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The eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 09/18/2016
BEING THANKFUL FOR BAD EXAMPLES
Sermon on Luke 16:1-13, by David Zersen
Generally, Christians direct their children to people who set good examples in the hopes that such positive images will pay off in exemplary off-springs. “Why can’t you be more like Uncle John or your cousin Mary?” challenge the parents. “They would never do anything like that, and neither should you!” Of course, you can hear the children mumble, “… Uncle John, that weirdo, or Cousin Mary, that freak…” Why is it that the “perfect” (notice I’m putting that word in quotes) -- the “perfect” people always seem left-of-center for those who are being encouraged to emulate them? Is it that we have suspicions about “perfect” people?
Some of the attempts to single out good examples for our benefit are well-intended, but let me suggest that there’s another dimension in our human experience which Christian should also take seriously. Recently, I switched to some off-beat TV channel and discovered Jimmy Swaggart leading the audience in song. In the world of music, Swaggart, now in his 80s has a remarkable heritage. He is the cousin of “Great Balls of Fire” singer, Jerry Lee Lewis. In his own, he is a keyboard artist who plays and sings Southern Gospel with the best of them. He knows when to cue in the orchestra or the singers, when to give his voice power or sweetness, and when to shed a tear. You may wonder, if you know his story, why in the world he should still be leading Christian audiences in song and prayer. He was the guy who was caught cavorting with a prostitute at a motel and a disgraced colleague, Marvin Gorman, let the air out of the tires on his car so that he couldn’t escape before the media, called by Gorman, showed up with cameras. Swaggart was excommunicated from his Assemblies of God denomination, but he still summons the faithful to altar calls on his own TV channel as an independent preacher. Part of me thought that Swaggart should hardly be allowed to be seen as a Christian leader before the TV lens. And then, I re-read today’s Gospel lesson, and I asked myself, “If not Swaggart, who?”
In today’s text, Jesus invites us to consider not a good example, but a bad one. There was an employee who had apparently mismanaged the monies with which he was entrusted, and he got fired. Perhaps he had loaned money to individuals at high rates of interest, a practice called usury and forbidden to Jews. In any case, he told borrowers that they could repay substantially less than they owed. It was a clever way to get some cash to feather his nest now that he was out of a job. This practice in itself was not wrong. What may have been evil was the usury that he had charged up-front. In any case, his former boss commends him for his shrewd ploy. And Jesus now surprises us by using this employee’s bad example to make a positive point. It’s not the first time that Jesus has done this. The tax collector in another parable has led a dishonest life, but he is commended because he humbles himself before God. The prodigal son has wasted his inheritance, but he is remembered positively because he recognizes his folly and asks for forgiveness. The woman caught in adultery has little to commend her in society, but she is called to our attention because she has the possibility to make a new beginning. Peter said and did a number of foolish things embarrassing for a disciple of Jesus, yet he remains a prominent character even though he often gave a bad example.
We tend to think that we should emulate only good examples, but, “truth be told,” as my mother-in-law used to say, there may be more bad examples in our fellowship of Christian friends than there are good ones. Would that be a problem for you? All of us know people who left the fellowship we call the church because for them it had too many hypocrites. There were people who gossiped, lied, acted dishonestly, visited prostitutes, snubbed friends, held unpopular points of view and spoke condescendingly about our best friend or spouse. How could they be Christians and why should they expect anyone to regard them as a model or positive example?
One of my favorite novels by the British author, Graham Greene, is The Power and the Glory. It takes place during that complex political era in Mexico when the Roman Catholic Church was being suppressed and priests were defrocked and even executed. Greene tells the story of a renegade priest who had fathered children in villages and was an alcoholic, but nevertheless was accepted by the faithful because, to use Green’s words, he could still “put God in people’s mouths!” It is an extreme example, but there are many others that should help us to reconstruct our image of appropriate models, the kind of people who are to be emulated and imitated. The wounded, troubled, broken and scandal-ridden people may be the ones who can best minister to us and to others. Many a pastor who knows the truth about people in a parish better than anyone else can testify to such a truth.
Personally, I think there is something inappropriate about the Roman Catholic practice of canonizing frail human beings as saints, claiming that they are worthy of recognition, of adulation, and of veneration because they theoretically performed at least two miracles and led an honorable life. Even if it were to be admitted that such satins sinned, it is not the same thing as seeking bad examples to be emulated largely because they like us also failed, or succumbed to temptation, trusted in money or sex, lost their faith and did things only Graham Green’s “whisky priest” could do. And why should Jesus or we, for that matter, single out bad examples for our attention? Surely because we can identify with them more than with so-called “perfect people” and because they have claimed enormous measures of God’s grace with which they can embrace us as well.
Each one of us knows more about our sin than about our own goodness. There are things we have done that have never been told, aspects of our character and personality that only God understands. I find it problematic that the current U.S. political campaign resorts to mudslinging in order to malign the opponent. The truth is that since I am not a perfect person, I may well want to be identified with the “deplorable types” rather than with some unlikely and impossible saintly types. Along with all of us, I have learned to confess, “Almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner confess unto you all my sins and iniquities.” That being the case, I’m wondering whether on a given Sunday morning there are more bad examples among us who are confessing their failures than there are good examples who exalt their piety as did the Pharisee in the temple. It would make for a wonderful fellowship of sinners.
The parables of Jesus often lift up bad examples for us because despite reprehensible aspects in their characters, they were also shrewd or humble or repentant or loving. There are no perfect people, yet beyond all our shortcomings, there are also qualities which only a gracious God can see. The God who loves us in Jesus by crucifying all that is worthy of death also generously offers us a new dimension of life. When we believe that in Jesus’ death and resurrection, a new way of thinking and living is open to us, then we are free to accept that power which turns bad examples into saved ones. We will never be perfect people, and we should never hold our actions and faith up to others, inviting their emulation. The practice of our discipleship is too complicated and flawed to invite veneration from others.
However, we can and should point people to Jesus, the one who encourages us bad examples to claim our ongoing need for forgiveness and our thankfulness for his grace. As we join together now at the Eucharistic table, we celebrate that we are broken bodies come to be made one healed and hope-filled body through the body of Christ our Lord.