1
John 1:1-2:2
Easter
2
April
15, 2012
William G. Carter
We declare to
you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of
life — this life was
revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal
life that was with the Father and was revealed to us — we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you
also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing
these things so that our joy may be complete. . . If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
On a day of Easter hilarity, we have
a text about fooling ourselves. We have heard the line many times to introduce
our Prayer of Confession: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. These words from a preacher in the early church
remind us that we are capable of deceiving ourselves.
Sometimes we believe some things in
order to ignore other things. Did you hear the one about the Irishman who walks into a pub? The barman asks
him, "What are ye drinking?" He says, "Three pints o' Guinness,
if ye please."
So the barman brings him three pints and the man begins to
alternately sip one, then the other, then the third until they're gone. Then he
orders three more pints. The barman says, "Now, I know ye may be worried about running
out, but ye don't have to order three at a time. I can keep an eye on your
drink, and when ye get low, I'll bring ye a fresh one."
"No, 'tis not that," says the man. Ye see, I have two
brothers, one in France and one in the States. We made a vow to each other that
every Friday night, wherever in the world we might be, we'd still drink a pint
together. So, at this very moment, me brothers are havin' three pints too.
We're drinkin' together as a family."
The barman thought this was very touching. Every Friday, as
soon as he saw the man come into the pub, he started to draw three pints for
him.
Then, one week the man came in and ordered only two pints.
He drank them down and ordered two more. The barman came up to him with a
long face. "My friend, I'd just like to say I'm sorry that one of
your brothers has died."
The man said, "No, 'tis not that. Me brothers are fine.
I've gone on the wagon."
I guess it’s possible to fool
ourselves. Sometimes it occurs among men and women. My friend Rob on the West
Coast sends along this joke.
A husband is having dinner out with
his wife. She keeps looking at this man at another table. Can’t keep her eyes
off of him. The other man, of course, has noticed her. He keeps smiling,
nodding, admiring her. Finally it becomes so noticeable that the husband speaks
up, and asks, “What’s he got that I haven’t got?”
She says, “Awareness.”
Husband says, “What’s that?”
My friend says his wife gave him
that joke. He’s not sure what it means yet.
Self-deception. Fooling ourselves. All
of us are prone to this. It comes in DNA. And we identify it very early.
My
little girl laughed out loud. She was really little, about four years old, and
I took her to the movie theatre. The film that day was 101 Dalmatians, the
live-action version with Glenn Close playing the part of arch villainess
Cruella DeVil. Cruella is over the top as she tries to steal Dalmatians, but
some farm animals fend her off. They trick her into falling in a vat of molasses,
and then a horse kicks her into a pig pen where she is covered with muck.
Just
then a British police officer catches up with her. He asks, “Miss DeVil”? She
raises her head high and says, “Yes, what it is it?” Katie laughed out loud. It
was a ridiculous scene, that proud and contemptuous woman, covered in muck and
acting like she was in charge of the world.
“…we
deceive ourselves.” Or we go about the foolish work of making ourselves look
better than we are. That’s the very human inclination. All of us do this. Most
of us don’t want to get caught.
Did
you hear about the man who got to church one Sunday? His wife was there
earlier, but he was distracted or something, and he got there late. I don’t
know what he was doing, and his wife was getting pretty angry at him. He slips
into the pew just as the worship leader up front is speaking the scripture
verse to introduce the prayer of confession. “If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…”
With that, he looks down somewhat confused, see the prayer, and
blurts out, “Wait, I haven’t done any of these things!” His wife says in a
voice loud enough to hear, “Trust me, George, wait ‘til you actually read the
prayer.”
There’s something about us that
says, “I am OK. I have it all together. There’s nothing flawed about me. I can
manage on my own.” And from there, who knows what might go wrong?
One hundred years ago, the most
extravagant ocean liner of its time bumped into an iceberg. The captain said,
“It’s just a scratch.” Turns out that five lower chambers took on water. If it
had only been four chambers, the Titanic could have made it to New York. But
you know what happened. Over fifteen hundred passengers and crew died in the
disaster.
With all the anniversary hype this
weekend, you’ve probably heard some of the tragic details. A nearby ship, the
S.S. Californian, had stopped for the night, noticing the pack-ice and not
wanting to endanger its journey. The crew warned the Titanic about the ice, but
the warning went unheeded. Not only that, when the Titanic got in trouble, the
crew sent signal flares into the air and it seems the crew of the Californian
ignored them, even though the two ships were only a few miles apart.
And there’s more. On the Sunday
after the tragedy, a preacher stood in the pulpit of a little church in
Switzerland to talk about the tragedy. His name was Karl Barth, and he would
later become the best-known religious thinker of the twentieth century. He
talked about the pretensions of building a boat that large, of constructing an
ocean liner that had a swimming pool, and a restaurant with palm trees. That
kind of opulence was unheard of in that day, and people in little towns
regarded it as wasteful and arrogant.
But there was something that troubled
Karl Barth even more. He pointed out in his sermon that the captain of the
Titanic was under enormous pressure by the ship’s owners to break the speed
record for the shortest time from England to the United States. If it was the
fastest ship, everybody would want to book passage on it. It didn’t seem to
matter to the decision makers that the most direct route was not the safest
route, that it was the route that seasoned sailors avoided. The Titanic sank,
said Barth, because of “the self-interest of a few.”[1]
“If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” This is what an early church leader declared
as a general truth about the human race. We don’t know what prompted him to say
it. Maybe he discovered the church treasurer
had her hand in the money bag and lied about it. Or perhaps he met a preacher
who did not believe a word of his own sermons.
I think he was talking about people outside of the church as
much as he may have been speaking to people in the church. There is some primal
need in every person to lie, to hide, to avoid exposure – and then to cover up
what they have done or refused to do.
When we read in the newspaper about those who steal, or those
who exert unjust power, or those who twist the truth, or those who go to
elaborate lengths to hide cash in a shoebox or launder public money in personal
accounts, we should never be surprised. I think it’s possible to take pity on
such people, if only because we recognize them all too well. It’s just in our genetic
make-up to reach for what is not ours and then to lie about it. Or we don’t
reach for it and we still lie about it.
Did you hear about the ninety-two-year old priest who was
venerated by everybody in town for his holiness? He was also a member of the
Rotary Club. Every time the club met, he would be there, always on time, and
always seated in his favorite spot in a corner of the room. When he stood to
bless the meal, everybody listened.
One day the priest disappeared. It was as if he had vanished into
thin air. The townsfolk searched all over and could find no trace of him. A
month later, he resurfaced at the Rotary Club meeting, sitting in his usual
corner. “Father,” everyone cried, “were have you been?”
“I just served a thirty-day sentence in prison,” he said.
“In prison?” they cried. “Father,
you couldn’t hurt a fly. What happened?”
“It’s a long story,” said the
priest, “but briefly, this is what happened. I bought myself a train ticket to
go into the city. I was standing on the platform waiting for the train to
arrive when this stunningly beautiful woman appears on the arm of a policeman.
She was gorgeous. She looked at me, turned to the cop and said, ‘He did it. I’m
certain he’s the one who did it.’ Well, to tell you the truth, I was so flattered
I pleaded guilty.”[2]
Now, talk about fooling yourself!
Brennan Manning is a recovering
alcoholic who loves Jesus. He says the best way to save our lives is through
honesty, simple honesty. He means honesty about ourselves, and an even deeper
honesty about God. Here’s how he says it:
The Good News
means we can stop lying to ourselves. The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us
from the necessity of self-deception. It keeps us from denying that though
Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed, and pride still rages
within us. As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often
unloving, irritable, angry, and resentful with those closest to me. When I go
to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit I have failed. God not
only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this, I don’t need
to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept
ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness . . . My deepest
awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done
nothing to earn it or deserve it.[3]
So the word today is to simply get
over ourselves. To laugh at ourselves. To knock it off and give up all
pretending. To present ourselves to God, as we are, and not as we imagine
ourselves to be. God has to deal with us as we are – and the sooner that we can
be honest about who we are, the sooner God can get to the hard work of rescuing
us in Christ.
This is so difficult for religious
people to do. We love to manufacture an image, as if the image of God is not
enough. Why can’t we simply see who we are, and laugh? Our honesty is God’s
opportunity. And the great thing about a sense of humor is that it sets you
free – free to be who you are, free to become what God is redeeming you to be.
A healthy sense of humor is the best defense against arrogance, pride, and
superiority. If we can laugh about something, particularly something in
ourselves, there’s a much better chance that we will never be so holy that God
wants nothing to do with us. And so, in the name of Christ, we laugh. We laugh
at ourselves, and we laugh even more at what God is doing in us.
o
After
all, you have heard it said: Jews don’t recognize Jesus as Messiah. Protestants
don’t recognize the Pope as the head of the church. And Baptists don’t
recognize each other in the liquor store.
o
A
woman went to work at a lemon grove and the foreman thought she was much too
qualified. The foreman said, “Do you even have any experience picking lemons?”
She said, “Sure do. I’ve been divorced four times.”
o
Do
you know how to keep a ditzy person at home? Build a circular driveway.
o
What
did God say after creating man? “I can do better than this.”
o
Why
can’t an engineer tell a joke timing.
o
Some
advice for anybody who wants to get married: look for an archaeologist. The
older you are, the more interested your spouse becomes.
o
Did
you hear about the preacher who stepped into the pulpit, preached the sermon,
and the congregation started clapping and yelling, “Once more! Once more!” So
he preached the whole sermon again, and the congregation screamed even louder for him to
preach it one more time. So he did. And they yelled for him to preach it again. He
thanked them and asked why – and somebody yelled, “It’s getting better!”
Don’t be fooled.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1] Karl Barth, “On the Sinking of
the Titanic.” http://journals.ptsem.edu/id/PSB2007282/dmd012
[2] Anthony De Mello, Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations
(New York: Doubleday, 1988) 113-114.
[3] Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel (Sisters, OR:
Multnomah Publisher, 1990) 25, 27.
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