOWN THAT I SIDE WITH JESUS against those other experts.  I BELIEVE IT IS EVIDENCED IN THE  disintegration of our culture that THOUGHTS ARE NOT HARMLESS.  They are the SOURCE OF ALL OUR ACTIONS.  Do you remember years ago, the slogan was “If it feels good, do it!”  The idea BEHIND THIS SLOGAN was that most all of our negative behavior and addictions, be they addictions to sex, to lust, to alcohol or any other kind of addiction, were A PART OF A LONG CYCLE OF REPRESSION.  In other words, because THESE URGES WERE PUSHED DOWN DEEP, either by PARENTS WHO WERE OVERBEARING AND TOO STRICT; or because RELIGION WAS OVERBEARING AND TOO STRICT, the URGES GOT STRONGER and WERE out of control.  It was thought that the best way to RELEASE THESE NEGATIVE, repressed energies was to LET IT ALL HANG OUT.  SUPPOSEDLY, once we GOT IT ALL OUT OF OUR SYSTEM, then we WERE TO return to sanity.  Unfortunately, our culture HAS BEEN getting more and more dangerous by the moment.  Our culture proves that THE MORE WE SEE IT, THINK ABOUT IT, TALK ABOUT IT, FANTASIZE about it, GIVE IN TO IT, the more we, as the commercial says: “just do it!” 

Let me tell you this is NOT JESUS’ APPROACH TO DEALING with lust or any other addiction.  Jesus has a WHOLE DIFFERENT approach.   And it may SOUND A LITTLE EXTREME, if you take it literally, but if you will INSTEAD TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY, you might learn something that will help you get control of the destructive passions of your life.  In Matthew 5: 29: “IF YOUR RIGHT EYE CAUSES YOU TO SIN, TEAR IT OUT….if your right hand causes you to sin…CUT IT OFF…  It is better to lose a part of your body than for your soul and your whole body to go into hell.”

This sounds extreme, but Jesus speaks figuratively, not literally here.  And Jesus approach is not UNLIKE THE APPROACH OF AN WELL TRAINED ATHELETE in the Olympic Games we’ve been watching in Italy these past two weeks.  What every successful athlete knows is that WITHOUT DISCIPLINE AND PAIN, there is NO GAIN and there will be NO GOLD.  Part of being a good athlete means we must LEARN TO ACCEPT PAIN AND DISCIPLINE in our lives.  When we are in training for something better in life, WE MUST ABSTAIN FROM CERTAIN BEHAVIORS and pleasures or we will not be at our best.   IN the same way, unless you and I accept the pain of discipline over our unbridled pleasure, we will not have power over our flesh.   

When we let ourselves go and when WE HAVE NO LIMITS and NO MORAL RESTRAINTS, life does not get better, THE PLEASURE WILL RUN OUT, and the GUILT WE ACQUIRE WILL NOT ABSOLVE itself.   Jesus is giving, in this rather shocking way, two major lessons about gaining self control: He gives a Warning and a Recommendation.  THE WARNING IS that PHYSICAL PAIN IS NOT AS BAD AS THE SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL PAIN that comes when we give into our lower passions.   Loosing an eye or an arm is tragic, but it’s STILL NOT AS TRAGIC AND PAINFUL AS LOOSING YOUR SOUL in the unending pain of hell of having no self-control.  LIKE THAT YOUNG MAN WHO CUT OFF HIS OWN ARM to save his life, when he was trapped on that cliff under a boulder, you should do the same to save the rest of your body and especially, your soul.  

The second lesson JESUS GIVES IS A RECOMMENDATION.  For anyone to OVERCOME ANYTHING or achieve anything in life there MUST BE AN ACCEPTANCE OF PAIN.  We must accept THE discipline AND LEARNING THAT COMES FROM THE HARD AND NARROW WAY.  AMNON carried the PAIN OF HIS ROYAL FAMILY IN HIS HEART and he sought the pleasures of the moment.  DAVID TOO HAD HIDDEN PAINS in being the SMALLEST AND THE FORGOTTEN until he was finally discovered.  Remarkably, JOSEPH HAD THOSE DEEP EMOTIONAL PAINS TOO, but somehow JOSEPH DID SOMETHING WITH HIS PAIN.  HE ACCEPTED IT.  He GAVE IT TO GOD.  Like a well-trained athlete, JOSEPH ACCEPTED AND MADE USE OF HIS PAIN AND BECAME STRONGER.  He learned through the hardships of life, to discipline himself to do the right thing, even when it hurt.  This gave him the POWER NOT TO GIVE INTO THE PAIN BUT TO LIVE INTO LIFE through his faith..

HERE IS THE KEY TO OVERCOMING LUST, says Jesus.  If you WILL MAKE THE EFFORT NOW, to BEING THE RIGHT KIND of person, TO PUT YOURSELF IN TO THE DAILY DISCIPLINES of love and serving others.  If you will DO THE HARD WORK NOW, then, when the temptations come, you will have gained an inner strength over your own flesh and YOU WILL HAVE SPIRITUAL INNER POWER TO OVERCOME both the pleasures and pains of the flesh.

This is CERTAINLY WHAT PAUL WRITES IN HIS LETTERS to the Gentiles, who knew very well the destructiveness the flesh could bring.  PAUL TOLD THE EPHESIANS, to PUT OFF “YOUR FORMER WAY OF LIFE, your old self, corrupt and DELUDED BY ITS LUSTS” (Eph. 4:22).   That word “deluded” – TO PLAY -is EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE GIVE INTO LUSTS.  Lust plays a trick on us.  It tells us that a SIMPLE PLEASURE CAN TAKE AWAY THE OTHER PAINS of our lives. 

IF WE WANT TO WIN OVER THESE INNER PAINS that cause us to seek pleasure at the expense of others, then WE MUST DEAL WITH OUR DEEPEST PAIN. Jesus knows this is NOT GOING TO BE ACCOMPLISHED by plucking out our eyes nor cutting off our arms.  Jesus didn’t literally come to tell us to do that.  HE CAME TO LOVE US AND TO SHARE OUR GREATEST AND DEEPEST HUMAN PAINS.  Until you deal with your greatest pains; THE LONELINESS AND THE LOSTNESS OF YOUR OWN HEART, you’ll never OVERCOME YOUR NEGATIVE PASSIONS, including lust, no matter how many promises you make.  

WHEN JOSEPH WAS LEFT FOR DEAD THERE ALL ALONE IN THE HOLE - HE GAVE ALL OF HIS PAIN TO GOD AND IN DOING THAT HE GAVE HIS HEART FULLY TO GOD.  IN DOING THIS JOSEPH GAINED A PASSION FOR GOD, AND THAT MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. 

Let me say, THAT WE SUPPORT YOU IN YOUR DECISION to WAIT FOR TRUE LOVE and not give into your lower passions.  But let me also say, that THE PROMISE YOU MAKE IN PUBLIC means NOTHING, UNLESS YOU GO INTO YOUR OWN HEART, not just here at church, but also out there, when you are at home, at school, or in a hole somewhere.  What you do in your heart when you are away from all of us, WHEN  you give yourself completely to God, that is what makes the difference.   And when you give everything to God, EVEN YOUR PAIN CAN BECOME A BLESSING.  Pain becomes a blessing because God can use the pain in your life as discipline, as a teacher, to HELP YOU OVERCOME YOUR LOWER PASSIONS AND LUSTS.  ONLY A HIGHER PASSIONS WILL ENABLE YOU TO OVERCOME THE LOWER ONES.  

Amen.

SIN GETS COMPLICATED

A sermon based upon Numbers 22: 21-34

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

March 20, 2011,  Second Sunday of Lent

For several weeks now we’ve been studying the seven most deadly sins.   Thus far we’ve been considering Christian scholars have defined as the “cold” sins: pride, envy, sloth, and greed.    The final three sins we’re going to discuss in the next few weeks are defined as the “warm” or “hot” sins.   To help us talk about the first of the “warm sins”, we’re going to begin with one of the most interesting and intriguing passages in the Bible.  It’s the story of Balaam’s talking donkey.  

It always makes a very interesting story when animals talk.   In my childhood I knew about three talking animals: Mr Ed---the sit-com about the talking horse; Francis---the talking army mule in old movies; and of course, since I grew up in Church, I was always delighted as a child to hear a sermon about Balaam’s donkey (and if you grew up in a King James church, it was expressed in a word we shouldn’t use in church).  Of course today, most children know about the notable animated Shrek movies,  which features Eddie Murphy’s voice as the beloved talking donkey.    This Biblical story is serious story about a very serious situation, but it’s also filled with some humor along the way and it can give us some much needed insight on the deadly sin of anger.  

OUR COMPLICATED ANGER

This story is found in the book of Numbers; a book which tells the story of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness following their exodus from Egypt.    When the Israelites, still lead by Moses at this time, began settling into the plains of Moab, northeast of Egypt, the Moabite king of the desert named Balak started to get a little nervous.    With all new people crowding into his territory, he did not know what to think.   Since they were out- numbering his own people, he worried that the Israelites might rise up try to conquer.  He decides it is time for action.

Like most warrior kings in the ancient world, before he went into battle, Balak wanted to make sure the gods were on his side.   He had heard about a prophet for hire, named Balaam, who lived in the Euphrates River area.  It was said that he had a real knack of invoking the gods to curse the enemy.  So he sends envoys with money in hand to pay for the divination or cursing fee.

Well, the story goes that the team of emissaries arrives to make their bid to bribe Balaam the prophet to side with them in divining and cursing.   But it doesn’t work, at least at first.   After a night of prayer, Balaam – not an Israelite mind you – tells the envoy that God told him not to curse these Israelites because they are a blessed people.    So, the bribery band returns to Moab with the news, but King Balak won’t take no for an answer.    He sends a larger commission back to Balaam, with more money.  But to his credit, Balaam, tells them “no” again. He says, in fact:  “Although Balak were to give me his whole house filled with gold and silver, I could not go beyond the command of the LORD my God.” (v.18).

That’s a pretty good answer for a non-Christian, non-Jewish Arab believer, right?   But then something happens.   We don’t know why he does it, but Balaam said he would pray about it one more night.  This time the LORD tells him to go with the envoy back to Balak, and to wait only for God’s next instructions about the Israelites.  So, this is where the pick up the story, as Balaam sets out toward Moab, riding his trusty donkey.   And this is where our story picks up this morning.

We join with Balaam on his journey toward Moab and something very strange, complicated and confusing is happening.   Either Balaam has misread God’s mind, or God has changed his mind (which God certainly can do and does several times in the Hebrew Bible, particularly when he “repented” or “changed his mind” about creating humans {Gen. 6: 4}.   What is even more important for us to observe is, as the story goes,  God gets very angry with old Balaam’s decision to answer King Balak’s summons.    Interestingly when the text tells us “God's anger was kindled because he was going..” (Num 22:22 NRS), the Hebrew taken literally could read: “God’s nose was burning hot!”   What an amazing and alarming picture this is:  God gets angry and anger is one of the seven deadly sins!   I told you this would get “complicated.”    This gets complicated because, the anger being expressed in the text is what Bible scholars call “the divine anger” and while anger can indeed be a sin, it is not always a sin.   The divine anger being expressed here, and at many other places in the Bible is a “righteous” indignation and is motivated by God’s love, not sin.  

With this understanding of God’s anger, we can see that God sends an angel to block the road.  But the funny thing is that Balaam cannot see the sword-wielding angel in the middle of the road, but the poor old donkey can.  So what does the donkey do?   The donkey tries to go around, off the road, runs into a field.  Not sure what in the world is going on, Balaam takes out his stick and strikes the animal trying to get him back on the road.    A little further down the road the same thing happens, but this time the donkey sideswipes a stone wall scraping Balaam’s leg.   With a scratch on his leg, Balaam gives the burro a good lashing again.   But then a third time the angel appeared, but this time the donkey can’t get around and lays down.    Balaam strikes him again, but now the deadly sin shows up.   Our text seems to imply that Balaam is so mad, he’s doesn’t  realize “the Lord has opened the mouth of the donkey” (vs. 28) and his donkey is talking to him(vs. 28).   He continues growing in his rage and tells the donkey:  “Because you made a fool out of me I wish I had my sword in my hand and I’d kill you right now! (29). 

What is most important for us in this story is that it is out of the mouth of this “dumb” animal that we a most intelligent challenge to examine our own human anger.  Do you see it?  “What have I done to you that deserves you beating me three times (vs. 28)?  Am I not the same donkey you have ridden all your life?  Have I ever been like this before?”   As an ESPN football broadcaster says:  C’Mom, Man!   O.K.  Balaam lost it.  Most all of us, have at some time or another have lost it?   Haven’t most of us taken our frustration out on someone?

We can’t be sure what Balaam was really mad about.  It is God who had told him twice not to go to Moab, but he believes God has changed his mind.  Maybe they threatened him, or the envoy made him “an offer he couldn’t refuse.”  Whatever happened, we do know that all of us have been there when life went off in a direction Balaam had not counted on, he started to take his anger out on the poor little donkey.   Who hasn’t been so angry at something or someone?   Or who hasn’t been the recipient of someone else’s anger, which seemed unfair, whether it was justified or not?

·         Haven’t we all got angry at the invasive sales call who was just a person trying to make a living? 

·         Haven’t we all been mad at someone, but did not realize what was else was going on?

·         Haven’t we all been both the angry person and the person who had to bear another person’s rage?

I recall once trying to find a parking space in a heavy populated city in Germany.  I had waited about 15 minutes and then turned into the first space that came open.  While getting out of my car, a German woman comes up to me enraged and shouting.  I could only guess what she was saying and when I did get a word in I responded, “I’m sorry I only speak English.”  Hearing my words, she calmed down and walked away.   Thank God! 

THE CHOICE IN OUR ANGER

We’ve all been there on both sides of anger and we know that anger can be a very complicated issue.  Christian moral teaching throughout the history of the church reminds us that there are always “two sides” with anger:  Every one of us has been Balaam, and unfortunately, every one of us has also been the poor donkey.  

But not only are there two sides to anger, there are also two possibilities:  Anger in and of itself is not a sin.   Anger can be a great force for good in the world.   Didn’t Jesus get angry when he cleaned out the temple of the money changers?   Doesn’t Jesus also get angry when the religious leaders kept following the Law without love and compassion?  We also know that if people don’t speak up and speak out against evil and injustice in this world, things will get worse, won’t they?  Our fallen sinful world needs for us to get angry at times when we are angry in the right way and for the right reasons.  In the Bible, Paul even tells the Ephesians that they should “Be angry, but do not sin.  Do not let the sun go down on your anger (Eph 4:26).   Phyllis Diller, the comedian even recommended to married couples that they would “be better off to stay up and fight, than to let themselves go to bed mad.”   Scripture and human wisdom reminds us, that anger is not in and of itself a sin, but it can become a sin.  And when it does it is one of the most deadly. 

In Genesis 4, we read how Cain killed his own brother Abel because of anger.  In that story we read how the LORD came to Cain confronting his wrong-headed anger straight on: “Why are you angry and why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; it’s desire is for you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4: 6-7).   This very graphic description of anger as “sin lurking at the door” is another very revealing picture of the very complicated, complex, and even paradoxical nature of “anger”.   But it also gives us an important insight:  In the moment of anger we make a choice to let “anger” master us or we decide to master it.    Can our Old Testament story about the talking donkey give us some insight in how we can get angry, but not sin?

For a clue on how to look into this story for a hidden truth, we need to know how a 5^th century Christian leader named John Cassian once defined anger in terms of spiritual blindness.   Cassian once wrote: “For any reason whatsoever, the movement of anger may boil over and blind the eyes of the heart.”    Could it be that this boiling over of anger that becomes “blindness” is exactly what kept Balaam from seeing what the donkey saw?   Perhaps he was in some way “blinded”, not just to the angel of the LORD, but to the LORD whom he needed most to settle with----both blind to the messenger and blind to the message God was trying to get through to him.  (This Idea and the idea of this sermon is from Ted Smith’s “From Anger to Patience”, First Presbyterian Church, Catersville, GA, 2/21/10; http://www.cartersvillepres.org/sermons.html ).

Indeed, great spiritual leaders have said that this is exactly how human anger grows.  The deadly sin of anger grows out of a “blindness” in our hearts – when either we are blind to God, blind to our own shortcomings, or when we are blind those around us.   It is in our spiritual “blindness” that we start to use anger to abuse others, to “kick the cat” (or to beat the donkey, whichever the case may be).   As Will Willimon has written, in his book “Sinning Like a Christian: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins:  “Perhaps all sins….are paradoxical.  On the one hand anger can be righteous indignation at injustice; (but) on the other hand, anger can be that blind rage in which we see nothing but ourselves…. Anger is surely one of the most self-delusional and destructive, usually self-destructive and potentially violent, of the Seven Sins.” 

Whenever anger becomes “blind rage”, when we lash out beyond all reason and we choose only to see what we want to see, this is when we have decided to “give in” to our anger and  refused to try to “master it”, as God told Cain.     In this way, anger is no longer a normal, emotional human response to hurt and injustice, but it now has become one of the 7 most deadly sins.

CONTROLING OUR ANGER

If the sin of anger is connected to our inability to see what we need to see, then the control of our anger must be connected to being able to see what we need most to see.

 Poet Mary Rose O’Reilly tells about a Quaker friend of hers who, despite her pacifist beliefs struggled with anger.   She says her friend was sitting in a Quaker meeting one day (that’s a worship service for you and me!) when she noticed a man across the aisle she did not recognize.  She assumed him to be perhaps an emissary from the NRA, the National Rifle Association, because he was wearing one of those T-shirts that read, “Support the Right to Bear Arms.”  It made her furious! Her anger began to rise. She says her friend stewed during the whole meeting, building up quite a headache.  Later in the fellowship hall, her friend discovered that she had misread the man’s shirt, which instead proclaimed a comic takeoff, “Support the Right to Arm Bears.”

 O’Reilley goes on to add:  “So much of our anger is based on misunderstanding.   It’s not what see, but what we think we see, what we interpret, and construct in our own minds that causes so much pain in our own (heads) and in the world where we act out our misinterpretations.”   (The Barn at the End of the World, p.200).  Our popular culture often makes it easier to frame issues and see difference in ways that make us constantly mad at each other.  We need a different set of eyes in our soul to see our way through life to resist the sin of anger. 

In the film, The Mission, a true but tragic story about the colonization of South America, we find these two different ways of “seeing” contrasted in dramatic fashion.   Rodrigo, is a slave trader played by Robert De Niro, comes home to find his woman sleeping with his brother.   In a fit of rage, Rodrigo kills his brother Felipe and watches him die.  Later, feeling great remorse in prison and wanted to end his life, a Jesuit priest, Father Gabriel visits him and Rodrigo finds salvation and decides to become a priest.  In working out his salvation, Rodrigo goes with Father Gabriel beyond the Falls to work with the Guarini Indians, whom earlier he’d been capturing so he’d get rich off of the slave trade. 

In a terrible turn of events, the peaceful village where Rodrigo and the other Jesuits minister to the Indians is threatened by extinction; as an army bears down to force into slavery or death.  Rodrigo goes to Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, and tells him his decision to take up arms to protect the village.   Father Gabriel turns in righteous anger, saying “You should have never become a priest!”  Our Lord said, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword!”   “Can’t see that this is wrong?  You have given your life to God and God is love!”   (Illustration recounted from Rebecca K. DeYoung’s Glittering Vices, Brazos Press, 2009, p. 126).

The story ends tragically as the soldiers destroy the village and kill all the Priests.   There is no good ending.  But very troubling is not only the killing of priests and Indians, but the great lasting tragedy is that Rodrigo’s can’t see beyond his own anger and fails to trust everything into God’s hands and keep following Jesus, just as he had promised in his vows. 

In our story of Balaam and his talking donkey, the donkey speaks the final word.  (Which means that God is really doing the talking, as donkey’s don’t talk).  And what I believe God is saying through this donkey to Balaam and to us is basically this:  “I’m the one who has been with you from day one.  Don’t you trust me by now?  Don’t try to play God with your anger.  Get control of yourself.  Open your eyes and see who really with you on the road of life.   I might look like a “dumb” donkey to you, I see something you don’t.   Even in your times of great pain and hurt in this world and also in your struggles to know and accept God’s will, you can still choose to control your anger.    Take your anger straight to God.  Only God’s angel has the right to carry the sword of anger.   Don’t try to play God with your anger.   The only way through is to Surrender.   Give your anger to God and he will give you his peace.  ^“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."  ²⁰ No, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom 12:19-21 NRS)

Enough said: Donkey Out.   Amen.    

THE SIN OF NEVER HAVING ENOUGH

A sermon based on Luke 12: 13-21

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin,

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

March 13, 2011,  Lent 1^st  Sunday

Right after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of Communism in Eastern Europe, then Chancellor of West Germany Helmut Kohl’s public words made headlines: “Marx is dead; Jesus is Alive!”    In a moment of great euphoria Europe shared the Chancellor’s enthusiasm about the death of Karl Marx’s communism, but I’m not sure they shared his enthusiasm about Jesus.   

I’ll never forget the question put to me by a young German who worked for Emergency Medical Services and was a member and deacon of the German Baptist Church where I was pastor.  He came to me, his new American Pastor and asked: “How is it possible to be a rich American and still be a Christian?” 

His question floored me.  I didn’t see it coming.  The only people he had known that owned their own homes and drove their own cars were communist bosses who enjoyed luxury while they oppressed the masses, keeping them nearly impoverished.  Now, this young man was wondering: with all the new opportunities of freedom, democracy and the coming growth of free markets and capital, he wondered: how will people who are getting rich keep from losing their faith? 

This brave new, free world seemed threatening and frightening.  The increasing excesses of western style capitalism seemed more challenging to the Christian faith than communism had been.   At least under communism, the lines of faith and unfaith were clear, firm, and obvious.  Faith even seemed stronger, at least among the faithful.  But under capitalism faith was being threatened in a whole, new, and even more dangerous way.  Now people had an unlimited chance to make money.   Under communism, most all the people had basically the same economic status and were politically equal, and were good neighbors to each other out of necessity, but now under democratic capitalism, people no longer felt the need to know or care for their neighbors, and equality was the new myth, because now, most people were trying to outsmart and get ahead of each other in a dog-eat-dog world.

  

WHAT’S BAD ABOUT WANTING MONEY

A very similar perspective on money and wealth was heard on lips of Jesus by his disciples, when he said: “That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 19:23).

Why does Jesus say such a negative thing about people who have or want money?  Our text today gives us a clue.  In this story, Jesus tells about a man who starts out like most of us.  He’s a hard working man, working for his daily living and he’s a farmer, living off of the crops he raises.  Then something happens.  Evidently, he has a made a bumper crop.  He suddenly finds himself without enough space to store the harvest that keeps coming in.  So, what does he do?  Instead of sharing his good fortune, which is far beyond his needs with the poor around him, he decides to build storage barns.   We are told that he “tears down barns and builds bigger ones.”  He is not doing this for an investment for his old age, but he’s doing this so he can retire early, “take life easy” and enjoy the good life of eating, drinking and being merry.”   But just as soon as this guy makes it on easy street, something happens.  God comes calling and says to him in very uncomfortable language: “You fool?  Tonight you are going to die and so what do you think is going to happen to all that wealth you’ve stored up for yourself?” 

There are challenging images in this text.  What this guy is doing is what any good, red-blooded, business person would do on Wall Street or any other Street in America.   This guy has made some good returns on his investments.  He has invested his profits to grow capital, to protect his assets.   He looks like a “smart” guy, doesn’t he?  He made his money honestly.  He was hard working.  He invested, expanded and protected his assets.  He is planning for the future.  He is storing up an Annuity so he can relax, retire, kick back and enjoy the rest of his life.  What’s wrong with this?  Isn’t this what most people try to do?  Doesn’t this make him look “smart”?  

One of my teachers once said that “you’d better be careful when you decide in your own mind who the smart folks are.  Your decision about who you think is “smart” may say more about who you are, than who they are.”  (From “Luke: A Kingdom of Surprises; by Cecil Sherman, Broadman Press, 1985).   It is rather interesting, isn’t it, that this guy of whom most of us would call smart, God calls a “fool”!   Most Bibles qualify this by labeling him “The Rich Fool”.  I guess if you’re going to be called a fool, it sounds better to at least be called “rich”.   

It is said that Jesus had more to about money than about heaven or hell.   We all know that money is a necessity in our culture for us to buy the goods and services we need to sustain our life and living.   We should know that neither Jesus nor the Bible is against “earning” or “having”; nor is it technically against being or becoming rich.  The problem is not with money itself, but the problem is with “the love of money” which said to be “the root of all kinds of evil“ (1 Tim. 6:10, NRSV).    We can see a good example of how the “love of money” can work against human relationship just before this parable of the Rich Fool.  This parable was prompted by a real-life situation, where someone in the crowd listening to Jesus makes a very legitimate complaint against their brother, saying: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”   This poor fellow is attempting to gain some “leverage” over his older brother’s legal right to double the amount of inheritance he is getting, according to the Law in Deuteronomy 21:17.  But Jesus doesn’t fall for this trap.  He doesn’t want to get into this family’s internal affairs.  “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”   Instead of challenging the Law’s legitimacy or settling this man’s claim, Jesus makes a claim on this man’s heart:  "Take care!   Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (Luk 12:15 NRS).     What set off Jesus’ telling this parable, was not “who had the money”, or whether the older brother had a right to it, but the issue was what was going on in this younger brother’s heart.

The sin of “greed”, also called “Avarice” (Latin), has been officially declared one of the top 7 deadliest and most destructive sins.   What is so deadly about this sin of greed is not the money we have or hold in our hands, but the sin of greed is about money or wealth we inordinately desire and what it can do to our soul and our heart.    In other words, the most foolish thing about money, wealth and possessions is not that we every really possess them, but that the desire for money, wealth and possession can possess us.   This is why Jesus’ warning to the brother was “life does not consist in the abundance of possessions (Luke 12:15).  This is why Jesus warned in this story of barn builder, than the danger was that  he had “stored treasure up for himself, but he was not rich toward God”   (12:21).  The problem with Greed in the New Testament vision of morality is not really about what we have.  It’s about what we often don’t have when we become greedy for more and more wealth.    All the many spiritual blessings the Bible says a greedy person will not have, all starts with this one thing the greedy person never has:  When you are greedy you have become the kind of person who, no matter how much you have, you never, ever, have enough.  

WHEN ALL YOU WANTED ISN’T ENOUGH

Today, in this time of great economic recession, we know more than we want to know about the dangers of greed.   One thing that should be made clear is that the source of our economic downfall and recession was not because people wanted to get rich, but it came about primarily because rich people, both on Wall Street and in many large Banks and Mortgage Firms, who were already dominating the market, where already rich and wanted to get even richer. 

Even when this was done on backs of the poor who could not afford what was being sold to them and even when it was putting the entire free-market system at risk, the slogan became enshrined and echoed on the street and in the movies that “Greed is Good!---good for the market, good for America, and of course, good for their pocket books.

The tragic story of Pozi-schemer Bernie Madoff and how he stole billions of dollars from client investors is a case in point that the primary motivation of his greed was not to get rich, but to get richer, and richer and richer.  Bernie Madoff was already a very wealthy millionaire investment broker making over 100 million a year before he started his fraudulent practices that robbed people of 20 Billion dollars in cash and over 50 Billion on paper.   In a recent interview with the New York Magazine, the interviewer put the question to Madoff that everyone was a mystery no one could answer: Why did he do it?  

The New York Magazine article opens in a very interesting manner.  You are in the cell with Madoff overhearing a private discussion.    The article begins: 

            “Bernard L. Madoff is in therapy. Each week, he waits for the signal that prisoners are allowed to leave their housing units, then he walks the five minutes from his “room,” as he calls it, to the psychiatric unit at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, where he can unburden himself. The sessions are often teary.

            “How could I have done this?” he asks. “I was making a lot of money. I didn’t need the money. [Am I] a flawed character?”….

            Madoff has not tried to evade blame.  He has made a full confession, telling me again and again that nothing justifies what he did.  And yet, for Madoff, that doesn’t settle the matter.  He feels misunderstood. He can’t bear the thought that people think he’s evil. “I’m not the kind of person I’m being portrayed as...”

….Sitting alone in his prison khakis with his therapist, Madoff seeks reassurance.

            “Everybody on the outside kept claiming I was a sociopath,” Madoff told her one day.

            “I asked her, ‘Am I a sociopath?’ ”

He waited expectantly, his eyelids squeezing open and shut, that famous tic.

            “She said, ‘You’re absolutely not a sociopath. You have morals. You have remorse.’ ” Madoff paused as he related this to his interviewer.  His voice settled. He said, “I am a good person.”

            Few would agree that Bernie Madoff is a good person.   It is much easier to say that Berine Madoff is a monster, who is unlike most of us.   He betrayed thousands of investors, bankrupted charities and hedge funds.  The effects of his Ponzi scheme spread across five continents. And he brought down his own family with him, which is a more intimate kind of betrayal, causing him to lose his wife and depressing one of his sons enough to commit suicide.”  I guess you could still say that Bernie Madoff was a good person in that he had “a great work ethic” but “he had no ethic in his work.”

           

But I’ve not yet answered the one question that is still a mystery:  Why did he do?  Listen to what Madoff said in his own words:

            “ It feeds your ego. All of a sudden, these banks which wouldn’t give you the time of day, they’re willing to give you a billion dollars.” “It wasn’t like I needed the money. It was just that I thought it was a temporary thing, and all of a sudden, everybody is throwing billions of dollars at you, saying, ‘Listen, if you can do this stuff for us, we’ll be your clients forever.”  (http://nymag.com/news/features/berniemadoff-2011-3/index2.html.)

There you have it for what it really is: GREED!  “Watch out!”  Jesus said: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed!” (NIV).  Bernie Madoff was, in his own words, a good man, a family man, and a very rich man who in one single moment, “let down his guard” and got caught up in giving in to the sin of Greed.  What will you do when the opportunity for greed arises?  

The story is told that a Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper has stolen 10 million bucks from him. The bookkeeper is deaf. It was the reason he got the job in the first place, since it was assumed that a deaf bookkeeper would not be able to hear anything that he’d ever have to testify about in court. When the Godfather goes to shake down the bookkeeper about his missing 10 million bucks, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language.

The Godfather asks the bookkeeper, “Where is the 10 million bucks you embezzled from me?”
The attorney, using sign language, asks the bookkeeper where the 10 million bucks is hidden.
The bookkeeper signs back, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The attorney tells the Godfather: “He says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
That’s when the Godfather pulls out a 9 mm pistol, puts it to the bookkeeper’s temple, cocks it, and says, “Ask him again!”
The attorney signs to the underling, “He’ll kill you for sure if you don’t tell him!”
The bookkeeper signs back, “Okay! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo’s back yard in Queens!”
The Godfather asks the attorney, “Well, what’d he say?”
The attorney replies, “He says you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger”  (As told in Homiletics.com).

In his lesser known book, “When All You’ve Wanted Isn’t Enough,” Rabbi Harold Kushner said: "Money and power do not satisfy that unnamable hunger of the soul. Even the rich and the powerful find themselves yearning for something more. They know something the rest of us have yet to discover. Even if we have it all, we still won't be happy." (As quoted in  a sermon by Howard Olds, “From Greed to Generosity,” in Faith Breaks, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., 3/12/2006). 

WHAT MONEY COULD NEVER BUY

But the message that Jesus leaves us in this parable of the “Rich Fool” is an even greater warning than “money can’t buy happiness!”  

 A reporter recently asked a young Wall Street broker on the fast track what his chief goal was in life. "To make my first million dollars by the time I am 28," was the answer.

"Then what?" the reporter continued.

"Well, I suppose I would like to become a multi-millionaire." The news man pressed on.

"Then what?" 

Beginning to get a bit irritated, the broker said, "I want to have a family and enough money to retire at 40 and travel around the world."   

Do you see the next question coming?  "Then what?"  

Exasperated, the would be multi-millionaire said, "Well, like everyone else, I guess someday I will die!"

Of course, now the question comes still again: "Then What?"

Again, the greatest problem Jesus had with the rich fool who built bigger and bigger barns is not he had possessions – but it was that his possession had him so much that he had no time for that which was most important---the needs of his own soul.   One thing that wealth, riches and money can never do save your soul.    Greed became his sin because he had used all this time for making and keeping his wealth.  He had done nothing that made him “rich toward God!”

"No one can serve two masters.”  Jesus said.  “Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Mat 6:24 NIV, cp. Luke 16: 13). 

Again, the greatest problem with Greed is not what you do with money, wealth and prosperity, but the greatest problem with money is what you can’t do with it.  You can’t serve God and money.  You can’t save your soul with money.   You can’t even buy one second of time with all the money in world.  You can’t make somebody love you for who you are.  When it comes to time and eternity, when money is only used to make more and more of it, it has no real value at all.  This is why Jesus has a different command for his disciples.   Rather than build bigger and bigger just to make more and more, “Instead, strive for the kingdom and these things will be given to you as well.”  "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³ Sell your possessions, and give alms (to the poor).  Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:32-34 NRS).  The whole point he is making is that giving your heart to God rather than to money and to greed, is not settling for less, but it is waiting for and working for more---more than money could ever buy.  

Do you know the name of Orville Kelly, founder of the organization “Make Today Count?”   Orville was faced with the tragic news that had terminal cancer.  After struggling with anger, denial and depression, one single thought dominated his being until the day he died. "Make Today Count"   As Orville Kelley struggled with this verdict on his own life, he finally came to affirm that the news he had received became a “life sentence” rather than a "death sentence".  After his terminal diagnosis he came to lived, love and to make his days count like never before and he helped many others do the same.

Learning how to “count” differently is how we learn to overcome the temptation of greed in our lives. The Rich Fool got the shock of his life when Almighty God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you..."   Just then, when his end was announced, he realized he’d been counting the wrong things---things that didn’t count nor matter at all.   He was a called a fool because he should have known. He should have known what mattered and what counted most to God as well. 

“What does it profit, if a person gains the whole world and loses or forfeits themselves?”  (Luke 9:25).  This is the one question from Jesus that the greedy person forgets to ask and to answer.   And the answer can’t be made with the riches in our hands, but it can only be answered with the riches in our hearts.  The price on your soul is a “cost” the currency all the world’s wealth can’t pay.  It can’t be paid because your soul belongs to the God, who requires nothing less than your whole heart.   God will not give you back what you haven’t given him.   Amen.