Hilton Head Island, SC – July 21, 2019
The Chapel Without Walls
Matthew 23:23-28; I Timothy 1:12-17
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – But I received mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. – I Timothy 1:13b (RSV)
Over the next sixteen months, I shall be delivering a series of infrequent sermons which will address religious and political issues which were current in biblical times, both in the Old and the New Testaments. These sermons will have minimal implied or stated reference to current issues. In the main, they will address matters which impacted the life of Israelites and Jews from the eighth century BCE through the first century CE.
However, today’s sermon will have more to do with today than any of the few upcoming sermons will have. That is because of thoughts which were prompted by a four-thousand-mile, sixteen-day road trip I took through the Midwest, and from which I returned last Monday.
I drove by myself, and I want first to tell you why. As her years have grown longer, my wife’s ability to withstand long car rides has grown shorter. By six hours, Lois is ready to stop. By eight hours, she is needing to stop. She being she, I don’t blame her a bit. But I had many miles to go before I slept on six of those sixteen days, and unless together we took a month to complete the journey, it was simply not temporally feasible.
The entire odyssey was prompted by an announcement of our high-school-class-reunion organizer. He wrote all of us that he had concluded we would have no more class reunions. Instead, we would have an eightieth birthday party for all of us, even though some were not yet eighty years of age. Every five years for fifty years we had a reunion. There was always a large committee of West High School classmates in Madison, Wisconsin who still lived in Madison, and they were happy to organize these get-togethers. After several of those reunions I preached a sermon about the reunion as a kind of time-out for everyone in the congregation to take stock of where they also were in their life’s journey.
By the 55th reunion, and then the 60th, Phil Little was the last one both willing and able to remain standing. Therefore he took on the responsibility of doing all the planning and execution of those two reunions essentially by himself. Shortly after our 65th reunion, he had a life-threatening illness from which he recovered. Because all of us would be eighty years old by December 31, 2019, he thought we should have a big birthday bash as our finishing final fling. Since Phil would be organizing it by himself, and since an exceedingly generous classmate would be footing the cost of all the food and beverages, all of us thought that was simply splendid.
I drove to Wisconsin by way of Kansas. I wanted to see the five daughters and one son of my second brother, plus members of their families. Before I went there, I wrote a letter to all of them saying it might be the last time I would see them. Then I went to the Twin Cities, where Lois and I spent a year and a half in a very fulfilling interim pastorate twenty years ago. On all but two nights, I stayed overnight in five different homes. During that time, I never once watched more than a fleeting glimpse of televised news, nor did I read a single newspaper.
The shortage of news turned into a major revelation for me. My “newslessness” felt glorious. If the world had ended any time in the first two weeks of July, I would have been completely unaware of it. It would have had to occur with my being totally oblivious to it. Ignorance is bliss, they say. Being tuned out of the news for two weeks was an unintended bliss.
Probably more people in the world, especially more Americans, are more upset by what is going on in the world than ever before in the lifetimes of any of us. Everybody seems angry at somebody, and nobody can escape the ongoing tension. Only those who don’t know what is happening, who are ignorant of “the news,” are relatively content with the state of the world situation. The reason they are unfazed is that they are unaware of the multitude of problems.
So the question is this: Is ignorance a valid coping mechanism? I was more mellow on my four-thousand-mile, two-week odyssey than I have been in a long, long time. The reason for that is because I couldn’t get upset by anything going on in a troubled world. And the reason I couldn’t get upset is because I knew no news. I could easily cope with what was happening because I didn’t know what was happening. It was terrific.
But was it valid? If news upsets us, is it okay to tune it out? Is it responsible?
People on both sides of the political spectrum, especially those on the far fringes of either side, are driven nearly to the ragged edges of attempted equilibrium by what they perceive to be the lunacies of the folks on the ragged edges of the other side. Extremists of the opposite political persuasion constantly drive many people to utter distraction.
The people who most upset Jesus were the ones usually described in the Gospels as “the scribes and Pharisees.” The scribes were the interpreters of the religious law, the Old Testament Torah. The Pharisees were a group of religious Jews who originated a few decades before the time of Jesus.
The scribes and Pharisees irked Jesus in regard to the religious law because, as we say, they “majored in minors and minored in majors.” They focused on dietary and sabbath laws while they tended to ignore the more important reasons for why God handed down His biblical laws. Jesus told his theological adversaries that they should concentrate on the “weightier matters of the law --- justice and mercy and faith.” But for them it was easier and less demanding to concentrate on the less complicated items of God’s laws and to ignore the complexities of the Torah.
In a similar way, it may be more appealing to opt out of all the mentally exhausting issues in current news stories which are so exasperating. We may wonder why we should get all worked up over things we cannot change in any case. Why should we care about the events in the news over which we personally have no control whatsoever? This sermon evolved from having been immune from all that for two weeks. It gave me a whole new lease on life.
But is it acceptable for concerned citizens to ignore news? Is it valid to think only unimportant thoughts and to refrain from thinking about vexing national and world issues?
Everyone knows that Saul of Tarsus had a radical conversion experience on the road to Damascus. He went from being a persecutor of Christians to becoming Mr. Super-Christian in a single memorable moment of divine intervention. He leaped from one extreme to the other in one fell swoop. And in the process he went from being the tentmaker Saul to being the apostle Paul.
In his first letter to his fellow missionary Timothy, Paul admitted how he initially was wrong in what he considered to be his life’s vocation. He firmly believed that God wanted him to persecute the earliest Christians, whom Paul thought were dangerous heretics. After the Damascus road conversion, Paul realized God wanted him to become a leading exponent of Jesus Christ. Paul apparently knew very little about the biographical details of the life of Jesus, or about Jesus’ teachings, but somehow he became convinced that the crucifixion and resurrection were the core of what Jesus meant to the world.
Therefore Paul wrote to Timothy, “I thank him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful by appointing me to his service, though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
Paul was nothing if not a composer of very long and linguistically involved sentences. What that paragraph-long sentence means, I think, is that Paul figured Jesus let him off the hook for his very bad behavior because he was ignorant of the harm it was doing.
It is said that “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Maybe ignorance of the news can be excused, if in seeking to understand the news we become increasingly entangled a mild or major personal mental unraveling.
I will admit I may be making far too much of “the news,” because I also admit the news does regularly distress me. That may not be a problem for you at all. If it isn’t, you are indeed blessed. If, on the other hand, you too find much that is happening in the world to be personally troublesome to you, this sermon, preached sixteen months in advance of our next national election, might possibly be helpful.
Since the election of 2000, but especially since the election of 2016, the three most influential cable news networks have become much more strident in their reporting and commenting on the news. The one large conservative network and the two large liberal networks have ceased to be news reporting organizations and have instead become primarily news commentary organizations. It isn’t that their own talking heads do all the talking; they invite countless other talking heads to agree with whatever they, the salaried talking heads, want to talk about.
Throughout American history there has always been a continuous clamor to find “common ground” in the middle of the political spectrum. The cable news networks are doing too little to discover that common ground. Individual politicians seek to find common interests among politicians of many competing views, but they need the forum of the cable news networks to publicize their ideas. This is a continuing conundrum.
Choosing to ignore the news may be a valid coping mechanism sixteen months before a national election, especially if closely following the news gives someone constant indigestion, alimentary upheavals, hives, exema, heart palpitations, irregular heartbeat, or near mental collapse. However, no committed citizen can utterly ignore the news on a permanent basis and then cast an intelligent vote. And remember this: voting is the most important single action in which the average citizen shall ever engage. Voting is our Number One Imperative as citizens.
In an analogous manner, just as it is invalid permanently to opt out of a careful study of news events, it is also invalid permanently to ignore other issues. If you slowly or suddenly realize that there is something wrong with your health, you are foolish to ignore it. If there is a lump where heretofore there was no lump, get it checked out. If there is a persistent pain where previously there was no pain, see your doctor. If your eyes are not working nearly as well as they once did, see an ophthalmologist or an optometrist. Having relative small physical anomalies fixed early can overcome much larger problems later on.
Ignoring new mechanical problems in a new car may lead to bigger issues down the road. Ignoring new mechanical problems in an old car may force the purchase of another old or new car. Ignoring a torn seam may result in a soon shredded shirt. “A stitch in time saves nine,” as Poor Richard reminded us long ago via his good friend Ben Franklin. Ignoring signs of a frayed relationship with a child or spouse or friend may result in the complete dissolution of that relationship unless something is quickly done to address and repair it.
God gave us brains to be used to deal with every contingency we encounter in life. Deliberately choosing to ignore vexing issues may illustrate the exercise of a misplaced or mistaken coping mechanism.
However, too heavy a focus on breaking news and too light a necessary escape from the gravity of current events can turn thoughtful people into inconsolable news junkies. Too much news is plainly too much. We all need to learn how much is too much.
If you think you have subjected yourself to too much news, don’t watch cable network news at all. Instead, watch PBS evening news or the half-hour news summaries on ABC, CBS, NBC, or Headline News. Better still, read newspapers or news magazines. At least then you won’t be confronted by emotion, and instead will be able to seek truth at your own personal pace.
Within twelve months (although it shall probably feel like twelve years), both major political parties will have selected their candidates for the presidency. All other candidates for all other federal offices shall also be named by then. But after next July you will have more than three full months to examine the party platforms, listen to the candidates’ speeches, and exercise your own wisdom is how to cast your vote on November 3 of 2020. If you need to take a break from the continuous cacophony of social and political upheavals which the media thrust upon an ever-assaulted public, try coping with the never-ending hum by largely tuning out for a year.
Nevertheless, when it becomes obvious who will be running for what, begin to pay close attention once again. The validity of your vote depends on it. And as citizens, our votes for most of us are our most important contributions to the strength and vitality of our democracy.
Those who have ears to hear, let them listen.