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Written by Everett J. Bassett
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
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Matthew 10: 24-33
I read recently about a florist shop that has developed a very profitable service.
For fifty dollars in addition to the cost of the flowers, they will deliver floral arrangements to wives whose husbands forgot their anniversaries or birthdays, with a card attached that says this: "Please forgive us! Being shorthanded this week, we were unable to deliver this gift on time. We hope the sender's thoughtfulness will not be less appreciated because of our error. Again, we apologize."
Wouldn't it be great to have a service you could hire to cover your tracks for everything you forgot to do, or did wrong? We wouldn't have to be responsible for those things - we could just pay the fifty bucks and have someone else face the music.
Christian writer Hadden Robinson wrote a piece about disclaimer signs, and how our legalistic society trains us to not take responsibility. You hang up your coat at a restaurant, and the sign says, "We are not responsible for your garment." Buy an airline ticket, and the fine print says, "We are not responsible for delays, missed connections, misplaced luggage." Park your car, and the sign might say, "We are not responsible for lost or stolen items." Robinson goes on to talk about our disclaimer mentality and our resistance to taking responsibility. He doesn't list examples, but I wonder if they might be things like, "I'm not responsible for my violent temper, it's a family trait." Or, "I'm not responsible for my adultery; it's my spouse's fault." Or, "I'm not responsible for the criminal act I committed; it was a rough childhood." We have become a society less and less accountable.
Part of this is what we see in our public figures. There is almost no act that goes over the edge of public acceptance. Occasionally we will see a high government official or a corporate executive go to jail for some white-collar crime. But I think most everybody surmises that this was no kingpin, but rather a scapegoat from the lower ranks. Rarely is it the person who was actually pulling the strings. Behavior that used to end careers doesn't make a wrinkle. Ronald Reagan was called the Teflon President, because no accusation stuck to him. We have Teflon celebrities these days - what athlete is on steroids? What performer is taking drugs? What Wall Streeter is trading inside information?
That attitude filters down into our everyday lives in smaller ways. Cheating on our taxes, pushing the speed limit, not reporting a cashier's error, dishonesty in business, telling stories behind someone's back - seeing what we can get away with. Those are some of the temptations that surround us. And more and more, the only crime is getting caught. And if you're caught, not fighting the system. Many people find very distasteful the ads by attorneys who announce that they specialize in helping DWIs get off. But that simply fits in with a general climate of unaccountability that seems to be growing - if you pay the cash, you don't have to face the music. So, who is responsible? Who is accountable?
Jesus says you and I are. He says it in this morning's scripture, and he says it at least three ways. First of all, says Jesus, "... nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known." In other words, sooner or later, the truth will be known. We may hide it for a while, but not forever.
A woman sat down to a dinner she had prepared for some dinner guests. She thought it would be cute to have her six-year old daughter say grace in front of the guests. The little girl protested, "But I don't know what to say." The mother said, "Just say what you've heard Mommy say." So the little girl bowed her head and said, "Dear Lord, why on earth did I ever agree to have these people over for dinner?" Sooner or later, the truth will be known.
We all have a secret life within us - usually not a criminal life, but dark nonetheless. And this secret life becomes deeply intertwined with who we are. A writer named Bethiaume said, "We all wear masks; and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin." One of the most frightening scenes I've ever seen in a movie was about a masked, anonymous society where an intruder was discovered and sentenced to take off his mask in front of everybody. All of us have a self we hope will never be discovered.
But it leaks out. There's kind of a hip joke going around where someone will say something brutally honest, and then say, "Oh, did I say that out loud?" Usually, that means we meant to say it out loud. But sometimes we don't. Sometimes we shrink back in horror and say, "I can't believe I just said that!" and realize that hidden thoughts have just leaked out.
Even if you might succeed in hiding that secret self from the public, which is not likely, the people closest to you are likely to know. I saw a cartoon of a man drowning his miseries, saying to the bartender, "Yeah, my wife keeps telling me things about myself that I'd prefer not to know." The people closest to us get glimpses of that other side, and sometimes pay the price for knowing it.
But even if we are the great deceiver - even if we are so adept at hiding those deepest thoughts from the public and our families and our dearest friends - God will know. He has searched us and known us, better than we know ourselves. That's the second way our scripture lesson describes our accountability before God, Matthew 10: 29: "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father (God). And even the hairs of your head are all counted." (My hairs are getting easier for God to count all the time.) But I don't think Jesus is talking about hair here.
He's talking about hearts. He's talking about the inner thoughts and dreams and hopes that make up who we truly are. There are no masks with God. He knows everything about us. "O Lord, you have searched me and known me," says the writer of Psalm 139. "You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. .. Even before a word is on my tongue, 0 Lord, you know it completely."
And that raises the third way accountability is talked about in this scripture lesson - the way we are probably most familiar with - we call it Judgment Day. Jesus said, "Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny..." This is probably the most traditional scenario for accountability - that someday we all will be standing before God, and made to give account for ourselves. Unlike many Christians I've known, I don't picture that in a literal sense, as if there is a courtroom scene waiting for me after I die, with God sitting in the Judge's chair.
But I do believe in absolute accountability. I believe that I stand before God every day for my thoughts and actions, and for my failures to act. I saw another cartoon of an attorney saying, "Your Honor, rather than put us all through a lengthy trial that would cost the taxpayers of this state a whole lot of time of money, my client has flown the coop." There is no flying the coop. Whatever it is you perceive Judgment Day to look like, I believe we all are accountable to God. I expect I'll be held to account for a great deal in my life.
But here is where we might miss the point of this scripture if we're not careful. When Jesus points out that nothing is secret, that the hairs of our heads are numbered, and we will stand before God - he is sharing this as Good News - the greatest ever. Remember last week's scripture about apostles being afflicted. Jesus is telling his disciples that they are going to be like sheep in the midst of wolves - that there is going to be great persecution and betrayal. But don't be afraid, says Jesus. God will see everything. The hairs on your head are numbered. I will stand beside you when you give your account to God. This is not some tyrannical, vindictive God who watches us to find reasons to squash us. It is the God of forgiveness, and compassion, and mercy. It is the God who loved the world so deeply that he sent His Son. To be accountable to such a God is not a burden that beats down on us in life. It is, rather, the joy of acceptance and salvation through the loving gift of Jesus on the cross.
I thank God today that there is accountability. Who would want to live in a world where God did not pronounce judgment over prejudice and greed and violence and carelessness and cruelty and dishonesty?
But I also thank God that there is mercy. It is heartbreaking to see so many people today walking around under dark clouds of fear and guilt. Their understanding of God is that He is going to strike them down at any moment. That, quite simply, is not the God that Jesus knew and loved, and announced to the world. This God, created us, knows each of us by name, and rejoices whenever one of us turns to him with a repentant and sincere heart.
We are well into the Lenten season now; and we represent prayer in a special way during Lent. Of course, we continue the weekly act of praying over our joys and concerns as a faith family. But during Lent we also have our prayer box. That represents our private prayers - the things that are just between you and God. The prayer box represents the God who knows your secrets; the God who sees what you may have hidden from every human being; with this God there is no, "Oh, did I say that out loud?" Whether you did or not, God knows it. He is not surprised; He is not shocked. He is the absolute presence of unavoidable accountability in your life.
But he is also absolute love and forgiveness. If you are sincerely repentant before God, there is no fear in approaching Him. He is Abba; Daddy, as Jesus prayed to Him. Placing our true selves before such a loving God is one of the greatest joys our lives can ever experience. It is the way to freedom and inner peace and the abundant life that God wants most of all for each one of us today.
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