Readings FIRST LESSON The first lesson is Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (At his death in 1981, Howard Thurman was dean emeritus of Marsh Chapel, Boston University, and chairman of the board of trustees of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust in San Francisco. Thurman was a prolific author, writing 20 books of ethical and cultural criticism. He also served as spiritual advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) Deception is perhaps the oldest of all the techniques by which the weak have protected themselves against the strong. Through the ages, at all stages of sentient activity, the weak have survived by fooling the strong. The techniques of deception seem to be a part of the nervous-reflex action of the organism. The cuttlefish, when attacked, will release some of the fluid from his sepia bag, making the water all around him murky; in the midst of the cloudy water he confuses his attacker and makes his escape. In a certain southern city, a blind black man had been killed by a policeman. Feeling ran very high. The black community was not permitted to have any kind of eulogy or sermon at the funeral. There was fear of rioting. Nevertheless, the funeral was held with policemen very much in evidence. There was no sermon, but there was a central prayer, and in that prayer, the minister told God all that he would have said to the people had he not been under very rigid surveillance. The officers could do nothing because the minister was not addressing the people; he was talking to his God. How tragically sordid! But it is the old, old method by which the weak have survived through the years. One of the oldest Negro spirituals deals quite interestingly with this technique. The setting is very dramatic. The slave had often heard his master’s minister talk about heaven, the final abode of the righteous. Naturally, the master regarded himself as fitting into the category. On the other hand, the slave knew that he too was going to heaven. He reasoned, “There must be two heavens—no, this cannot be true, because there is only one God. God cannot possibly be divided in this way. I have it! I am having my hell now. When I die, I shall have my heaven. The master’s having his heaven now. When he dies, he will have his hell.” The next day, chopping cotton beneath the torrid skies, the slave said to his mate: SECOND LESSON The second lesson is from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1, verses 21 through 28 They went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. |
This Week's Sermon Date: SUNDAY, February 1, 2009 Title: Deception Message Delivered By: Rev. Joe Mc Murray
Some people think of this merely as symbolism. Others recognize it as a firm belief they’ve had most of their loves. But all of us realize that without God as a willing participant, we would be nothing, we would accomplish nothing, we would amount to nothing. That is all of us except a farmer in the middle of Nebraska who purchased a nearby, old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans to transform it into a thriving enterprise. The fields hadn’t been worked in nearly twenty years and were grown over with weeds. The farmhouse was falling apart, and the barn had already collapsed in the last major storm. And the fences and fence posts were collapsing all around the perimeter of the land. He certainly had his work cut out for him. During his first day of work, the local preacher from the community church stopped by to bless the man's efforts. The preacher prayed aloud, “May you and God work together to make this the farm of your dreams!” The man was grateful that the preacher stopped by, and asked him to come back and visit him in a few more months when he’d have had some time to improve the place. A few months later, the preacher stopped by again to call on the farmer. He drove right by the farm at first. When he realized he’d passed it, he came back. Lo and behold, the farm was a completely different place than he’d found it before. The farmhouse had been completely renovated, and a new and larger barn was erected right where the old one had stood. There were cattle and livestock all about the place, munching on feed in newly-fenced-in pens. The fields were filled with crops planted neatly in rows as far as the eye could see. "Yes, Reverend," said the farmer, "But perhaps you should remember what the farm was like when God was working it alone!" Will you please pray with me: Dear God, we appreciate each and every opportunity you have placed before us. We know that we accomplish more when we work together. And we know that without you in our lives, we would accomplish little. So we ask for your continued blessing on all we do, and for your help in all we accomplish together. May our work be worthy of your faith in us. May my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen. One of the relatively under-the-radar films of 2008 was called Deception, a sexy, intriguing thriller featuring Broadway and Hollywood heartthrobs Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor. McGregor played an accountant who was introduced to a mysterious sex club by asmooth-talking lawyer, played by Jackman, only to get caught up in the disappearance of one of the female club members and a multi-million dollar heist. The film also starred Michelle Williams and Maggie Q, who both managed to spice up the film. While it is a coincidence that almost one year from the opening of that movie, I chose that same title—Deception—for today’s message, I must confess that other than that, there is absolutely no relationship between the film and my sermon. But at least I’ll bet I got your attention. When we think of deception, we usually think of something underhanded or dishonest. If a storeowner runs an ad in the newspaper offering a buy-one, get-one-free offer on a clothing item, knowing that he has very few of those items in stock but realizing it’s a good way to get customers into his store—that’s deception. When we try to mollify or pacify people by intentionally speaking only half-truths to them—whether that’s done by your government, your employer, your church or your family or friends—that is deception. And when we keep promising each other, and we keep promising God that we’re going to change our ways, knowing deep down inside that we do not have the strength, the stamina, the intention, the knowledge, the tools or the desire or will-power to change, that is also deception. We have nicer words for our deceptions when we don’t want to face them or call things like they really are. Sometimes we’re intentionally evasive, even when we know the full truth. We may not want to be the ones associated with bad news, so we pretend we know less than we know. How many times have we said, “Well, I don’t want to be the one to tell her”? We call these omissions lies of ignorance, or little fibs or white lies. Which reminds me of the white lie Judy Garland asks the housekeeper, Katie (played by Marjorie Main), to tell in “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Katie promptly replies, “A lie is a lie and dressin’ it up in white don’t help it.” She has a point. When I preached many weeks ago about truth-telling, I emphasized how important it was for us to speak our truths to one another and to face one another with those truths, particularly the important truths about who and what we are. Truth-telling almost always involves risk. In the Gospel of John, Chapter 8, Jesus said, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." As a first foray into African American Spirituality for the month of February, Howard Thurman wrote of an age where telling the truth did not make you free, figuratively nor literally. It all depended, of course, on who you were speaking to, and the consequences of even an insignificant truth might do to threaten your well-being—even your life. Thurman was right that even in nature, deception has preserved life and has literally sustained life every day. If you’ve seen any of the Planet Earth series, there are multiple examples of the plant and animal world that protect themselves from predators through deception. More importantly, Thurman talked about the old Negro spirituals themselves that contained the language of salvation and deliverance. In fact, sometimes the music that was sung by slaves and later by their children and grandchildren over the decades, contained coded language, not only about their spiritual beliefs but about their salvation—salvation in this day and time: sometimes these hymns provided information about escape routes and the disposition and well-being of family members who had been separated from one another by slaveowners. In these and many other situations, it was deception itself that saved lives. Such a contrast to the practice of truth-telling, and yet, there is truth within it if we look at it deeply enough. In our scripture today, Jesus is tested by the demons inside a human being. The way the story is told, it seems more like a scene from “The Exorcist” than a scriptural account. As it is told, the demon, the deceptor, takes on a persona that is separate and distinct from the persona of the individual. It makes a nice, neat package, really. An easier way to think about being possessed in that sort of mystical sense. Some of us have even witnessed our young men and women suffer from AIDS dementia with similar results. And mental illnesses brought on by cancer and diseases of the brain. Not to mention many who live on our streets, some of those suffering enormously from physical, emotional, or mental behavioral disorders that are compounded by addiction and substance abuse.
We aren’t certain what type of demon Jesus drove out of the man in the scripture. But the message was clear: Jesus’ spiritual authority, his Divine connection to God, his ability to tend to this man’s need for healing was enough to overcome this most urgent adversity. In a sense, the evil spirit in the man was the deceptor. In the story, the man was unconscious to the deception that lived within him—much like the loved ones I mentioned a moment ago. They too were unaware of the demon within—the demon of dementia, Alzheimers, or mental illness. I am not attempting to draw comparisons between conscious deception that saves life or prevents harm and unconscious deception over which we have no control. But there are other deceptions that must be mentioned here today. There are deceptions many, if not all of us, have employed at times to disguise something about who we really are. For example, I grew up with deception as my constant companion. I knew from the time I was four or five years old that I was different. And I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why. But for the next twenty years, I employed various deceptions to hide that fact—even before I knew what I was hiding. Many of us are professional deceptors. We hide our feelings, our emotions, our true beliefs. Sometimes we laugh at demeaning jokes we don’t even think are funny. Sometimes we lie about our relationships because it’s easier than telling the truth. We keep our identities hidden. We’re afraid to show some of the most intimate sides of ourselves for fear we will not fit in, will be rejected or ostracized or marginalized. Some of us had to hide our true talent, the gifts with which we were endowed. Some of us buried for years the creativeness that was born into our very bloodstream because we knew we would not be loved. These types of deception are hard to characterize: they were certainly not life-giving. In many cases, they preserved life, but what type of life did they preserve? In other circumstances, the deceptions were conscious, and people who deceived were people of influence and wealth and power who could have made a difference for others like them. But instead, they hid (or hide still) behind their deceptions in a selfish and self-serving way. But the saddest deception of all is when we deceive ourselves, when we refuse to accept our God-given gifts, when we deny ourselves the joy that can come with the added responsibility that accompanies our talents or gifts. Someone sent this to me a few days ago, and though it is something I am familiar with and have heard and read many times, and have preached upon many times, I had no idea I was going to use it in this sermon until late last night. “I am compelled to write something to you that has appeared this morning from the inspirational ethers that, like my computer, love to mess with me. I have a quote pinned to the bulletin board above my computer. You are probably familiar with it; from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech which he borrowed from Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love. This morning, as I write this e-mail to you, I keep reading it…thinking of you. My intuition for whatever reason (I’ve learned over the years to pay attention) prompts me to send it now. I’ll be curious if it speaks to something relevant for you at this moment. If not, at the risk of being ‘a bit awkward’, I send it anyway.” We ask ourselves There is nothing enlightened about shrinking May it be so. Amen. |
Selected Past Sermons