1 Kings 12: 6-9; 13-14; 22-24; 28-30
DARWIN AWARDS 2017
An alert member of the congregation alerted me by email that The 2017 Darwin Awards are out. Yes, it's that magical time of year again when the Darwin Awards honor those who have done the greatest good for humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool.
Here is the glorious winner:
•When his .38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.
Among several honorable mentions:
•An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
•Police arrived at a Seattle street to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had and the perp had been punished enough!
WHAT IS STUPIDITY?
How do you define Stupidity?
Is it doing something especially risky? Doing something you know you ought not to do? Or is stupidity just not knowing any better? It can be taking actions without thought of the consequences. It can be a matter of poor judgment, like growing a mullet or taking a nap on the train tracks. The problem is that stupidity and poor judgment inevitably lead toward regret, either for yourself or your loved ones.
What are we to think of Solomon, Rehoboam and Jeroboam? Solomon travels from being the wisest of the wise to a sad compromiser on idolatry—a cautionary tale—a negative example for what kind of people we should be. Do you think he wanted his son Rehoboam to replicate his errors? Probably not, but Rehoboam took the kingdom to its ultimate low point.
Rehoboam rejected the advice of his elders—of the wise men who had advised his father Solomon—in favor of friends of his own generation. Given a chance to appease a disgruntled public, led by Jeroboam, Rehoboam chooses instead to give them a “heavier yoke.” Thereby Rehoboam, within months of Solomon’s glorious reign, turns into the very image of Pharoah.
Jeroboam, representing the working man, would lead them to the promised land of fair wages and just treatment, but as soon as the kingdom is divided, he sets up not a golden calf, but two golden calves, making him a worse version of Moses and Israel in Sinai. Moses rebuked the people for the calf, but Jeroboam establishes two.
POS & NEG EXAMPLES
How great it would be if we all could grow up simply from watching the positive examples of faithfulness—if we could just look to the saints and imitate them! That would be wonderful, bu in reality, we all have a lot more negative examples than positive ones.
There are people who you do not want to be like—negative examples—people whose various traits or behaviors makes you cringe and feel shame, even if they don’t feel shame themselves—perhaps especially because they feel no shame for them. In your heart you think, “I will never be like that!” Negative examples.
The Bible is chock full of negative examples. Adam & Eve, Cain, Abram, Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, Jonah, the people of Israel, David, Solomon, and all but a very few of the kings—all give us bad examples—a bit of cringe, a bit of what we’re not supposed to be like.
And by the time Jesus arrives, idolatry has been replaced by the deadly sin of pride. The Pharisees and Sadducees were so madly in love with their self-made culture and its traditions that they were blind to God’s Son and Messiah revealed before their very eyes.
Negative examples populate the gospels as well. As far as the gospels go, the Disciples are not to be imitated. They tend to be foolish, clueless, and of little faith indeed. Until Acts 2, Pentecost, and the receipt of the Holy Spirit, their example is a negative one to be avoided. There are the extreme negatives: Ananias and Sapphira, struck dead for shorting the church treasury; Simon Magus, who tried to buy his way into influence; and, of course, Judas.
Even as churches—collected communities of Christians—there is no shortage of negative examples. the seven churches of Revelation all receive God’s correction, pruning, or outright rebuke. So there is no guaranteed safety in numbers. All in all, the negative examples far outnumber the positive in Scripture and they shape us just as much.
The trouble in saying all this is that it is all too easy to spend our time cursing the darkness rather than praising the light.
PRIDE APPLIED
Nothing is so easy to criticize in others than our own negative traits mirrored back to us. There is no more difficult person to work with than one in whom we see some of our own worst qualities reflected back in greater measure.
This is pride as well. We may feel we’re working on those things for which we feel shame and failing, so we look at others and secretly judge them for not even trying.
It has been said that pride is that which we dislike in others but love about ourselves.
And though we may fear being humiliated by others, we are all capable of humbling ourselves; indeed, Christ commands it of all his followers.
PASSIONS PERSIST
What we see in the story of humanity—the people of God as they move through time—is that they have an enduring passion for sin. They can’t shake it and can’t get enough of it, no matter the cost or how much it hurts them. The Church of Jesus Christ is called to be a transformed community, freed from slavery to sin and filled with good passions—Godly passions—to change the world for the good news of Jesus Christ and the glory of God. We all know people like that, don’t we? Author Barbara Metzler call them Passionaries. What is a passionary?
How did helping one child in Arizona grow into the Make-A-Wish Foundation, changing thousands of children’s lives around the world? How did an NFL executive’s inspiration become the Ronald McDonald House Charities? How did Paul Newman turn a joke into Newman’s Own, donating 100 percent of all profits to charity? In each case, it started with an individual with a vision.
Something in the human spirit drives us to make a difference while we’re here. Call it a drive for fulfillment, an inner sense of calling, or just the good stewardship of our time and talents—but that nagging suspicion that we’re here for more than just our own comfort and maintenance is an itch that only gets scratched when we take the burdens of others onto our own shoulders in selfless love. We want to leave some kind of a legacy, to leave a mark that says we were once here and did something that made a difference to the world. This is a kind of passion—one that is blessed when tuned in service of God’s will and kingdom. This is our goal at First Pres.
What does it look like in practical terms? We have seen great generations turn America into the greatest, most charitable country in history. In 2003 there were 66,000 private foundations controlling $476 billion, and 825,000 registered charities in the US valued at $1.76 trillion. Those who call the US the “greed capital of the world” are not being fair. We have over 7500 rotary groups with 400,000 members, Peace Corps in 185 countries, 6.5 million PTA members, Shriners, Junior League, Chambers of Commerce, Lions, YMCAs—not to mention the schools, parks, libraries, hospitals, museums, and community centers that are maintained by the benevolent support of passionate givers. Baby-boomers are redefining the meaning of retirement through encore careers and giving back. For many, the Golden Years are being re-envisioned as mission years—a time in life to maximize one’s service.
The Church has been there all along, because it is already our pattern and has been since the beginning, for we do not see our lives and fortunes as our own, but as gifts from God to whom we must answer for their allocation.
All Christians should strive to grow into Passionaries, for this is the pattern of following Christ, whose passion proves the endless love of God for all people.
GODLY PASSIONS
What are your Godly passions? What are the things you do—or feel you might do—for which you would never tire? What are the positive things you can’t not do just because God has made you that way? Are you bursting to help people who are in crisis? Are you broken-hearted for the impoverished? Do you feel a deep need to care for the Earth, or animals, or even crucial ideas? What can you imagine yourself wanting to do and caring about if you lived to 100?
As for me, one of my personal passions is worship. When I have those waking moments in the midst of praise wherein I know I am before the Lord and giving him my heart, I have no problem saying I want that forever. I could worship forever—I hope to, eventually—because when my soul is composed in praise, I feel I am lodged in eternity already.
I also have a deep passion for excellent, painstaking reading and interpretation of Scripture. Should I lose all—job, money, family, and possessions—and be out on the street, I know what I would do when I woke up in the homeless shelter: I would find a Bible and start a Bible study. It’s who I am and who God has made me to be. When I am acting in alignment with the passions God has given me, I am as happy as one can be.
PASSION I.D.
So again, what are your Godly passions? If you’re not clear and still trying to sort them out, remember:
Passions do not get tired.
Passions persist,
That is what distinguishes them as passions.
First Pres has a great need for passionaries. We are constantly eager to help you put your Godly passions into the game. God has given you your passions in order that you may find fulfillment in this life and the world be enriched by your having been here. †