Twixt God and Appetites
(Rutgers, September 20, 1998; 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C;
Homecoming Sunday )
Jeremiah 9:23-24 (OT, p. 790; not lectionary). Luke 16:1-8, 13 (NT, p. 81)
What a shocking and perplexing story Jesus tells us here!
And it's certainly not on anybody's list of all-time favorites.
I turned to it only because it's prescribed for today by the lectionary.
Yet, fascinatingly, this "Parable of the Dishonest Steward”
does have a remarkable ring of particular relevance to it.
For there are several obvious parallels between it
and current events in our nation's capital!
And is there anyone here today who doesn't
have President Clinton on their minds?
Well, in Jesus's parable, as in Washington, a man's life is in crisis.
He's about to be removed from office because he's been dishonest.
He realizes that he must take some swift, bold, decisive action
if his future is to be changed from being hopeless to hopeful.
So he quickly assesses his situation, weighs his options,
and acts with such astuteness that even the one who's
removing him from office congratulates him for it.
On the literal level of the plot, we are shown a “man of the world”
who's able to operate with such cunning and shrewdness that,
against all odds, he succeeds in securing his “this-worldly” future.
But this story's meaning, as is the case in all parables,
is not to be found at the literal level.
No, these parables are metaphors.
Thru this parable, Jesus is counseling his disciples to copy + emulate
not the specific action of the steward-which, quite frankly, simply
compounded his original dishonesty with even more dishonesty,
as he curried the favor of others by further cheating his master.
No, Jesus is counseling his disciples to copy and emulate
not the action of the steward,
but rather the decision-making process of this worldly man-
swift, bold, decisive, astute, effective in securing his future.
And lest any hearer of the parable mistakenly think that
Jesus is counseling his followers to dishonest practice
rather than to effective decision-making,
we find appended to the story another saying of Jesus:
(quote)
"N 0 slave can serve two masters....
You cannot serve [both] God and Mammon."
Ah, that mysterious word, "Mammon,"
a word we owe to the classic King James Version of the Bible,
which in this verse simply transliterated into the English
language Jesus's original ancient Aramaic word mamona'.
.
The translation that's found in our pew Bibles chooses to render
mamona' with the English word "wealth"-
"You cannot serve [both] God and wealth.”
But I prefer following the traditional King James Version because
the word "mammon" seems so much more pregnant with meaning
than the word "wealth"-
“You cannot serve [both] God and Mammon,"
which is to say, "You cannot both serve God and
satiate your appetite for the things of this world."
I find it fascinating that this saying about God and Mammon
is one of the verses reflected upon in the oldest Christian sermon
that's been preserved for us outside of the Bible.
This first extant Christian sermon, the oldest in the world,
datable to the middle of the 2nd century, some 1,850 years ago,
has been named, quite erroneously, the Second Letter of Clement.
I say "quite erroneously” because,
first, it is a sermon, not a letter ,
and second, its author was definitely not Clement, who
was a Bishop of Rome in the first century, not the second.
In this most ancient of all extant sermons,
Mammon is identified-shades of Washington, D.C.-
as our appetites for avarice, adultery, corruption, and deceit,
our appetites that must be surrendered
if we are truly to serve God. (6:1-6)
And the sermon calls on us who are caught in
the struggle between serving God and our appetites
to practice the self-control (4:3) and
the repentance (8.1-2; 9:8) that are necessary
if we are to choose to serve God and if we
are to receive God's mercy (16:1-3; 17:1).
With its talk
of human appetites for avarice, adultery, corruption, and deceit
and of our need for choosing self-control and repentance
if we are to serve God,
good old Second Clement sounds startlingly contemporary
in its reflection on the meaning of the verse,
“You cannot serve [both] God and Mammon.”
So we have (1) Jesus's parable, (2) the sermon called Second Clement,
and, third, an even more ancient contemporary statement,
from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 9, verses 23-24,
which we read as our First Lesson.
This ancient statement with contemporary relevance
originated some 2,600 years ago.
Jeremiah is reflecting on the actions of the king of his time,
and he observes that the king is depending on the wrong things-
he's depending on his might, his riches, + his native intelligence,
all of which the king wrongly believes will prove sufficient
for managing and controlling the political scene around him,
Jeremiah contrasts the king's trust in this-worldly intelligence, might,
and riches to the only proper focus for a person’s trust-God,
the God of steadfast love, justice, and righteousness, who
expects of us lives of just such love, justice, and righteousness.
Whereas trust in this-worldly intelligence, might, and riches
leads to frustration and failure, and perhaps even death,
trust in God leads to fullness of life,
Three ancient statements with great relevance for today'
(1) Jesus’s parable about a person in crisis-a parable
that teaches disciples the need to employ a swift,
bold, decisive, astute, effective decision-making process
that secures our future in a way that God can applaud,
(2) Second Clement’s reflections on Jesus's saying
about God and Mammon-a sermon that counsels persons
to control and repent of our appetites
for avarice, adultery, corruption, and deceit
so that we may instead serve God.
(3) Jeremiah's warning that the national leader, in attempting
to manage and control the political situation, should not place
his trust in this-worldly intelligence, might, and riches-
Jeremiah's warning that the national leader should
instead place his trust in God.
All of which brings us back to September 20, 1998,
and the crisis in the life of our President,
a crisis that has become, as well, a national crisis.
You, like me, have seen the many photographs of Bill Clinton
emerging from church with Bible in hand,
and you, like me, have noted the easy way in which Bill Clinton
speaks religious language and sings spiritual songs.
We cannot doubt that he seeks to be a follower of Jesus!
Nor can we doubt, in light of last Sunday’s parable
about the shepherd's loving pursuit of the lost sheep,
that God continues to love Bill Clinton and
longs for his restoration to well-being.
What is needed now from the President in his time of personal crisis,
in the spirit of today's parable, is a swift, bold, decisive, astute
set of decisions and actions that secures his future
in a way that God can applaud.
As part of this, I believe he will need, in the spirit of Second Clement,
to continue his public repentance for his appetites for
adultery and deceit,
and to visibly begin the work of controlling them,
choosing truly to serve God rather than Mammon.
His speech 9 days ago to clergy at the White House Prayer Breakfast
was, I believe, an excellent start down the road of repentance.
And his decision to meet every week with one or more of his
new team of spiritual counselors- The Reverends Tony
Campolo, Gordon MacDonald, and J. Philip Wogaman-
seems a promising start in his effort to surrender
his appetites for extramarital sex and lying.
What I believe the President needs now from
his brother and sister Christians, both Republican and Democrat,
is much less voyeurism, much less recrimination and judgment,
much less political vengeance-taking.
What I believe the President needs now from
his brother and sister Christians, both Republican and Democrat,
is much more appreciation that this most powerful public figure
is, like us a frail human being,
and much more intercessory prayer for him, prayer for
his continuing repentance and recovery of self-control.
What will also be needed from us, I believe, is our understanding
that, if, in the judgment of his spiritual advisors, his path to self-
control over appetites needs to include psychological counseling,
we should support him in that rather than condemn him
or sneer at him for that.
For Pres. Clinton to secure his future in a way that God can applaud,
he will need also, in the spirit of Jeremiah, to discount the trust
he has heretofore been investing in his own high intelligence,
in the great might he has as President of the United States,
and in the riches he’s sinking into his huge array of lawyers.
These, it seems to me, have succeeded only in leading him steadily
down the path to failure + to either resignation or impeachment.
His lawyers' and his own contentious defensiveness,
their ridiculous, hair-splitting definitions, and his
unwillingness “to come clean'' have served the President ill,
as we will doubtless see all too graphically once again
when the videotape of his past grand jury appearance
is released at 9:00 am tomorrow.
For the well-being of our whole nation, in dealing with this crisis
both President Clinton and Congress-and we, too-all of us
need to start turning to God and acting like people of God,
conducting ourselves with love and justice and righteousness
and not the way Washington's been behaving this past week-
like participants in some food fight at Animal House.
I don’t know how it can possibly happen in the poisoned atmosphere
of politics in Washington-it would qualify as a true miracle-
but for the sake of the well-being of our nation and world
and for the sake of the healing of our President and his family,
I pray that we may choose rightly in this matter,
that we may choose to serve God rather than
to serve our appetites for adultery and deceit,
our appetites for power and political revenge,
our appetites for voyeurism
and the humiliation of others.
W e must surrender these
and choose the love of God.
I pray that we, as a nation, may somehow become
instruments of God's peace,
instruments for restoring the health of a president
and the harmony of a people.
May God forgive the President and us for all the times in the past
that we have chosen to serve our appetites
instead of choosing to serve God,
and may we all be led by God’s grace
into a future that is different, into a future
characterized by steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.
Let us pray.
O God, we need a miracle.
W e need a dramatic change in attitude and action
by our President, by our Congress, and by ourselves.
Is that too much to ask, that you completely change us all?
Perhaps it is. But help us to choose you over our appetites.
Here today, we pledge to you our trust
as we pray for the grace we need to help turn our nation
toward those traits which are Your nature,
toward those traits which You would also have be ours-
toward steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.
In the name of Christ. Amen.
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