Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 17:1-4
He’s dead now. Gone for a while. Long enough (in time) so I can tell his story. Removed enough (from any of you) so I can keep his secret. He was a married man….a family man….a devoutly spiritual man….a committed church man….a tender and truthful man….a tithing and talented man….but, in the later years of his life, a troubled and tormented man.
He was a pedophile. If “abuse” is the appropriate word to use in such circumstances, he abused once. Maybe only once. He was elderly and lonely at the time. The boy was vulnerable and trusting at the time. It happened. It was discovered. He was charged. The case was settled. How, I’d just as soon not say. Legally, he had his comeuppance. Financially, there was recompense. For years following, there was judicial vigilance. But there was no time served. Although his time on earth was probably shortened by what he put himself through, once the courts were done.
He used to talk to me about it. He acknowledged that the attraction was in the nature of an addiction. But he maintained he had never previously yielded to temptation. It was the yielding that grieved him, not the attraction. He knew it was wrong. He knew he was wrong. I heard his confession. I heard his repentance. The one thing I never heard from his lips was an excuse or an explanation. I’m not sure he ever knew why.
The concern that brought him to see me, time after time, was that he was unforgivable. And the text to which he referred, time after time, was this one about causing little ones to stumble…. especially the line that began: “It would be better for such a man if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” He was certain that was him. He was equally certain that such a fate awaited him. There was no question in his mind that he had stretched the elastic of divine mercy beyond the breaking point, to the degree that it would not be his….mercy, I mean.
I suppose his visits to my office were one way of hoping against hope. Or perhaps he came because I thought better of him than he thought of himself. Although it took me a while to get there. In the beginning, it was hard.
In my ministry, there is nothing I haven’t seen and nothing I haven’t heard. I guess when you’ve done a funeral for several plastic bags of body parts pulled from a dumpster, there’s not much you’ve missed. But I would have gladly missed the pedophilic confessions of this man who called me “friend.” For while nothing surprises me anymore, there are still a few things that bother me….as in “seriously” bother me.
We have been reading about the scandal of priestly pedophilia in the Roman Catholic church. Every day brings a new revelation. We are astounded by the numbers….the dollars….the cover-ups….the broad brushstrokes of guilt by association….and the repeated blows to the solar plexus of public trust. Like many of you, I am saddened. I am sickened. I am shamed.
But I am a preacher, not a reporter. And this is a sermon, not a news story. So I’ll not detail it, day by day….year by year….diocese by diocese….state by state. Clearly, it’s bigger than we thought and will get bigger still. There will be criminal actions taken and lawsuits filed. As to whether it will dismantle priestly celibacy, I doubt it. As to whether it will break the church, I also doubt it. But it will dent it badly (both in terms of dollars and in terms of members). And I can’t help but think of the ministry that won’t get done (and the people who won’t get served) because of all the time and money that this will require. If one inner-city Roman Catholic grade school is forced to close, or if one soup kitchen or warming shelter is shut down as a result of funds diverted to court actions and lawsuits, the price will have already been too high.
Just as I am not a reporter, I am also not a psychiatrist. Frankly, I do not know why someone becomes a pedophile or why the priesthood attracts them. My guess is that today’s villains were yesterday’s victims (meaning that they, themselves, may have been abused). And the church, in its kindness, has always opened its doors, its heart and its clerical ranks to victims. Garret Keizer, in a wonderful article in the Christian Century, writes:
It will not come as news to anyone who has attended church for more than five Sundays in a row that the polite culture and non-judgmental ethos of Christian community often exerts a powerful attraction for disturbed individuals of every kind, from the passively aggressive to the aggressively predatory. Such individuals tend to go for power vacuums with all the primal instincts of a shark.
What Keizer is saying is that the very things that make churches comfortable places to be…. namely the kindly and polite demeanor of the members….tend to create a haven for troubled individuals, both lay and clergy….who need a place to park their baggage, along with permission to unpack their pain. And as for the cover-ups, they are probably as understandable as they are unconscionable…. rooted as they are in the instinct for institutional survival.
Just as I am not a reporter or a psychiatrist, neither am I a denominational official. If I were Cardinal Law of Boston, I would resign. Not as a result of weighing the likelihood of being toppled by forces outside the church, but as a simple Christ-like gesture of sacrifice within the church. Somebody needs to take the anguish of the institution unto himself and tip the tide of the scandal from incrimination to healing.
Among Methodist clergy, I have never in 37 years encountered a pedophile. But that does not mean that celibacy and fidelity define us all. We are not without colleagues who have stepped across a line….going where they should not go….doing what they should not do….sexually speaking. As concerns the reactions of my superiors to such clergy, I have seen the days of the “soft line” (as in “send ‘em for counseling, then ship ‘em to another church”). And I have seen the days of the “hard line” (as in “suspend ‘em, remove ‘em, and make it so hard to restore ‘em so that you never again have to deal with ‘em”). For the last 15 or 20 years, we have taken the “hard line,” sometimes turning the church into an institution that shoots its wounded and then leaves them there to die. But it has kept us free from lawsuits.
Are there preachers who stepped over the line 20 years ago and are still preaching? Sure there are. And are there preachers who have been mustered out in the last decade who could do wonderful and trustworthy work now if given a second chance? Sure there are. But given the present tribulations of our Roman Catholic brethren, I can see the value of erring on the side of vigilance (institutionally speaking). And it gives me one more reason to praise God that I was never bitten by the bug to be a bishop.
What I have finally conceded is that every sexual sin involving clergy is an abuse of power. Which is strange, given that most clergy don’t think they have any power. But it appears that we possess more than we know….that people will say “yes” to us, because how could anything “dirty” come from one so “holy”? Or, as one woman said after an affair with her pastor: “Somehow, it seemed like I was going to bed with God.”
Which seems utterly ridiculous to me. But it does prove that a strange mystique and mythology is still out there. When I think of Paciorek brothers submitting to that same little priest for so many years….never telling their father….never telling their mother….never telling each other….hating every minute….fearing every encounter….despising the priest….but never resisting the priest…. I can’t get over the incongruity of it all. I mean, the Paciorek boys were big, strapping athletes….All-State football players. Any one of them could have pinned that priest to the wall until he whimpered for mercy. But none of them did. Because of who he was. And because of the powerful aura he carried.
All of which leads me to say something I never though I’d say from a pulpit. If you are ever encouraged or enticed to become romantically or sexually involved in a way that sends funny signals to your value system or doesn’t quite square with your understanding of the Gospel, do not disconnect the radar that is sounding in your soul, just because the romantic or sexual overture is being made by someone wearing a collar, carrying a Bible, or answering to some variation of the title “Reverend.”
Now, back to our text. For while I am not a reporter, a shrink or a briefcase bureaucrat for institutional Christianity, I am a fair-to-middling student of the scriptures. So hear the word again:
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “It is impossible that scandals not occur. But woe be to the one through whom they occur. It will be better for such a one to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble. So be on your guard.” (Anchor Bible translation of Luke 17:1-3a)
All right, let’s break it down.
First, Jesus seems to accept the inevitability of scandal (a realistic posture, methinks), but differentiates between those who cause it and those who are caught up in it.
Second, the “little ones” may or may not be children. Some have suggested that the phrase should be translated “innocent ones.” Most likely, the “little ones” are those who are relatively new to faith.
Third, a millstone (“mulos onikos” in the Greek) was a grinding stone of sufficient size so as to require a donkey in harness to pull it.
Fourth, the “sea” was especially feared in Jewish culture….not because it was wet….not because it was cold….not because it was deep….but because it was deemed to be godless. Heaven was a place where there would be no more sea (Rev. 1:1). Which explains why drowning was a Roman punishment, but never a Jewish one.
Taken as a whole, this text suggests that what we are reading in our daily papers is serious business. Also sinful business. In recent years, it has become commonplace to lump all sin together….suggesting not only that all of us do it, but that all of“it” is equally grievous to God. We remember the days when our Catholic playmates differentiated mortal sins from venial sins (even though we didn’t understand the distinction and secretly suspected that they didn’t, either). But we listened as they told us which sins required how many “Our Fathers” and how many “Hail Marys,” further suggesting a quantitative hierarchy of depravity. So in something of a theological revolt, we Protestants said: “Stop quantifying and start repenting. Sin is sin. And God hates it all.”
But one keeps running up against texts in the New Testament that suggest, where sin is concerned, maybe God hates some of it more than the rest of it. Which is why I was fascinated to read a recent editorial by Greg Jones entitled “Tough Love for Sexual Abusers.” As most of you know, Greg Jones has preached from this pulpit and currently serves as the Dean of Duke Divinity School (where he guides and monitors the progress of Wil Cantrell). Greg writes (in point five of a six-point essay):
We need to be able to claim that we are all sinners without claiming that all sins are equivalent. Betrayals of trust, especially in the presence of power differentials and by people in whom sacred authority has been vested, are especially grievous sins that call for clear accountability and expectations of true repentance.
Ah, Greg, well said. But will such repentance….however “true”….be sufficient to turn the heart of God, given earlier words about “millstones,” “drownings” and “seas?” Clearly, Jesus is venting anger. But is Jesus also voicing policy?
This is not for me to say. I know which way I lean. Most of you know which way I lean. But how best to say it now? Let me try this.
Go back to my friend (with whose story I began). He readily identified himself as a sinner. But I meet lots of sinners (starting with the one in the mirror). Most of them explain their sin….excuse their sin….rationalize their sin….find somebody on whom to blame their sin….and readily compare their sin with the sin of others, in such a way as to emerge smelling more like a rose than rose fertilizer (as in “you think I’m bad, you should see….”).
But this fellow did none of the above. No rationalizations. No comparisons. In fact, I never met anybody who felt more remorse or expressed more repentance. Which slowly won over my hardened heart. I had compassion on him then. In death, I have compassion on him now.
I suppose it’s possible that God will take the hard line….with drowning as the consequence for fondling. That’s what the text seems to say. But (speaking only for me) I find it hard to live with the notion that I am more compassionate than God.
Note: The comments of Duke Divinity School’s Dean, L. Gregory Jones, can be read in Christian Century under the title “Tough Love for Sexual Abusers” (April 24-May 1, 2002). The same can be said for Garret Keizer’s comments under the heading “Career Ministry.” The translation of Luke 17:1-4 is by Joseph Fitzmyer in the Anchor Bible Series. Final thoughts about being “more compassionate than God” were stimulated by Kathleen Norris in her prize-winning Amazing Grace.
