Friday, July 19, 2019

The Fish Rots from the Head [part 2 of 2] ...


At some point, when the fish has died, if you are part of it, you begin to look around and realize the fish is rotting and so are you.  When our leaders fail us, but we seem to be walking in lock step with them, that leaves us failing as well.  It is not a great prospect, and not something we ever really want to think about.  Most of us fancy ourselves as independents, you know Mavericks, like John McCain used to say.  We believe that no matter what our leaders are up to, that does not mean we are doing the same things too.  And in specific examples we would be right.  But in trends, I am afraid the picture is more grim.  Take Donald Trump as an example.  There have been more accusations about our President telling us lies than any other President in history.  And with respect to Donald, most of us believe we don’t emulate that behavior.  But we do tolerate it.  Because Donald did not invent the “art of the lie”.  His predecessor was no less guilty.  As was his predecessor, and so on, and so on.  And we the public, have learned to simply tolerate lying.  When “our guy” does it, we rationalize it.  When “that guy” does it, we throw stones.  But through all the passage of time, we become more and more desensitized to it, until saying that a politician “tells lies” becomes a truism in our society that we the voters have learned to ignore while we vote for them again and again.
The fish keeps rotting, and it turns out I am the rotting tail in this catastrophe.  But lying seems harmless and “everyone” does it, so is it possible to get all worked up about lying?  Most of us do not intend to stop the practice when asked.  Just imagine those two famous questions… does this dress make me look fat?  Or, am I the best lover you ever had?  Wrong answers to either of those get you stoned much faster than telling the person what they want to hear does.  We call those “white lies” as if rendering them “white” makes them “OK” because society says so, and again “everyone” does it.  The fish of our nation just continues to rot, though all of us claim we are not on par with Donald Trump in this regard.  Perhaps we are not on par with him where it comes to lying, but we are still in the same game, just with a lower score.  And you would hope it would be different in the church right?  Our pastors know the rules.  They know the Bible.  Or at least we hope they do.  So they know that lying is a big no-no.  But do you think they answer that dress makes me look fat question with the truth (no it is not the dress, it is the daily trips to the donut counter that make you look fat dear) or with a carefully crafted answer that achieves the same effect as a lie.  For example, (no dear, I know many women that will never look as good as you do) – dodges the answer, so no lie, but leaves truth off the table as well, at least the truth she was asking about.  And in case you are wondering what I would say – honey we have different definitions about “fat” just look at me, I am not qualified to answer that question dear.
So if our pastors are not immune to this disease of the lie.  Is there any hope left?  Imagine how the children of Israel felt in the days of John the Baptist as he calls their entire church leadership a generation of vipers.  Now these are the guys, the leaders, all of Israel are supposed to look up to.  They are supposed to be the standard of righteousness to which to aspire being yourself.  And here is where we both share getting it wrong.  No human will ever be that standard.  For every human fails (see lying as an example).  If all you aim to do is be as righteous as your pastor, your bar is WAY too low.  He may be a great guy, but he is no Jesus.  And Jesus alone is the standard to which we are supposed to aspire.  Israel was taught to look at the Sanhedrin as the holy men of God.  We are taught to look at pope’s and guru’s and evangelists, and moms, or grandpa’s.  The net effect: We are taught to look too low, for our standards, at targets sure to fail us.  Israel, and us, needed to look up to God alone for their standard and ours.  And spoiler alert, God never fails us either, and is the only One capable of fixing our lying problem, as well as every other sin problem, we still contend with.
In his gospel letter, Luke continues telling the story of the world’s greatest evangelist.  And he provides an answer to the aching question the people asked when the leaders went away in shame.  What should we do?  Those people were looking for a simple definition of what right-doing looks like.  John was ready with an answer.  He provides it picking up in chapter three in verse 11 saying … “He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.”  John’s answer cuts right to the heart of the matter.  Do you trust in God to provide you with what you need?  If that answer is yes, then parting with what you have now, is really no big deal.  It was God that gave it to you in the first place.  When you have need, God will send it to you again.  “Knowing” your needs are already taken care of gives you the freedom to give. 
Then it is a matter of “seeing” the needs all around you.  But again, back to cutting right to the heart of the matter.  Seeing need requires you to be looking for it.  When all you see, or rather all you focus on, is the guy in the mirror, you are completely oblivious to the folks all around you.  Perhaps including your wife who may need a little attention from you to chase away fears and insecurities about her self-perceptions of being overweight.  Or perhaps your husband who lives in fear that he is not adequate to meet your intimate needs and perhaps you yearn for fulfillment somewhere else.  But those are the easy ones.  Family is close to you.  There with you all the time.  Easier to see when something is wrong, or perhaps when something could be made better by you with a little more love their way.  Looking for need outside your door means taking an interest in perhaps co-workers, or members of your church who sit right down the row from you.  People have needs all over the place.  It’s not that hard to find the need if you look, but it may be more “costly” to you to try to meet it than you predetermined you planned to spend.
For example, parting with half your food supply (i.e. the man that has meat shares it with someone who does not) seems a little intense for those of us who prefer to give “something” but not necessarily “everything” someone else needs.  It gets back to both beliefs.  Will God take care of you no matter what you give?  And do you care enough about someone else to part with your “stuff” in the first place?  If you lack love and trust – you tend to offer prayers and “good thoughts” instead of the tangible.  Because John did not ask you to give what you did not have at all, he only asked you to give of your extra.  And for some of us, we fear giving our extra, because we may never get it back again.  Our income changes, our location changes, the sales in the store are no more – we can think of a hundred reasons to hold on to our stuff – only one to part with it – because we see a need we can no longer ignore.  Because we care too much to ignore it any longer.  The heart of the matter.  The love that stops the rot.
Luke continues in verse 12 saying … “Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? [verse 13] And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.”  The next folks asking for the baptism of remission are tax collectors, and while they are hated, they are usually not too poor.  It would have been easy for them to part with an extra coat, or an extra steak.  They could simply ask for it back the next day from the taxpayers.  So John asks them to act rightly in their work, to effectively be honest, and take no extra tax ever again.  These tax collectors will be paid by Rome or one of the Herod’s, but that salary is nothing next to what they are used to making.  John is asking them to be honest, even if that honest, makes them poor.  John is asking them not to lie anymore, not to cheat anymore.  John is asking them to repent of what they have done, and learn to be someone else now.  If you were asked not to lie anymore, could you even try it?erods
Luke continues in verse 14 saying … “And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.”  Again John asks the military men not to lie either.  He asks them not to accuse falsely, to be content with their wages and cheat no more, or lie no more.  These were hardened men of Roman descent, as well as temple guards, and Herod’s men. 
They were hired to kill or enforce the law.  Yet John tells them to do no more violence in their work.  They could be firm, and exert force, but turn from killing as the first response, or maiming as the second.  John is telling them to think differently.  John is telling them and us to divorce ourselves from the fish that rots from the head and leads the rest of it with it.  No matter what our circumstances are, we are not bound by circumstance.  No matter what our genetics are, we are not bound by genetic predisposition.  We are free to surrender to Jesus, and find a real change in the heart of who we are.  In truth, the entire fish rots, and Jesus is the only way out.
The people continued the mistake of looking down.  They misinterpreted the Holy Spirit’s power with the words of John, as perhaps being the sign of the Messiah.  John wanted no credit.  John knew his role.  And John turned their eyes to the coming Messiah, to Jesus his cousin, who would be the One.  Though they had not met yet in person, John knew He was coming.  Luke continues in verse 15 saying … “And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; [verse 16] John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: [verse 17] Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.”  Jesus was so much higher than John, and John knew it.  John baptized with water, Jesus would baptize with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  The followers of Jesus would be His wheat, His church.  Those who refused to accept the love of Jesus would find themselves rotting, the chaff, the fuel for a final fire that will one day expunge evil from existence.  Without the salvation of Jesus, our decay, our rot, consumes us, long before the fires will.  It is Jesus we must seek to change this natural condition.
Luke foretells the end of John’s story concluding this snippet in verse 18 saying … “And many other things in his exhortation preached he unto the people. [verse 19] But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, [verse 20] Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.”  The deeds of evil Herod Antipas were many, but none so bad as his treatment of John.  Though it was through this harsh treatment that God reached out to Herod to change his heart.  And while it seemed to work, it was far less successful in reaching the women who surrounded Herod and manipulated him into even greater sin.  The fish rots from the head.  But that need not be our fate.  Through Jesus, perhaps what “everyone” does can become a thing of the past for us.  Where hearts are melted and changed and focused on others, there is room for the truth, and lies would only corrupt the love that is needed.  Living love is so much better than rotting self-obsession.
 

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