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Scandals
Rebecca Clancy
Romans 8:1-11
There is nothing we Americans have come to love more than a scandal. Scandals, it would seem, are the new American past-time.
And although we pretty much love all scandals, there are some scandals we love more than others. It is perhaps unconscious; it is perhaps unwritten, but there is a definite popularity ranking among scandals. Ranking lowest are scandals involving businessmen and women. The crash of a corporation due to the greed and corruption of its officers holds for us a certain attraction, but the reason for its low ranking, in spite of the fact that this is the only kind of scandal that may actually affect us, is two-fold. One, this kind of scandal involves money, and there are things more fascinating to us than money – sex for one. And two, this kind of scandal is often hard to wrap your mind around if you have no background in business. To fully appreciate a scandal, you need to be in a position to master the details.
Moving up a rank are the scandals involving professional athletes. There are a few scandals involving professional athletes that have to do with drug abuse of one kind or another, or gaming, but the scandals that are more prevalent, and that we prefer, are, as I intimated, the sexual ones. The sexual hi-jinks of professional athletes – the infatuated groupies, the down low behind the All-American image, again, hold for us a certain attraction. Still, these scandals still receive a lowish ranking because we kind of expect it from professional athletes. It’s kind of an extension of locker-room behavior.
Moving up another rank, and here we really start to get into it, are the scandals involving the stars. There are a few scandals involving the stars that have to do with imprisonment, but again we prefer the sexual ones. We love to star gaze in any event because we find the stars, or at least their fabricated images, so much larger than life - or perhaps so much larger than our lives. But when there’s a scandal, we really get out the telescope. We are always eager to hear of good loving gone wrong, especially if it is due to infidelity.
We ascend to the top of the ranks with scandals, again, particularly sexual scandals, involving politicians and religious leaders. These are the scandals we love the best. This is because politicians and religious leaders are held to higher moral responsibility than professional athletes or stars. I suppose they should all be considered role models, but politicians and religious leaders more so. There is a general rule that we may perhaps apply to scandals: The greater the hypocrisy, the more we love it. This is because scandal requires outrage and indignation to really hit the spot.
Yes, we love scandals - the bigger, the better. Sure, we may pretend not to. We may voice sentiments along the lines of, “What’s this world coming to?” but deep down we can’t wait for another idol to topple. And it’s not just the toppling of the idol itself. That’s only when the fun begins. After that, there’s not only the reactions of all the players, but the opportunity it holds for us for analysis, and the expression our impressions and opinions.
And because we love scandals so much, scandals have become big business. A few years back, investigative reporting was more for the sake of whistle blowing, but no one cares much about whistle blowing anymore. The Karen Silkwoods have had their day. Investigative reporting is now giving us what we want, and we want scandal. And thanks to the times in which we live, no one stands a chance against them. Their arsenals are loaded -Surveillance cameras, tips, rumors, bank records, hotel records, cell phone records, texts, emails…. And it would appear that there is really no such thing as “delete.” Texts and emails never go away. They have a longer half-life than uranium.
The Bible, for its part, knows all about human fault and folly. Most of the biblical heroes, in fact, were involved in what we today call scandals. To illustrate this, we could practically let the Bible fall open to any page, but let’s begin where it all began – with Abraham. I guess Abraham gets a few brownie points for demonstrating, in the near sacrifice of his son Isaac, faith unparalleled in human history until the advent of Jesus Christ; but, as we know, all the brownie points in the world are not sufficient to expunge a scandal from the record. How about Abraham’s conduct in Egypt? When he and his wife were forced to sojourn there during a famine, he became preoccupied that his wife’s good looks would get him into trouble. As her husband, he might be deemed to be standing in the way of an Egyptian’s desire for her. The upshot was that he delivered her up to Pharaoh’s harem; and this to save his own hide. Or how about Abraham’s mesalliance, shall we call it, with Hagar that produced, so to speak, a love child. I can just see the headlines. Actually, it seems like I have just seen like headlines.
In the interest of time, let’s then skip over a generation and move down to Jacob. He was a serial cheater and a liar, his chief victim being his brother. Needless to say, his family life was a study in the art of sabotage. A while later he married two sisters, which if you think about it, is kind of sick. It seems one degree away from incest. He might even be incarcerated for that today.
But lay the patriarchs aside. There’s just too much material in the Bible to dwell on them. Samuel, you might think, stood a chance to come out of it unscathed. He dominated biblical history for the whole of the eleventh century filling variously the role of prophet, priest, and judge. He had a good, long career, really established himself, but the brownie point rule applies – recall: no amount of brownie points can expunge a scandal from the record. Near the end of his life he developed what could be labeled, “The Crotchety Old Man Syndrome” and shot off his mouth revealing himself to be a cantankerous, querulous, even dangerous old fool. Doubtless, if present day comparisons are any indicator, that’s how many of his contemporaries remembered him.
Or what about the Kings? They are really the limit. Take the big three – Saul, David, and Solomon. Saul was, to put it crudely, a nut job – a paranoid and murderous monster, whose deranged obsession for most of his life was to assassinate David. He ended up delivering all his sons up to death and then falling on his sword. Or David? He’s proof that no man is above corruption. Shortly after God made him the father of Messianism, he impregnated the wife of a dutiful and loyal member of his personal guard. He then had a henchman murder him so as to get him out of the way. And then there’s Solomon. Talk about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Banishing silver, he permitted only gold in his opulent and lavish court. Of course, he had to enslave his own people to raise the funds for it, but be that as it may. I could go on, but we’d be here all day. Perhaps just one more. This one is too rich to pass up. The prophet Hosea married a well-known whore, then spent the rest of his prophetic career crying tears in his beer over it.
Yes, the Bible knows all about human fault and folly -- what we today would call scandals. In fact, it puts our tepid attempts at scandal it to shame. But there’s one difference, and it’s a major one. The Bible never, ever calls it scandal or treats it as such. This is because the Bible traffics in realism. It is the greatest study in realism that humankind has ever or will ever produce. The Bible realistically discerns and so states that “we have all fallen short of the glory of God.” Even the cosmos itself, the whole theater of nature, groans in futility. Bible realizes we all share a common condition. We are all up against it. We are all in it together. And so to scandalize, The Bible declares, amounts to nothing more than hypocrisy.
Just look at Jesus and the adulteress. There she was. They were all trying to scandalize her. But Jesus wouldn’t have it; he wouldn’t let them, even though she had just been caught in the act. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” And for the sake of hypocrisy, yes, but for a reason greater than that. It’s because he knew that when his ministry was all said and done - when his life, and his death, and his resurrection had been accomplished -- that there would be no basis to scandalize anyone anymore, for he, (who was, parenthetically the most scandalous man who ever lived) would have redeemed us all. And this, he intended, would lead us to humility and mercy, and forgiveness towards one another.
Jesus Christ caught us all when we were falling. If we seek to be named by him, we must not scandalize. We must catch one another. Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
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