On Starting What You Can’t Finish 2/17/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Luke 14:25-33

Since the road we call “Lent” ends in Jerusalem….and since what comes to an end in Jerusalem is far more bloody than it is pretty….this is buckle-up-the-boots-and-get-serious-about-the-journey time, especially if it’s the “Jesus Road” we’re traveling. Which may explain the harsh tone of the speech here.

Our text begins with the observation that there are “great multitudes following Jesus.” How many is that? You tell me. I mean, the Bible doesn’t tell me. So your word is pretty much as good as anybody’s.

Certainly, “great multitudes” means “more than a few.” And not all of them, equally committed. Some are signed for the duration. Others are merely joyriding. There’s a world of difference between the consecrated and the curious. Get a group of people surging down Maple Road and I’d go two or three blocks with anybody (just to find out what was going on). But I don’t know how much further I’d go if someone turned around, stared me down, and said: “If anyone follows me and does not hate his own mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple.” No, I don’t know how much further I’d go after a speech like that.

Those would be fighting words to me. To you too, I suppose. And assuming Jesus uttered them, they must have been fighting words to those who heard them then. Meaning that they didn’t rest easy on the ear. For while Matthew and Luke got them from the same source, Matthew (who never softened anything) softened them….taking out the words “he who does not hate” and substituting “he who loves father and mother more than me.” But most everybody agrees that Luke’s rendering is primary while Matthew’s is secondary….meaning that “hate” is the word Luke wanted and “hate” is the word Luke used. If you’ve got a Bible with a watered-down translation, chances are pretty good that your version is wrong. Less offensive, maybe. More palatable, to be sure. But still wrong. “You want to follow me,” said Jesus, “you’d better be prepared to hate family.”

I don’t like hearing that. I don’t like saying that. Nobody else likes it much, either. Even the scholars who translated it correctly, apologized for it profusely. William Barclay (who is right more often than most) says: “We must not take the words of Jesus with cold and unimaginative literalness. Eastern language is always as vivid as the human mind can make it. When Jesus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does mean that literally. He means that no other love in life can compare with the love we give to him.”

While George Buttrick says: “The word ‘hate’ repels. It is a staggering word, but it was intended to stagger. The word means that we are to act ‘as if’ we hate our loved ones whenever the claims of home come into conflict with the claims of Jesus.” I take that to mean that if you are convinced Jesus is calling you into ministry while your daddy is calling you into dentistry, you’ve got conflicting claims between home and Jesus.

To which Joseph Fitzmyer (Luke’s primary translator) says: “In most cases, the love of Jesus and the love of parents are not likely to be incompatible….and to hate one’s parents, as such, would be monstrous. But Christ’s followers must be ready, if necessary, to act toward those dearest to them as if they were objects of hatred.”

You see, even those who know the text best, dance around it most. Not just because they hate the word “hate,” but because they love the word “family.” As do we all. I can’t imagine a more cherished institution than the family. People get elected to public office on pro-family platforms. Churches have Family Night suppers and build Family Life Centers (bigger, in square footage, than their sanctuaries). And while few of us are violent by nature, most of us would become so, were it necessary to protect our family. Blood is thick. We’ll fight family. We’ll even hurt family. Until someone else tries to fight or hurt family. Then we’ll fight them. I once heard somebody say: “I can say that to my brother, but you can’t say that to my brother. Them’s fighting words.”

But it is also true that just as the family is the source of our greatest blessing, the family is (sometimes) the source of our greatest damage. Most psychiatrists will tell you that. So will veteran preachers who have been around long enough to hear the horror stories of the really dysfunctional families and have fallen to their knees, not only to pray, but to help sweep up the pieces. I have heard it said….especially in communities like this one….that there are families who give too much. And I have also heard it said….especially in communities like this one….that there are families who ask too much. William Willimon (Duke University) writes:

            I have decided, since coming to the university and working with young people, that one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is the reassurance that all of the parent’s hopes, dreams and aspirations are not resting upon that child. Whenever the parent complains to the child that “I gave you…. (therefore) you owe me,” that family has failed. And one of the greatest gifts children can give parents (if and when they grow up) is the reassurance that their development is not totally dependent on the competency (or blamelessness) of the parents.

Still, for reasons that often take years (at the rate of $135 per hour) to unravel, not everybody who starts in a family, finishes in a family. Nor does everyone who craves one, get one. Like the eunuch that Phillip meets in Acts 8:26-40. He is Ethiopian, African and sexless….cut off (literally) from any possibility of children, and from any possible place in the temple. For in Deuteronomy 23:1, we read that “a eunuch shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.” Which means that there will be no family for him, biologically or ecclesiastically. He has been to Jerusalem. But Jerusalem would not let him in. Leading me to wonder what it’s like, when you knock on the doors of Mother Church, and even Mother Church says(however quietly): “No, no, no, no.”

But Phillip meets him in the desert, where he is sitting in his chariot reading a scroll. And somewhere in the conversation, Phillip makes a connection for the Ethiopian between the words he is reading and the Word who is Jesus. Leading the Ethiopian to request baptism. And leading Phillip to mutter: “They were upset in Jerusalem when I baptized those Samaritans. They’re probably gonna kill me for this.”

Well, baptism was a moot point, given that they were in a desert. And where are you going to find water in a desert? Which was when the eunuch said: “Look, here is water.” And right there in the desert, a white man baptized a black man….a Jew baptized an Ethiopian….and a follower of Jesus baptized a eunuch. Who, through baptism, found a new family. What’s the point? Try this. Maybe at the end of the day….or even in the heat of the day….water (baptismal water) is thicker than blood. And could it be….I mean, could it possibly be….that this was what Jesus was getting at on the road, when he said something like: “You know, if you’re going to follow me, the day may come when some hard decisions have to be made about which family takes priority.”

But, as if that isn’t hard enough, we plunge straight into this advisory about cost accounting: “Don’t start what you can’t finish.” Tally up the task….the demands of it….the duration of it….your passion for it.…your commitment to it….the resources you bring to it. And then ask, can you do it….clean through to the end of it?

Then Jesus gives not one example, but two. The first concerns a man whose plan it was to build a tower. But he came up short. Either he lacked bricks….money to buy bricks….talent to lay bricks….or a ladder to lift bricks. So that when he was done, all he had was a tower base but no elevation. And everybody laughed at him, saying: “Did you ever see such a stupid man?”

Or what of a king, said Jesus, who declared war on a rival king, only to discover (after a season of saber rattling) that the rival king had two swordsmen for every one of his. Wouldn’t he hurry to the peace table rather than blunder into a bloodbath?

Well, that makes sense. At least it rings true with my experience. “Son, don’t start what you can’t finish,” my father said (concerning a task he was about to lay before me). “Ritter, don’t start what you can’t finish,” Charlie Robertson said (that day outside the paper station) concerning a whipping he was about to lay on me.

Planning is good. Careful planning is better. When Tony Shipley was my district superintendent, every piece of letterhead that came out of the district office said: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Which made sense.

Before coming here, I worked on a pair of building campaigns with professional fundraisers. Following one of those campaigns, they actually turned around and offered me a job. Obviously, I didn’t take it. But I thought about it.

As you can well imagine, professional fundraisers don’t come cheap. And I’ve yet to meet a church board or finance committee that didn’t balk at paying the cost. I can hear the refrain today: “Why should we give these people thousands of dollars that could be put to better use in the building?” But the selling point that turned things in the fundraiser’s favor was the information that professionals, hired from the outside, meet their goal in 95 percent of the churches they serve.

Which is true. But not for the reasons you might think. Their success has more to do with cost accounting than creative marketing. That’s because they never let you set a goal you can’t reach. And they have sophisticated, time-tested formulas for determining what that base number is. I know a lot of those formulas. I won’t go into them here. But my point is that their success has more to do with their prior calculation of a church’s capability than with the merits of the case, the tenor of the times or the generosity of the membership. They reach what they go after because they won’t let you go after more than you can get.

Jesus said: “Don’t start out on a journey you can’t complete.” Don’t put yourself in a position where people are going to laugh at you. Or ridicule you. In other words, don’t enlist impulsively.

Which sounds like my father. Which sounds like my district superintendent. Which sounds like my fundraiser friends. But which, I am sorry, does not sound like Jesus. In virtually every encounter Jesus has with people, he seems to invite followers, right then and there. I seldom hear him say:

·         Why don’t you go home and think about it?

·         Why don’t you talk it over with several of your friends?

·         Why not take these papers and have your attorney finesse the fine print?

·         Why not give it a year and let it sink in?

·         Why not proceed cautiously, lest your present enthusiasm cloud your judgment?

No, I don’t hear that from the lips of Jesus. Instead, he calls disciples who “straightaway” leave their nets and follow. Then he adds words about not looking over your shoulder….not going back to settle affairs….and, for God’s sake, not even going back home to bury the dead. The message seems to be: “Do it now, while the spirit is on you, or while the Spirit is in you.” In the making of Christians, there is something to be said for study and reflection. But there is something even greater to be said for passion and urgency. Neither Jesus nor the church has, as its primary message: “Hey, take your time, we’ll be here when you get it all figured out.” We will. But that’s not our primary message. Instead, we say: “Every journey starts with a first step. And you will never get it figured out until you take a first step.”

No, I can’t see Jesus raising the yellow flag of caution. Can’t see it at all. So what is all this business about, anyway?

Well, I’ve been helped by a quartet of commentators here (especially Joseph Parker and William Barclay). But most especially by Ernest Campbell who asks:

            Could it be that the underlying concern is not with our ability to finish the job, but with God’s? It would appear that Jesus is saying: “You wouldn’t start a tower you couldn't finish. You wouldn’t wage a war you couldn’t win. Of course you wouldn’t. Well, neither would God. God has the plans to win….the stuff to win….the will to win….and God will win.”

Jesus preached a Kingdom that is obtainable here (in part) and attainable eventually (in full). As for the Kingdom, it’s both here and coming, he said. Then he added (in effect): “And when my time on earth is finished, the cause will go on. Don’t sweat it.” To which Campbell adds:

God has not vacated. God is not dead. God did not enter the fray in order to settle for a tie with evil. God has the means to win. And God means to win. There will be no unfinished towers in the annals of the kingdom. Neither will there be any unwon war chargeable to God. Let’s not waste even one more box of Kleenex on the Almighty. Of the many things God asks from us in scripture….our loyalty and our love….our prayers and our trust….our obedience and our faithfulness….there is not even one place in the Old or New Testament where God asks our pity.

So, to whatever degree you may possess a cost accountant’s mentality….adding up pluses and minuses….credits and debits….assets and liabilities….go versus stay….stand versus sit…. follow versus fall back….the one thing you need to factor in is not whether you are able (in spite ofyour love for the hymn of the same name), but whether God is able.

To which the burden of this passage….and of my preaching….is to suggest that the answer is a resounding “Yes.” To be sure, I could save this dosage of theological adrenaline for Easter Sunday. But given the sorry state of our national confidence, if I don’t give you a shot of it now, you may not be anywhere near Jerusalem and the empty tomb by March 28.

Thirty-three years ago, on or about July 20 (but who’s counting?), they said to me: “Come on up and preach in Paradise.” I went. It wasn’t. Haven’t been back since. But I know there’s a road that goes there.

So, too, with the Kingdom of God. Long road. Hard road. Pothole-filled road. But if my map’s correct….and I truly believe it is….it’s paved all the way.

Note: I am indebted to several persons for the development of this sermon. Will Willimon offered a most fruitful discussion of Acts 8:26-40 (Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch) in his book, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized. Ernest Campbell turned the Luke passage on its head for me in a book entitled Locked in a Room with Open Doors. William Barclay offered his helpful commentary in the series of books attributed to his name, while George Buttrick and Joseph Fitzmyer shared their insights in commentaries on Luke in the Interpreter’s Bible and Anchor Bible Series, respectively.

On Greater and Lesser Falls From Grace 5/19/2002

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.

On Bringing People to Justice 9/22/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Amos 5:18-24

Anybody who has ever had two or more children consuming food at one and the same time, knows that such moments constitute a recipe for family disaster. Picture a pie….banana cream….blueberry….pecan….even pizza. Picture two kids. Picture one knife. Who will cut….that is the question. Let us assume that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is busy elsewhere. Ditto for the head of the National Bureau of Measures and Standards. And your phone call to the nearest bishop yields nothing but a busy signal.

So with all the parental objectivity you can muster, you take the knife. You make the cuts. You serve the pieces. And then you wait for the wails you know will follow. They are wails about “the bigger piece”….who got it….who didn’t get it. Even though a mathematician with a micrometer can’t discern the difference, your kids can. Or think they can.

So you learn a little technique, the better to avoid such confrontations in the future. You refuse to make the cut. Assuming two kids at the table, you assign one to be the slicer. But before they fight for control of the knife, you say: “Yes, one of you gets to cut the pie. But, once cut, the other of you gets to choose the first piece.”

Children are big on fairness. We’ve talked of this before. Not only can they spot unfairness a mile away, but they can smell it even when their noses are stuffed. “No fair….no fair,” they cry. And they expect the adults in their lives to rush in and rectify the inequity. The fact that those same adults will, one day, have to teach them that life isn’t fair is lost at that moment. Because, to whatever degree fairness can be ordained and orchestrated, it is the adults who are charged with making it so.

Which is an easy trap to get sucked into. I remember when our kids were young, and Kris and I were young. Christmas would come and we would try to make sure each kid got the same. Not the same stuff, mind you. But the same dollar-value worth of stuff. I even remember going out at the last minute to buy something extra for one or the other of the kids. My goal was to make the total balance out. And then there were those years when one kid’s major present was abnormally expensive, meaning that the kid who got that big present got fewer presents in total than did the kid whose presents were cheaper, albeit more numerous. As a parent, I’d sit there trying to figure out whether they had figured it out….and whether I needed to find some subtle way to explain the inequity that they may or may not be perceiving.

If that sounds stupid (and I know it does), we’ve all been there. And our motives as parents were, and perhaps still are, no different from God’s parental motives in desiring to give good and equitable gifts to all God’s children.

Today’s sermon title contains the word “justice.” Which is a biblical word, every bit as much as a contemporary word. But in researching its biblical origins, I was surprised to find how many times (in its usage) it has to do with the needs of those who have less, measured against the obligations of those who have more. Time and again, biblical justice is mentioned in conjunction with God’s concern for the poor, the weak, the widows, the orphans, the enslaved, the resident aliens within one’s gates, and the physically infirm. I didn’t make this up. I am only telling you how it reads. In the main, justice is more concerned with distribution than with retribution….at least in the Bible.

I’ll come back to that in a minute, after we stretch our legs at this little rest stop called “Amos.” I am not talking about “Famous Amos”….he who makes cookies in California. I am talking about anonymous Amos….he who preached to the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BC.

As seminarians in the ‘60s, we loved this little speech that rolled off my tongue mere moments ago….the speech about God’s non-delight in the religious feasts, sacred offerings and solemn assemblies of Israel’s worship. Instead, cried Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

There we sat in our dorm rooms and study carrels at Yale Divinity School, salivating at the thought of laying a little Amos on our first church, the first time the congregation got itself lathered up about whether communion should be taken in the pews or at the rail, or whether the Gloria Patri should be sung to the new tune, the old tune, or dropped from the service altogether. Then we would rise up in prophetic indignation and, in the deepest voices we could muster (being mostly men, then), we would lay a little Amos on them. Well, as I recall (some 38 years later), some did and soon left….some did and soon learned….and some chickened out and crucified their internal Amos, allowing no possibility of resurrection.

Truth be told, Amos never said: “Don’t worship.” What Amos said was: “If what you do is pure and lovely in here, yet stinks to high heaven out there, it ain’t worship….it ain’t right….and it ain’t of God. So get with the program, which is about charity and community every bit as much as it is about liturgy.” Ah, it feels good to say that even now, 2800 long years after Amos. And 38 relatively short years (where did they go, good Lord?) after Yale.

But while it is true that justice, in the Bible, is very much about distribution, there are texts which speak of justice as retribution….making things right as well as making things available. The Bible seems to say: “If there are any principles….any laws….any truths….any behaviors that matter to God (and the Bible is clear that there are), then God ought to do something to ensure that they prevail, and God’s people ought to do something to ensure that they prevail.”

When the psalmist cries, “Show forth thy righteousness, O God,” he is saying: “Do something, O God, to ensure that the right things don’t get trampled, and that people who do the right things don’t lose.” For in those passages (wherever they occur), justice and righteousness are parallel notions, almost to the point of interchangeability.

The Bible assumes God cares how things come out. The Bible also assumes God’s people should, too. So when Christians say, “All I want is justice,” one hopes that what they are asking is that God’s will be done in this situation. Hopefully, they are saying: “All I want is that God’s truth be revealed….God’s values be affirmed….God’s laws be obeyed….and God’s Kingdom (to whatever degree it is realizable here) be established.” For the Christian, justice is not just about getting the laws of the land to work, but getting the laws of the Lord to work. Which is why we ought to be careful what we pray for, lest we get it.

But I am not sure we understand that. Too often, when we cry out for justice, our concern is not that we will obtain it, but that somebody else will be brought to it. Which is okay, as far as it goes. Wrong should not go unpunished. Evil should not go unchecked. Falsehoods should not go unchallenged. Criminals should not go uncaught. And those who are predatory and injurious should not go unrestrained. Otherwise, God is mocked. Even us do-gooder, bleeding-heart preachers can see that. We’re not naïve. Justice means that some things must be opposed….and some people must be opposed. It would be nice if it didn’t have to be that way. But there are times when it does. Realism suggests it. But it is the power of sin (known better by preachers than anybody else) which requires it.

But it is precisely at this point that we Christians need to be careful, lest we forget who we are in the process of opposing what we feel called to oppose. God sent Jonah to preach doom and destruction to Ninevah for her sin. But, as concerned her sin, Ninevah repented of it. So, as concerned Ninevah’s destruction, God backed off from it. And Jonah was ticked. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because Jonah had gotten his chips and salsa and climbed the nearest hill with his binoculars to watch those people fry. What he forgot is that while the penultimate goal of divine justice is to bring evil down, the ultimate goal of divine justice is to turn evil-doers around. Which implies a certain restraint in everything we Christians do….and an even greater restraint in everything we Christians pray for.

As I told you last week, I have spent a fair amount of time this past year reading what my brother and sister preachers have said about September 11. I have read sermons preached one week after and one year after. There are now five such collections. What interests me is how good they are. Give us something significant to grind our teeth on and we boring blokes can be quite eloquent.

Tony Campolo was one whose words I read. Many of you remember the night Tony was here. What an energetic preacher. And while God’s impassioned Italian has never been boring, he outdid himself in a sermon entitled: “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.” Let me serve you a slice:

I worry about vengeance, given that vengeance can be a very destructive mindset. And may I point out that I differ with Senator McCain when he says: “God may give them mercy, but they’ll get none from us.” Of all the senators I’ve heard speak, I thought Senator Mikulski from Maryland said the best thing. In that great prayer meeting they held under the Capital dome, she said: “I pray, dear God, that you will bring those who perpetrated this evil”….and there I sat, waiting for her to say “to justice.” But instead, she said “to repentance.” For that’s our hope, that the repetitive cycle of violence will be grounded and that, with repentance, lives will be changed and a new day will dawn.

Responding to those lines when he first spoke them, someone asked Campolo where in the world he got such a radical idea. To which Tony said: “From Jesus.” Leading his critic to fire back: “Well, this is no time to be going around quoting Jesus.”

* * * * *

On September 11 of this year, Mitch Albom did not write on the Sports Page, but on the front page. And he did not write about an athlete, but about a terrorist. He wrote about Osama Bin Laden, who he called a loser (quite correctly, I thought).

It was a powerful piece….a passionate piece….a patriotic piece. In my old age, having finally given myself permission to let my patriotism show, I enjoyed Mitch’s piece, especially when we portray patriotism as pride in the values that have made this country great, rather than waving our fingers like stupid football players in the faces of the world, screaming: “We’re number one, we’re number one.”

Mitch’s piece was patriotic in the best sense, when to Bin Laden he said:

If you sought to destroy our spirit, you failed.

If you sought to destroy our will, you failed.

If you planned on demoralizing us, you failed.

If you planned on dividing us, you failed.

If you planned on destabilizing us, we’re still here. Our streets….our schools…. our government….our freedom….still here. You, on the other hand, lost your sandlot….your real estate….your roof and your umbrella….your shelter from the storm….(in short) your home.

If you dreamed of victory, you failed….domination, you failed….Muslims on one side, Westerners on the other, you failed.

But then Mitch crossed a line (moving onto my turf) when, in speaking to Bin Laden, he segued from “No God condones you” to “No God loves you.” Which harkened back to the lines with which Mitch’s piece began:

If you are dead, you failed….because you are not in some blessed place, sitting under a yum yum tree. You are in a corner of hell reserved for murderers.

Now I will confess to you that when I read that line eleven days ago….and in reading it just now….there is a part of me that is quite comfortable transforming my fist and my forearm into a giant exclamation mark and saying: “Yes.” That’s the part of me sitting with my chips, my salsa and my binoculars, waiting to watch my enemies fry.

But I do not like that part of me….in part, because Jesus tells me I should not like that part of me (even though some of you will momentarily tell me that “this is no time to be going around quoting Jesus”).

So Mitch….I love you, buddy….keep on writing. But I hope that Senator Mikulski is closer to the truth than Senator McCain. And when we get those sons of _______ who perpetrated this evil, I pray that God will grab ‘em by whatever still moves ‘em, and bring ‘em….to repentance.

And me, too, while He’s at it.

Note:  I spent a fair amount of time researching the word “justice” in biblical dictionaries and commentaries. Surprisingly, there is little clarity or singularity about its meaning. Often linked with “righteousness,” it is slanted toward a concept of distribution, bringing the resources of those who have much to bear upon the needs of those who have little. But there is a minority report, as it were, that links “justice” with words like “vindication” and “retribution”….suggesting that when true justice exists, God’s concept of “right” will be established and other concepts of “wrong” will be dethroned. Hopefully, the sermon reflects both of those concepts.

The distinction Tony Campolo makes between justice and repentance can be found in the collection of sermons referenced last week, entitled The Sunday After Tuesday: College Pulpits Respond to 9/11 (Willimon and Hauerwas).

Mitch Albom’s essay appeared on the front page of the Detroit Free Press, Wednesday, September 11, 2002. Those who live in other parts of the country will know Mitch as the author of the acclaimed bestseller, Tuesdays With Morrie.

It's Three O'Clock In the Morning 10/24/1993

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

It's 3:00 in the morning,

We've danced the whole night through.

It's 3:00 in the morning,

Just being here with you.

Some of you will recognize the lyric.... and the sermon title.... as coming from a song of another era. I can't remember all the words. And I can't quite finish the tune. But the image sticks. 3:00 in the morning...  late time.... good time.... dancin' time.... romancin' time.... arm in arm time.... cheek to cheek time.... stars in the eyes time.... I could have danced all night time. I've been there. So have you. How sweet it was. And is. And could yet be again.

But when most people think about 3:00 in the morning, they are not thinking about the best of times, but the worst of times. 3:00 in the morning is an hour often associated with insomniacs, worry warts and social deviants. If you can't sleep, 3:00 in the morning is the worst of all times to be tossing and turning. If someone isn't home by 3:00 in the morning, it becomes floor- pacing time. If the telephone rings at 3:00 in the morning, it's palm-sweating time. If people are out in the street, running around at 3:00 in the morning, it's safe to assume that (for some of them) it's up-to-no-good-time. And 3:00 in the morning is no time to be awakened by that quartet of disturbing sounds which include rumbling stomachs, dripping faucets, crying babies, and four-legged furry things crawling in the walls. In short, 3:00 in the morning is a terrible time to be sleepless.... a terrible time to be sick.... a terrible time to be lost.... and a terrible time to be in danger.

In our text of the morning, it is 3:00 in the morning.... on the sea.... in a boat.... in a storm.... with things not altogether comfortable for the friends of Jesus who find themselves there. We know the hour, given that the text indicates it is the fourth watch of the night. The night is defined as beginning at 6:00 p.m. and concluding at 6:00 am. Romans divided the night into four watches of three hours each. Therefore, reckoning by Roman time, it is now the beginning of the fourth watch, or 3:00 a.m.

The sea is actually a large lake. Galilee is its name. Eight miles is its width. Fourteen miles is its length. It is configured not unlike Crystal Lake near Frankfort. But it is a lot rougher, given the manner in which wind currents from the Jordanian plain occasionally, and quite dramatically, buffet  its surface. If you want to paint a picture of rolling waves and contrary waves, defying even the best efforts of arm-weary oarsmen to hold a boat on course, paint away. Throw in some rain, if you like. A little sleet, if you like. No stars, if you like. Men retching over the side, if you like. Feel free. Matthew won't object. But don't put down your brush without finding some way to paint fear in the eyes (so obvious that you can see it), or fear in the throat (so obvious that you can taste it). Then you will have a picture that is worthy of the story and the scene.

Then ask yourself: "Why are these men in this predicament?" For if you read the story, you will recall that they are out in the storm because that's precisely where Jesus sent them. Verse 22 (with which the story begins) reads: "Then Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he, after dismissing the crowds, went up into the mountains to pray."

Don't let that slip by. Jesus sent them out there. "Made them go," says the text. Actually, the word "compelled" is an even better translation, as in: "Jesus compelled the disciples to get into the boat and precede him to the other side."

Sometimes it is the obedient church that experiences the storm. Sometimes it is the obedient Christians who, in response to the leading of Christ, find themselves in the deepest waters and the most troubled seas. Sometimes it seems as if Jesus has no concern for the climate he is sending us into, but is only concerned with the climate of the souls who are being sent. A good Jewish mother would say: "Surely you're not going out on a night like this." My mother used to say that. And she wasn't even Jewish. But Jesus was no Jewish mother, believing (as it seems he did) that storm centers, rather than safe harbors, are where his followers ought to be.

Harold Bales, who was appointed to serve venerable old First United Methodist Church in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, found himself in something of a storm center when he launched several outreach programs to the poor, who inhabited the fast-changing neighborhood around First Church's building. One day, Harold was confronted by one of his better-dressed, better- educated, and better-cultured members who had just passed several street people in the corridor of "her church."

"What in the world are you doing?" she asked her pastor, making obvious
reference to the very-dissimilar people she had just passed in the hall.

"I am trying to save people from Hell," replied Harold.

"Oh," she answered. "That's good. We should be trying to save them."

"Not them," Harold said. "Us. I'm trying to save us from Hell."

And whatever you believe about divine judgment and whether there is any such "hellish" dwelling place for the repose of the damned, you get Harold's point. We Christians will be judged by what we do when things are difficult, rather than on the basis of what we do when things are easy. What's more, he is suggesting that faith will be measured (and often discovered) when, as the hymn writer says, "The storms of life are raging," rather than on those nights when we listen to our mothers and refuse to venture out, for fear that it might rain.

But back to our story. It's still 3:00 in the morning....in a storm....on the sea....once upon a time. Or maybe not-so-very-once-upon-a-time. For many of you, this is last night's story. Tonight's story. Or tomorrow night's story.

For some, it is 3:00 in the morning economically. There is not a day goes by when I do not read about people who are out of work. But it is becoming an all-too-common experience to have firsthand encounters (in this very congregation) with friends who are out of work. And what about all those kids... including many of your kids.... who are fast coming to the ends of their academic careers and wondering whether there will be work for the looking.

And painting with a broader brush, aren't some of you beginning to worry that it is pressing on towards 3:00 in the morning as concerns the future of school-finance reform, not to mention health care reform. More and more, these fragile (but oh so necessary systems) seem to resemble those old cars we used to dismantle as teenagers.... always promising anybody and everybody that we could get them back in running order before somebody in the family needed to drive them, yet never really knowing if we could or would.

For others, it's 3:00 in the morning emotionally. Bruised and battered.., downed and defeated.... guilty and grieving.... use whatever brace of adjectives you like. And when you're feeling such things, it's always worse in the middle of the night. That's because at 3:00 there is no light by which to put things into perspective, and very few people to whom pieces of burden can be given.

A man on a stool hears the bartender announce: "Last call." As he pushes his glass toward one final refill, he is heard to say: "I came in here to drown my sorrows, only to discover that they've learned how to swim." It calls to mind that wonderful word- picture in the novel Hotel New Hampshire. "Sorrow" is the name of the old family dog that dies. Not quite knowing what to do with the carcass, they row out from shore and (in a comic parody of a burial at sea) throw him overboard. The next morning, one of the family's children stumbles over the old dead dog while searching for shells on the beach. Which causes him to come home and announce over a breakfast of pancakes and sausage: "Guess what? Sorrow floats." Indeed it does.

For still others, it's 3:00 in the morning ethically. Have you discovered that people don't always exhibit the clearest thinking, or make the best choices, when the rest of the world is sleeping? The anonymity of the post-midnight hours covers a multitude of sins. In the middle of the night, people feel cut off from the normal moral framework in which they live out their daylight hours, to the degree that anything desirable becomes acceptable, and anything rationalizable becomes justifiable. At 3:00 in the morning, our guard is down, and most of us can talk ourselves into almost anything. Temptation is incredibly nocturnal.

I see that as of the very-late-hours of Friday night.... or the wee-small-hours of Saturday morning....William Kennedy Smith is in trouble again. One wonders when Billy will ever learn one of life's elemental lessons: namely, if you can't leave a place sober, at least leave it early.

My favorite 3:00 in the morning song speaks to the ease with which moral compromises are made at that hour. It's a little but of a country-western song which, if it wasn't sung by Crystal Gayle, should'a been. Most of you will remember the lyric, even if I pick it up in the middle:

I don't care what's right or wrong,

I don't try to understand.

Let the devil take tomorrow,

                             For tonight I need a friend.

Yesterday is come and gone,

And tomorrow's out of sight,

And I hate to be alone,

Help me make it through the night.

And then there are those who fear that it is 3:00 in the morning ecclesiastically. These are the people who look at our denomination and argue that it will not come out of the storm intact... that numbers are statistically down.... that influence is significantly down.... and that faith is watered down. Many of you are here this morning as refugees of other religious institutions which, when you left, were more into survival than they were into ministry. And you are so glad to be here (in this place) that you could spit gold nickels while singing the doxology. Yet the fears that you first learned in other old familiar places, rise up to haunt you:

What if the same thing happens here?
 

What if we, too, fall on hard times?
 

What if present leadership fails us?
 

What is present leadership deserts us?

When I read our long-range planning document, prepared just a year or so before my appointment here, in a listing of responses to the question, "Name the overriding issue facing First Church in the '90's," at least one of you said: "Survival."

I don't know what time it is for you, this particular October morning. But I am willing to bet that I have hit one of your vulnerable spots somewhere in the last few minutes. I think that most of you know what 3:00 in the morning looks like for you.... feels like for you.... and when it was that such a moment last occurred in your life.

For that's when religion became more than an academic exercise, because that's when Jesus Christ became someone you hungered-after in your heart, rather than merely speculated-upon in your head. For the bottom line of the religious quest.... your religious quest.... my religious quest.... every religious quest.... is the raw edge of human need.

On an all-night flight from Melbourne, Australia to Athens, Greece, a professor of hydrology from India struck up a theological debate with Robert Fulghum (whose chief claim to fame has been a book telling us about all the really important stuff we learned in kindergarten). What was on the professor's mind was God. Specifically, he was troubled by why there are so many different names for God.... books about God.... routes to God.... and why one group of God's followers will gladly kill another group of God's followers, in the belief that they are somehow better serving or pleasing God.

Slowly the professor moved to the window and pointed down to the Indian Ocean, over which they were flying at that particular moment. Being a professor of hydrology, he began to speak of water. 

Water is everywhere (he said). Water is in all living things. We cannot be separated from it. No water, no life. Period. It comes in many forms: liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But whatever the form, it's still water.

Human beings give this stuff many names in many languages. But it's crazy to argue over what its true name is. Call it what you will, it makes no difference to the water. It is what it is.

Human beings drink water from many vessels: cups, glasses, jugs, skins of animals, their own hands, whatever. But to argue over what container is proper for water is crazy.

Similarly, while some like it hot, some cold, some iced, some fizzed, some mixed with coffee, tea, scotch, whatever, it still doesn't change the nature of the water.

Never mind the name. Never mind the cup. Never mind the mix. These are not important. What is important is the one thing we have in common. Namely, thirst.

And that's what 3:00 in the morning is all about. Thirst! Whether you're tossing on a bed or tossing in a boat. Whether the storm is without or the storm is within. Whether you're rowing like hell, or toward it. The only thing that will satisfy is the one who, in our tradition, is called "Living Water." Which is precisely what we get.... or who we get....if our story is to be believed. For, in the fourth watch of the night, when everything seemed contrary, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea. Don't ask how. That's an unanswerable question. It's also the wrong question.

That whole debate (about how Jesus could possibly walk upon the water) misses the point of the story. I think the miracle has less to do with a Jesus who comes by impossible means, than with the Jesus who comes at impossible times. When it is darkest, he comes. When we are weariest, he comes. When the sea is so wide and our boat is so small.... when we are a day late and a dollar short.... or a month late and a rent payment short.... when the storms of life are raging.... when we're up a creek with no paddle, and our arms are too tired to hold a paddle if we had one.... when it's too dark to see by.... or (worse yet) when it's too dark to hope by.... Jesus comes 'round.

I don't know many composers of church music personally, but one with whom I have had a chance to break more than an occasional crust of bread is Walter Schurr. He has written so many beautiful things.... some of them intricate.... some of them complex.... all of them melodic. But none more elemental than a little spiritual he wrote (for 3:00-in-the-morning people), that I first heard seven years ago.

Jesus, won't you come by here, Jesus, won't you come by here, Jesus,  won't  you  come  by  here.

Now is the needin' time, Now is the needin' time, Now  is  the  needin'  time.