Introductory Note

"Thomas the Doubter" is obviously an Easter sermon. However, for Christians every Lord's Day is Easter, because ours is a Resurrection faith. Without the Resurrection, we have nothing distinctive -- for our own comfort and growth or for a world in pain. In "Thomas the Doubter" I hazard a hypothesis about Thomas' life prior to his meeting Jesus. The hypothesis seems fairly plausible. His nickname, Didymus, appears in the biblical record (John 11:16). "Thomas the Doubter" argues for the value of honest doubt as an integral part of authentic Christian faith. In an age of dizzying change and awesome uncertainty, the sellers of closed systems with cut-and-dried answers are getting rich. We need not, we cannot afford to, envy them.

Scripture: John 20:19-29

A brilliant young lawyer I knew years ago quit his career, even though married and the father of several children, in order to enter the Christian ministry. When asked what moved him to make such an unconventional, high-risk decision, he wrote: "It is true that most pagans I know are quite honestly not concerned about death. But even in an affluent society, the death rate is still 100 percent -- and few people die laughing...." What do you make of Job's question (14:14), "If a man die, shall he live again?" Or of our Lord's response (John 14:19), "Because I live, you also shall live"? Of course, as long as death seems far away, we are quite unconcerned. While we are young and/or in good health, death holds no personal reality for us unless we happen to be living in a war zone. But, at just one remove, death is likely to be quite real to us at any age. Right now someone who means much to you may be walking in death's shadow. Or perhaps someone very close to you has just died, robbing you of a cherished, taken-for-granted presence, leaving you baffled, resentful, frightened. Yes, it is hard to be an Easter Christian, a Resurrection Christian, all year round. The closer the threat, the greater the fear, the harder it is to hold on to the Easter faith and the more inclined we are to sympathize with Thomas the Doubter.

Doubting Thomas At first glance, Thomas does not cut a very good figure. The first three Gospels merely list his name among the Twelve. The Gospel of John has more to say about him, but nothing particularly flattering. Thomas is first shown at a conference of the disciples in the province of Perea where they have taken refuge after the first threat of hostility from the authorities in Jerusalem. Suddenly a messenger comes to tell Jesus that his friend, Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Martha and Mary, is dying. Jesus is ready to start out for Bethany at once, but the Disciples resist him. "Master," they plead, "the people were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?" But when they cannot persuade him, they yield. Only Thomas takes the dark view. "Let us also go," he says, "that we may die with him." The second time Thomas says something for the record is at the Last Supper. Having long since accepted the worst, Thomas appears grieved and peeved at the Master's attempt to comfort him. Jesus is talking about his Father's house with many rooms where he is about to go in order to prepare a place for his friends. Assuming that the Disciples understand, Jesus says, "You know where I am going, and you know the way." But Thomas interrupts, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" The poetry of Jesus seems wasted on Thomas. Thomas wants prose -- plain, literal prose. So far Thomas has revealed himself as a kind of Stoic: looking for the worst, finding it, and bravely facing it. At the next stage, however, his desperate courage becomes sheer despair, just one step removed from blasphemy. Having missed the evidence of the Resurrection which his fellow disciples have experienced in his absence, Thomas rejects their testimony vehemently: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe!" There he is, Thomas the Doubter, at the bottom of bottomless despair, doubting everything except his own doubts. Behold a man who has died with Jesus but refuses to be raised with him!

Also Called Twin How can we excuse such un-apostolic behavior? I believe that our responsibility is not to excuse at all but to try to understand. I have a hypothesis -- farfetched perhaps but not lacking in plausibility. Thomas was nicknamed DIDYMUS which is Greek for TWIN; in fact, the name "Thomas" is a transliteration of the Aramaic word for twin. Question: what happened to the other twin? In the absence of any clue in the New Testament, I feel free to suggest that Thomas had a twin brother who died, in the full flower of youth, just before Thomas met Jesus. That is my hypothesis. Now let me develop it a little further. Suppose that this twin brother had been very close to Thomas, that he was half of Thomas' life, and that his death left Thomas a mere survivor, with no life of his own -- and that Thomas continued in this state, hollow with grief, empty of feeling, until he met Jesus. Imperceptibly, almost in spite of himself, Thomas found himself being reawakened to life by the Master, transferring his grief-stricken love from his dead brother to Jesus. The Master, whom his friends came to know as "a friend who sticks closer than a brother," became for Thomas a Twin Brother, the One whom no one would dare take away from him. But Thomas was a realist. Having experienced the power of death, he was unable to forget it. He knew that death always wins in the end. He was achingly aware of the Master's mortality, but quite deaf to the music of his promises. Thus, when the others were ready to take Jesus at his word with the relative unconcern of people who had never clashed with death head-on and been left bruised and bleeding, Thomas showed a more perceptive, a more heroic courage. "Let us also go," he said, "that we may die with him" (John 11:16). Thomas was ready to die with Jesus, because he would not live without him. Having half-died in the death of his beloved twin brother, he did not wish to outlive the One who had more than taken his brother's place. But Jesus kept turning the knife in Thomas' wound. Jesus insisted on repeating the promise which, Thomas knew, no mortal could fulfill. In fact, it seemed cruel even to make such a promise within the hearing of one who so well knew the awful finality of death. "Lord," Thomas burst forth at the Last Supper, "we do not know where you are going: how can we know the way?" (John 14:5). But what Thomas really meant to say was: "Lord, I know where you are going. You are going to your death, and I want to go with you. So please, do what you must, but stop consoling us when you know that there is no consolation."

One Of The Twelve I am certain that the apostles were provoked with Thomas. They resented his throwing cold water on their confidence in Jesus or, rather, on that "all will be well" attitude into which their dependent, immature faith so easily degenerated. They regarded Thomas' question at the Last Supper as uninspired and ill-timed. Nor were they particularly surprised when Thomas did not join them after the Crucifixion. They could not blame him for having deserted Jesus: that they had all done. Ironically, Judas was the only one who had the courage and the required self-loathing to follow Jesus into death. As for Thomas, he might be somewhere, anywhere, contemplating the same tragic course. He had never been a gracious companion to the others. It was not surprising that he should not be seeking their company now. Then Jesus appeared to the apostles -- just a few hours after his first appearance to Mary Magdalene. Ten were present to witness the impossible. Ten testified to the miracle of the Master's victory over death. Did they go looking for Thomas to tell him the news? Or did they wait until, led by some instinct, by some stubborn hope lodged deep below the surface of consciousness, Thomas groped his way back into that Upper Room -- to find there a circle of light and a chorus of praise? We do not know. All we do know is that, with his accustomed honesty, courage, and despair, Thomas rejected their witness. His crude words must have hurt him more than they hurt the others. For them, they were only blasphemy. For Thomas, they were a creed: the creed of a mortal man trapped in his mortality, the creed of a twice-dead man whose only hope was that death would soon try for the third time and bring him at last the end of grief and the release of oblivion. That was all anyone could hope for before that first Easter Day. Thomas was only more forthright in his recognition of the fact of death, more uncompromising with wishful thinking, more proudly wedded to his own integrity in the face of death. The other ten had the easy part now. They had seen the dawn which Thomas had not seen. It ill behooved them to be impatient with Thomas.

An Apostle Of Jesus Christ But Jesus was not impatient. Jesus had not forgotten that Thomas had been the only one who wanted to go with him to the side of Lazarus, not because he thought that all would be well but because he knew that nothing would be well. Nor had Jesus rebuffed Thomas for questioning him about his destiny. Instead, he had responded with one of the greatest summaries of Christian faith: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" (John 14:6). No, Jesus never lost patience with Thomas, because Jesus values honest doubt more than he values blind belief. For belief can be blind. Gullibility, superstition, and prejudice are all close kin to belief. The lazy acceptance of outworn theories wrongly enthroned as dogmas has lent respectability to man's inhumanity to man, retarded the progress of human betterment, kept the human spirit in a prolonged, unlovely infancy. But to every generation God grants a few men and women who will not believe just because it is the thing to do: men and women who will question and probe and search. Thomas would not believe on anyone's say-so, even Jesus', but he was capable of faith. For faith is personal trust, with unflinching honesty, and courage to accept not only the best but the worst. Thomas did not really want to test the Risen Lord, crudely and literally. Thomas wanted to believe in the Resurrection more than anyone. But he wanted Jesus to welcome investigation. There is hardly anything more foolish and self-defeating than to try to "protect" Jesus, or the Bible, from the scrutiny of open-minded seekers or even from the irreverent prying of scoffers. Seekers will always find more than they have come for. Scoffers will often stop scoffing and start thinking. Only the uncritical, anxiously protective, and egotistically possessive "believers" stand to lose anything at all. They stand to lose their little dogmas and puny self-respect, while the Risen Lord shows Doubting Thomas his wounded hands and side, and Thomas sinks to his knees whispering, "My Lord and my God!" Thus Thomas the Doubter becomes Thomas the Apostle not in spite of his doubts but thanks to his doubts. Far from rejecting him, Jesus grants him the extraordinary honor of a special appearance. Jesus knew how badly the Church needed Thomas. He knew that a converted skeptic is uniquely qualified to convert skeptics. The mind of "mass man" is always for sale. The mind of a man or woman who insists on being an individual, in all the awful loneliness of individuality, is not for sale at all. This is the person Jesus wants the most: the scholar or scientist who will pursue truth wherever it may lead; the citizen of the world who accepts all human beings as sisters and brothers in utter disregard of national, racial, or class labels; the true "humanist" whose curiosity and compassion encompass everything human, but who also hungers and thirsts for meaning beyond this brittle life.... Have you lost a twin -- someone in whose death half of you seems dead? Are you afraid of death -- for someone you love, or for yourself? Are you unable or unwilling to be comforted by springtime, romanticized "immortality," and the expensive trickery of the undertaker's magic? Then take Thomas. Take the Doubter who went all the way, and rest your faith in his faith. Take that kneeling figure surrounded by the radiance of the Risen Lord. Say with him: "My Lord and my God!" Then hear with him the tender, final Beatitude uttered by our Lord: "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe...."

2. Jonah

Introductory Note

This treatment of the Book of Jonah takes the story virtually at face value though admitting the obvious: that it is not history but a parable. The accent here is on Jonah, the man, a human being very much like us whose quarrel with God, while unfolding within a fanciful and politically loaded story, resembles our ongoing quarrel with God who steadfastly refuses to act as we feel God should or wish God would. I have tried to treat Jonah without condescension, with sympathy and humor, including such humorous anachronisms as placing him on a hill outside Nineveh, with his Geiger counter handy, waiting for God to "nuke" the hated city. My main goal, however, has been to relate the story to our "faith journey" in order to show how, at any stage of our quarrel with God, we are dependent on God's amazing grace embodied and made effective for us by Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord.

Scripture: Jonah 1, 3, 4

The story of Jonah is remembered chiefly for Jonah's trip in the belly of that big fish, which was not a whale because a whale is not a fish. There really was a Jonah, son of Amittai. He prophesied in Israel in the eighth century, B.C., and what little we know about him we can find in 2 Kings 14:25. But, except for borrowing his name, the Book of Jonah, which is really a story about a prophet named Jonah, has nothing to do with the eighth century prophet. The story about this Jonah, written by an unknown author, was written well after the Babylonian Exile, sometime during the fifth century B.C., and it voices an inspired protest against narrow-hearted nationalism while it pleads for reconciliation even with the nation's most cruel enemies That is the well-known main theme of the Book of Jonah. But the Word of God in this little book is not confined to the main theme. The Word is present also in the personality of Jonah, in his character and actions, in his quarrel with God. The writer presents the quarrel in three stages.

Disobedience The first stage we may call Jonah's disobedience to God. Out of a clear sky, God sends Jonah on a repulsive mission. He commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the current overlord and oppressor of his people, to preach to the hated Assyrians so that they may have a chance to repent and be spared the awful judgment which God has in store for them. It is difficult for us to conceive how monstrous this mission must have appeared to Jonah. During the two centuries when the Assyrians lorded it over them, the Jews came to hate them as bitterly as they had every right to hate Hitler's Germans. Any notion of forgiveness or reconciliation would understandably appear as absurd, indeed treasonable. Nothing short of the destruction of Nineveh, the obliteration of Assyria, could really satisfy a pious and patriotic Hebrew like Jonah! But God was not thinking like a pious and patriotic Hebrew. God was divinely unorthodox in his thinking about the Assyrians and their sinful capital. God remembered that, as cruel as the Assyrians had been not only to the Jews but to all their subject peoples, they were still members of the human race, children of the Heavenly Father. But, unlike God, Jonah could not conceive of forgiving the Assyrians. To do so would have deprived him and his fellow Jews of their most trusted and efficient scapegoat. For whatever was wrong with Jonah personally or with his people, there were always the Assyrians to blame and to hate. How could anyone be expected to give up such a priceless emotional prop? So, instead of taking the first caravan to Nineveh, Jonah took the first ship going west, to Tarshish. The Jews were a nation of landlubbers. Anyone putting an ocean between himself and God was getting as far away from God as was humanly possible! But in Jonah's case, according to our story, it was not far enough. God stowed away on Jonah's ship. God always stows away in our conscience, whenever we are trying to run and hide. There is no alibi God cannot spot, no hiding place God cannot find, no bluff God cannot call. God found Adam in the shrubbery. God found Jonah in the ship's hold. And God finds us, every time, behind our plain or fancy excuses. Jonah did not get away with it. The Lord appointed a great storm to rock the ship in which Jonah was trying to rock his conscience to sleep. It took terror, raw terror, to bring Jonah to his senses. He had been very successful in keeping up a good front, until the storm broke. Then he cracked. The flashes of lightning revealed a man in terror for his life, a man riddled with guilt, a man whose disobedience to God had involved a whole shipload of innocent, unsuspecting people in raging disaster. But Jonah was still a potential prophet. God's choice of him had not been a mistake. In anguish and penitence he pleaded with the captain, "Take me up and throw me into the sea ... for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you!"

Disapproval Now Jonah's quarrel with God moves to its second stage: Jonah's disapproval of God. At first, everything seems fine. Jonah has been reappointed to go to Nineveh, and he has obeyed. He enters Nineveh and sets up his portable pulpit about one-third of the way to downtown. He is going to be a dutiful and conscientious prophet. He is also going to show God how foolish and unrealistic it is to expect a change of heart of these barbarians! In fact, God will soon admit that Jonah was right, and then God will send pestilence and fire upon Nineveh at once. A delightful prospect for a pious and patriotic Hebrew like Jonah! But something goes wrong. Jonah has hardly reached the first point of his sermon when the people of Nineveh begin to respond. First two or three, then dozens, then hundreds. The news spreads -- through the industrial suburbs to the business district, through the business district to the residential suburbs, not skipping the campus of the University of Nineveh, nor its many temples. A miracle is happening: in a matter of just a few hours, the king himself, in sackcloth and ashes, proclaims a national fast, the redress of all social injustice, and official public repentance! Never was a sermon more unexpectedly, more spectacularly effective! Never was a preacher more dumbfounded -- and angry! Angry? Yes, mortally angry! Why? Because God had dared to act differently from what Jonah expected, from the way Jonah thought God should act! Whenever we remind ourselves, complacently, that God made us in his image, we should also remind ourselves that we keep remaking God in our image. The biblical word for this activity is idolatry: the worship of anyone or anything other than, or less than, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of Jesus of Nazareth! Whenever I overhear teenagers criticizing their parents, I wonder how well they would do if they were given a chance to trade places with them. Whenever I hear a man say, "Now if I were running this country," I would wish I could let him try, just for a day. And whenever I realize that I am inwardly "playing God," questioning God's competence, disapproving God's action or lack of action, I try to imagine what a mess I would make if I had to govern the universe. It helps to keep in mind that "universe" means "one verse." All we know, all we can know, is just one stanza of the endless, cosmic song about the power of God and the wisdom of God. And while all is not right with the world, far from it, the Scriptures proclaim with a single voice: God is on the job, in firm control of you and me, accountable to neither you nor me!

Disappointment The last stage of Jonah's quarrel with God we may call Jonah's disappointment in God. When Jonah realized that the Assyrians were really repenting and that God had promised to forgive and spare them if they did, he still could not quite believe it. It is always difficult to believe that God will not personally and spectacularly avenge us on anyone who has ever done us wrong. If God does not send the plague on our enemies, how about dropping at least a small nuclear bomb on their heads? So Jonah leaves the city and settles on a hilltop just outside Nineveh, at a safe distance. He puts on his goggles, keeps his Geiger counter handy, and waits hopefully for the show. It is hot, very hot. The hours pass at a crawl. Nothing happens. Then, suddenly, Jonah feels deliciously cool. While he was dozing, God had raised a vegetable sunshade over his head, for his comfort. Jonah is delighted. More than ever he feels sure that he is being the object of God's special care. Now, at any moment, God will delight him by blowing Nineveh sky high! But God does not oblige. Instead, God appoints a worm to sabotage Jonah's sunshade. When the sun rises the next morning, it beats down on Jonah's skull with tropical cruelty, and once again Jonah is ready to give up. What kind of God is God, anyway? Does God not owe it to Jonah, a prophet, to keep him alive -- and comfortable? Is Jonah not a privileged man, son of a privileged race, adherent of a privileged religion? Jonah is angry, but this time it is the anger, the galling anger of deep disappointment in God. But Jonah was doomed to be disappointed in God, and so are we if we insist that God must arrange everything to suit us as long as we have done our part by obeying God's commands. Oh, we may not throw a tantrum when a favorite ball game is cancelled because of rain. "It's good for the farmers," we say and half mean it. But when our business is wiped out in what seems to be a series of bad breaks, we are not likely to take it as well. We find others to blame -- our associates, our competitors, the government -- but deep down we are really blaming God. "Why did this happen to me?" we lament. "How could God let it happen? To me?" When illness strikes, or sorrow, or any kind of serious loss, we first look for someone else to blame, to serve as scapegoat. Next we blame God. The last thing we are likely to do is to blame ourselves, even a little bit.... So the story of Jonah ends, inconclusively, with God's concern for the poor sheep and cows of Nineveh, because God's mercy never ends, and because our quarrel with God also goes on, endlessly, as long as we persist in our disobedience, our disapproval, our disappointment. But the quarrel does not have to go on forever. God would put a stop to it today, in your life and mine. God has taken action to stop the quarrel. The action occurred nearly two thousand years ago, but it can take effect in our life any day, even today. We are trying to run away from God, from whatever God is plainly commanding us, through our conscience. But there was "One who was obedient unto death, even death on a cross." We fret and rebel because God does not make every wish of ours come true. But there was One who taught us to pray, "not my will but thine be done." We are fickle in our loyalty to God, grandly accepting and expecting God's blessings but breaking faith with God at the first sign of adversity. But there was One who did not cry out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" until the rushing of his blood was like the thunder of cannon in his ears: and even then it was not his last word, because he would give up his life with a triumphant cry of trust: "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit!" This is the One who brought to light, and to life, what we know as the gospel, the Good News, which the writer of the Book of Jonah could not even glimpse. This is the One whose matchless life and redeeming death are available to you and to me.... Amen.

3. Martha

Introductory Note

This treatment of Martha is different from the usual in at least two respects. Instead of belittling her for her misplaced priorities, we spend most of our time finding out how much like her we are. Instead of leaving her as recipient of Jesus' rebuke, no matter how affectionate, we are reminded that she did heed the Master's words, that she did change, which gives us hope that we, too, can change. The message is designed primarily for the active ten percent or maximum one-third of a suburban Protestant church, but it is just as likely to apply to the activist, workhorse segment of any American congregation, because activism is the hallmark of American church life, regardless of doctrine or ritual. I believe that wrapping the message around the character of Martha makes it more interesting and memorable as well as a great deal less preachy while validating the sermon as a sermon -- over against the self-help magazine article it might have been.

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42; John 11:17-22

In a village between Jerusalem and Jericho, named Bethany, lived two sisters and their brother. Their home had become our Lord's favored place of rest, his home away from home after his own family had more or less given up on him. With Martha and Mary and Lazarus, Jesus and the disciples were able to relax and to renew their strength for the work they had to do in the countryside and, eventually, in Jerusalem. In spite of the Master's gentle rebuke to Martha recorded in the tenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, we remember her with sympathy, indeed with a feeling of deep kinship, because Martha is one of us: responsible, busy, frequently overwhelmed. Christians are, for the most part, extremely responsible people. In a nation where at any time millions are in full, headlong flight from responsibility, this is a sincere compliment: to Martha and to most of us who find it easy sympathetically to identify with her. We have among us several million alcoholics who have escaped from responsibility -- into a tragic prison of their own making. We are aware, more dimly but with far greater distaste and fear, of hundreds of thousands of drug addicts in similar flight. And we all wonder from time to time how many of our tens of thousands of highway deaths are really accidental. Unconscious desire to get away from it all is likely to play a large part in many of them. The coroner's verdict may read "accident." But I believe that the Coroner employed by God's Supreme Court changes many of these verdicts to "suicide" or "murder." But we, well-churched Christians, are not trying to escape from responsibility! On the contrary: we are usually the people with ideals, with get-up-and-go, with challenges clearly perceived and squarely met. Is it not strange, then, how often we feel like shouting, "Help! I am snowed under!"? Of course, no one intends to disparage your willingness to assume responsibility in any good cause in the community, let alone in the church. Service is the very watchword of the Christian life. Service beyond the line of duty has been the hallmark of Christians throughout the centuries. There is always so much more good work than there are workers to do it! Any leader of any organization working for human betterment, religious or secular, will surely say a loud "Amen!" to our Lord's wistful exclamation: "The harvest, indeed, is plentiful, but laborers are few!" In a typical church, ten percent of the members do just about all the work. In the major political parties, the figure is two percent or less. But across the board, church people take on more volunteer work, both church and community work, than do their unchurched fellow-citizens. The record of service is impressive, but the cry, "Help! I am snowed under!" resounds with disturbing frequency in Christian homes and in the offices of pastors and other counseling professionals. So there is something a little worrisome about our good works. There seems to be a flight into responsibility just as there is a flight from responsibility. Just as some of us flee into drink or drugs, others flee into an excessive and self-defeating array of otherwise useful and admirable good works.

Danger Signals Of course, all good works are not the result of flight. Many people, especially Christians, serve for the joy of serving, as a means of thanksgiving to God, as an expression of love for their fellow humans. It would be absurd as well as unfair to suggest that all the energy expended in voluntary service, in the church or elsewhere, is merely a socially acceptable way to act out a death wish! On the other hand, it would be foolish to ignore the many danger signals which are blinking for us -- and for all highly organized, highly competitive, highly responsible persons. We dare not pretend that our Lord's description of Martha as "distracted by much serving" might not also apply to a great many of us. What are some of these danger signals? One starts to blink when any one of our service projects turns into a chore. When you begin to wish, shamefacedly, that you did not have to do what you committed yourself to doing, look out! Any good work performed in the spirit of a chore, even if it is tending crippled children, loses not only its zest but much of its actual usefulness. Another signal starts blinking when you begin to resent the relative inactivity of others in comparison with your own feverish activity, when you are quick to say, with Martha, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?" Such irritation, no matter how objectively legitimate, is a symptom of battle fatigue. But the clearest danger signal is the old song, "I'm just a girl (or boy) who can't say no," on your Christian lips. When just any call to service strikes you with irresistible force, look out! You now have a full-blown "Martha complex"! Martha was "anxious and troubled about many things." I am sure they were all good things, like cooking for Jesus and the disciples, just as all the things you have taken on are surely good things, deserving of responsible concern, participation, leadership. But when we just "can't say no," we are likely to be in full flight from something.

What Are We Running From? Suppose that the shoe fits, that some of us are actually daughters and sons of Martha, full of good works but tired, anxious, compulsive. And suppose that we are in effect keeping ourselves so busy because we are running away from something. What may that something be? Without meaning to play Sigmund Freud or trying to sell self-analysis kits, a few possible reasons do come to mind. For example, we may be snowed under with good works because, unadmittedly, we are afraid to be alone. For when we are alone, ultimate and threatening questions float to the surface of our consciousness. Why this second-rate existence when we were sure that ours would be a first-rate life? Are my children really exceptional or are they just average and, if so, am I riding them too hard to succeed? Is it really possible that I am not immortal? Oh, it is so much easier to organize and improve the lives of our young people, our minorities, our elderly by working on committees or in groups. Group thinking is safe thinking. Group talk is guarded by hundreds of protective conventions which prevent us from "getting personal." By unspoken, common consent we ignore those huge, rock-hard questions that frighten us. So we go out again to a meeting, a party, a fundraiser. There may be a different reason, too. We may be immersing ourselves in good works in order to avoid one good work, one challenge which lies, gauntlet-like, at our feet, but which we have been afraid to pick up. The good things we do may be the safer, easier options. It is safer, easier to send or even carry charity baskets to the poor than to confront our friends, our bosses, our husbands or wives who, in the name of sound business practice or practical politics, are keeping the poor poor. It is safer, easier, to write a letter to the President than to march shoulder to shoulder with long-haired young men and thin-lipped girls in jeans carrying placards, while our friends look away in embarrassment and the people on the sidelines hoot and jeer. But it may be just such a seemingly "far-out" action God has laid on our conscience, so that now we plead: "Look here, Lord: what you are asking of me is not really my speed. Furthermore, I am much too busy; in fact, I am working my head off doing all these other things!" There may also be a third reason, except that it deserves to move to first place. Is it possible, just barely possible, that some of us well-churched Christians may be trying to flee from God -- into that overload of responsibilities which then brings forth that "Help! I am snowed under!" cry? An annoying suggestion, but let us examine it anyway. Is it not true that God is most likely to confront us when we are alone? Is it not equally plausible that God will use such a moment to remind us of the gauntlet we have failed to pick up, the gauntlet at our feet, the gauntlet with our name on it? Remember: Martha would not come into the living room because someone had to do the cooking. But is it not possible that Martha kept herself extra busy that day deliberately to avoid Jesus, lest the Master say something to her, something she really longed to hear but was afraid to hear? Something that would challenge her more deeply than all her dutiful good works? Something that might bring her face to face with God in one shattering, healing flash? Is it not possible that Martha begrudged Mary her conversation with Jesus, because she was frightened of what a few words with Jesus, a few personal words, might do to her? Or for her?

Can We Stop Running? Jesus said to Martha, "Few things are needful." Four short words, but how threatening to our value system, our frantically hyped prosperity, our whole American way of life! Not more gadgets but fewer. Not bigger cars but smaller ones and perhaps, heresy of heresies, no car at all. Not multiplication but simplification. Not competition but cooperation. To be content with less rather than condemned to more. Might this be the alternative to our "distracted serving," this the brake to slow our headlong flight, this the discipline by which to lose this whole phony world and gain our soul? "Few things are needful," Jesus said to Martha, "or only one thing." No, Jesus did not prescribe a life of mystic idleness or idle mysticism, a life of all words and no action. He did not suggest that no one should be cooking dinner or that Mary should never be expected to help Martha in the kitchen. He did suggest, I am certain, that Martha should not bother to put on five-course meals all the time -- that two or three courses or even a savory casserole might do just as well -- and that she should take time to be with him rather than just feed him, to be rather than always do.... Unless we take time out just to be, especially to be with the Lord, in reflection and prayer, the pressures upon us will overwhelm us, especially if we are sons and daughters of Martha, ultra-responsible Christians. Good works can become a joyless treadmill. Cooking for everyone, like Martha, on eight burners, will soon have us looking for a stove with sixteen, and running, running, running, without ever asking ourselves why we are running or what we are running from. But if we stop long enough to hear the Master's gentle rebuke, we may be able to glimpse, perhaps for the first time, the life of faith beyond this life of work, work, work. Like Jesus' own life, it will not be an idle life. Far from it. But it will be, like Jesus' own life, a life balanced on the fathomless tide of God's mercy and love. A life of self-giving activity alternating with prayer, meditation, and guilt-free leisure. A life of fewer responsibilities more effectively carried out. A life of greater challenges more bravely faced. Yes, for all of us who claim his name, Jesus proposes, and enables, a life with time to spare. Time to let the taste of both joy and sorrow linger a while. Time to give to others not just things but ourselves. Time to think, even about death, serenely and without dread.... If we learned about Martha only from Luke's Gospel, we could not be sure that she really heard the Master's words. But there is that story in John's Gospel, about the death of her brother, Lazarus, where Martha -- not Mary but Martha -- is revealed as possessing the more mature faith. It is Martha, the liberated drudge, who says to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that, whatever you ask of God, God will give you." This Martha did not learn in the kitchen.... Amen.

4. Daniel And His Friends

Introductory Note

Preaching on Daniel and his three friends enables us to take our hearers on a lovely walk down Nostalgia Lane, because this is one story they surely remember from Sunday School days. As a children's story, the story fairly tells itself. But the story also reminds us that God will not necessarily perform a miraculous rescue for us just because we have been righteous and brave. And to suggest that God may not be counted on to keep us cool and safe in the "burning fiery furnace," in Babylon or in Auschwitz, is likely to be, is meant to be, a disturbing thought. Thus the children's story, with its delightful humor and Disneyesque imagery, suddenly rises to its proper "R" rating.

Scripture: Daniel 1:1-21; 3:1-18

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, had a troublesome minority on his hands. The Jews were stubborn. They refused to be melted into Babylon's melting pot. They clung, stubbornly, to their language, their customs, their religion. Like any smart tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar knew that his hope lay with the youth. Old people were not worth the bother. People in their prime might offer too much resistance. Children and young people were the key. "Who has the youth, has the future." Nebuchadnezzar knew young people well. He did not waste time and money trying to win over all the Jewish boys in Babylon. He took the leaders, "youths without blemish, handsome, and skillful in all wisdom." He took the honor roll students who were also top athletes. He knew that if you got them on your side, all the other young Jews would follow like sheep -- or goats. By Nebuchadnezzar's decision, Daniel and his friends found themselves suddenly a minority within a minority. They were Jews in Babylon. They were also being singled out for special treatment. The king had decided to forgive them for being Jews and to grant them all the advantages available to members of Babylon's nobility. They were to live at the royal court, have all their needs supplied, be treated like princes. They were going to have silver spoons stuck in their mouths -- and pushed down their throats. For Nebuchadnezzar's generosity had a purpose. By becoming page boys in the royal court, Daniel and his friends were not only to remain in the king's service all their life: they were also going to provide for their fellow Jews a shining example of the wisdom of the proverb: "When in Babylon, it pays to do as the Babylonians do." Nebuchadnezzar was not going to miss a single trick in educating Daniel and his friends into Babylonian conformity. They were to be given new names, not just because their Jewish names were hard for Babylonians to pronounce but because, in biblical times, a new name signified a new life. That is why Abram changed his name to Abraham. That is why Saul switched to his Roman name Paul. Daniel and his friends were expected to surrender their Jewish identity with their Jewish names. The faith of their fathers was going to perish with the names which their fathers had given them. Daniel and his friends were also going to receive a first-class Babylonian education. Nebuchadnezzar instructed the keeper of the royal harem, who was also responsible for the training of page boys in the royal court, that these four young Jews should be taught "the letters and language of the Chaldeans." The Chaldeans were the ruling class of the realm. They were also specialists in magic, astrology, and other prestigious sciences. Clearly, Daniel and his friends were headed for the Ivy League. As for the inner man, Nebuchadnezzar ruled that the four young Jews should receive the same food he ate and the same wines he drank. The royal cuisine was rich and spicy. Daniel and his friends were young, healthy men who loved food and would surely not object to getting the finest quality as long as they were getting enough! Thus everything was looking up from Nebuchadnezzar's point of view. But from the point of view of Daniel and his friends, things looked grim. They were Jews, heirs of the Jewish faith, members of the Jewish religious community. Their moral and religious commitments forbade them to melt into Babylon's melting pot. They had their own integrity to consider, of course. The king's plan would have put them to an agonizing test, even if there had been no one else to consider. But there is always someone else to consider. Integrity is never our private property. It always belongs to our public: to all the people, known or unknown to us, who look to us for an example, for leadership. In Daniel's case, he and his friends had actually been selected for their publicity value. If they could be assimilated unprotestingly, if they could be bribed into shedding their Jewish religion and their Jewish moral values, their school chums and playmates would follow. So would some members of their families. Before long, only die-hards would hold on to their Jewish identity. Eventually, the die-hards would die out, and Nebuchadnezzar's experiment, a pioneer experiment in education for conformity, would have succeeded without using such crude methods as Hitler would use 2,500 years later to get rid of the Jews. At the outset, Daniel and his friends were neither rebels nor heroes. They were quite willing to go along with the king's plan, up to a point. They liked the idea of getting a first-class education, with full scholarships. They did not really mind those tongue-twisting Babylonian names. They thought: "As long as we know who we are, what does it matter what they call us?" They were ready to submit to Nebuchadnezzar's "generosity" and to learn, at his expense, how to beat the Babylonians at some of their own games. But this business of diet nearly finished them before they had a chance to get started. For one thing, being healthy and tough, they despised the fancy cuisine of the royal court. They gagged on the gooey sundaes they were being served, not even in mid-afternoon but for breakfast! They knew that overindulgence in rich food and drink made people soft, not only physically but mentally and spiritually. They also knew that this was more than a matter of diet -- that it was a matter of religion. Breaking the diet prescribed by Moses amounted to compromise in the Jewish community, and compromise, especially in captivity, amounted to treason. Daniel and his friends were rigid about their religion. Rigid people may not be much fun. The leading Puritans were not much fun, but they were brave and rugged people, and they laid a solid foundation for our country. They knew, as did the four young Jews in our story, that there are things in life that are more important and of more lasting value than popularity and security. As Christians, we are supposed to have a faith that shows. Even those who openly belittle or deny the Christian faith, expect us to stand up and to speak up for what we profess. They may try to shout us down. They may succeed in beating us down. But they will be genuinely disappointed, as well as confirmed in their contempt for Christianity, if we do not show our faith. Daniel and his friends let their faith show, literally. They persuaded the king's chef to put them to a ten-day test in order to compare the effect of their frugal, kosher diet with the effect of the over-rich diet fed to the Babylonian young men. At the end of the ten days, the chef was convinced. The faces of the young Babylonians were flabby and full of pimples. The faces of the young Jews were firm and smooth. Of course, from a scientific point of view, this is hardly more than a fable. But the moral and spiritual message is inescapable. Whether we are Jews or Christians, we are expected to show our faith, perhaps in our faces but surely in our actions. For the emblem of our faith is not the chameleon, that paragon of conformity. The emblem of Jewish faith is the lion, the Lion of Judah roaring for justice. And the emblem of Christian faith is the lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the non-conforming Lamb of God most powerful in his willing, purposeful, redemptive death! Yes, death. For the story of Daniel and his friends is really a children's story, and even smart children know better than to believe such stories. Good and faithful Daniel, wearing a white hat, outwits crafty Nebuchadnezzar in the first round by gaining the right, for himself and his friends, to eat kosher in Babylon. Next thing, good and faithful Daniel refuses to worship the king's new idol. And when Nebuchadnezzar reluctantly throws him and his friends into the royal blast furnace, they come out unscathed, because that's the way it goes in children's stories if you are good and faithful. But let's examine the story of Daniel and his friends, as adults. It is a story written by an unknown Jewish writer, not during the Babylonian exile, in the sixth century B.C. but sometime during the second century B.C., when the Jews were being ruled and oppressed by the Syrians. Resentment of their oppression eventually led the Jews to revolt under the leadership of a noble family, the Maccabbees. What we know as the Book of Daniel was a revolutionary tract designed to help the Maccabeean Revolution succeed, which it did. But the story itself, as lively and well-loved as it is, raises more questions, for adults, than it answers. Does virtue really pay? Does God rescue his own in recognition of goodness and faithfulness? Will God keep it cool for his own in the royal blast furnace? Any Christian or Jew ready to answer these questions with a simple "yes" has never heard of Auschwitz. Or Majdanek. Or Treblinka. Those furnaces were not cool. They were hot. And they consumed alike the just and the unjust, the godly and the godless, with absolute impartiality. No, these are not simple questions. They are tough questions. And the toughest of them may be whether God ever does, or even can, intervene on behalf of his own in miraculous ways. Daniel and his friends come across very positive when they claim, in the face of Nebuchadnezzar's threat, that "our God is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace ... " (Daniel 3:17). But some of my classmates from the Lutheran Gymnasium of Budapest, who were gassed and cremated in Auschwitz, were equally positive in their Jewish faith, perhaps to the end, when they were being marched, naked, into what they had been told were shower sheds. Thus, if we take the faith of those young Jews in Babylon and of millions of other Jews throughout history at face value, we have a shocking problem: God is a monster! He knows his own. He sees their ghastly suffering. He may even be the One who has exposed them to this suffering in order to test their faith. But he does nothing. He lets them suffer and perish. For anyone smart enough and brave enough to confront reality, the problem is insoluble: God cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving. If you insist on claiming that he is both, you will have to convince me that every one of the six million deserved to die when they did and as they did. This, in turn, would make Hitler an instrument of God's will, and his murderous madness a vehicle for God's righteousness. At which point I say, "If God is like that, you can have him -- and keep him!" Thus the story of Daniel and his friends is deeply flawed, no matter how much we like it, no matter how much we may want to believe it. But even in the most "primitive" parts of the Bible, even in the middle of simplistic, morally unacceptable materials included in this amazing library which we so lightly call "God's Word," there is always something, some little surprise, some small discordant note, which reassures us that the "Word of God" is present after all. Even in this strictly "early Hollywood" story. Remember how the young men respond to Nebuchadnezzar's threat (Daniel 3:16-18): "O Nebuchadnezzar, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will (still) not serve your gods nor worship the golden image which you have set up!" "But if not...." These three little words more than justify keeping the story of Daniel and his friends in the Bible! We do not know what God is or is not able to do. You may consider him all-powerful, if you wish. I may consider him limited or self-limited, if I prefer. What we do know is that we cannot count on God for keeping it cool for us in the furnace! Our goodness and faithfulness can never be based on any quid pro quo. We dare not ever say, even in a whispered prayer, "All right, God, I will be good, I will be faithful, if you will keep me safe...." God does not enter into bargains. If Daniel and his friends had been loyal and brave just because they were expecting God to keep them safe, their righteousness would have been shallow, their virtue hollow. As Christians, we know both the power and the powerlessness of God. We celebrate the power of God on Easter Sunday -- and on every Lord's Day. But the model for our life and witness is the Cross where hangs the willing Victim, utterly powerless, not rescued at the last minute nor spared a single indignity or agony; and to follow this model, God's own model for human life, in a ceaseless quest for justice and reconciliation, is meant to be its own reward. If the life which Jesus has modeled for us, Cross and all, is not worth living for its own sake, it is simply not worth living. But it is! Dietrich Bonhoeffer would tell you so. Martin Luther King would tell you so. Archbishop Romero of El Salvador, gunned down in front of the altar for standing up for the poor, would tell you so. They all knew, they all lived by those three little words, "But if not...." Amen.

5. The Man Born Blind

Introductory Note

Jesus lived and died a believing, practicing Jew, but he challenged and transcended the religion of his people on many points of both doctrine and practice. One of his many clashes with the Pharisees, the Ultra-Orthodox of his day, revolved around the blind beggar in John 9. The theological problem persists, of course: how can a just God, a loving God, allow a human being to be born blind? The Pharisees' answer defends God's justice by assuming that the blindness is punishment for sin -- someone's sin. Jesus' answer is no answer: it is an act of mercy. For there is no answer -- except to show mercy and to keep trusting in God. What might be no more than a clanking of theological armor is at least partly salvaged by paying attention to the man born blind as a man. At first he is a stereotype: a text for the debate. But soon he is revealed as a person with integrity, curiosity, and tenacity. Distrusted and despised as a sinner, his witness proves more than a match for the Pharisees with his shrewd mind and sharp tongue. The debate continues, but his witness must henceforth be reckoned with.

Scripture: John 9:1-41

There are many things in life which make it easy for us to believe that God is love. There are memories of childhood, memories of father and mother, increasingly appreciated through the years. There are moments of tender communion between husband and wife, usually not scheduled and organized, like a birthday party, but unsought and unexpected: moments in which love runs so deep that only the language of poetry or prayer can do them justice. And there are times when a baby grins at us and a little hand trustingly explores our face, and suddenly we know that God is love. But there are other things in life which make it difficult for us to believe that God is love: not just difficult but nearly impossible. I am not thinking about man's inhumanity to man. Wars and all forms of violence are ultimately our responsibility. God is not the President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans. We dare not blame God for the ghastly things we do to one another or allow to be done with our approval or at least without protest.

A Man Born Blind But think of that man born blind, a man who has spent a lifetime in utter darkness. When you were little and your parents first pointed out to you the man with the white cane and the gentle dog, how did you react? Did you make believe for a few seconds that you were blind, too? Did you try to walk with your eyes closed? Did you keep going long enough to feel that sickening insecurity? I have always wondered whether it is more merciful to be born blind and never really to know the glory of seeing or to have something to remember, even though living in darkness. The question may be unrealistic. If there is an answer, I do not know it. But this I do know: it must be hard, brutally hard, to be blind, even in this age of Braille and radio and records and talking books and special skills to be learned and a large measure of self-esteem to be had for the effort. It is brutally hard to be blind even today, but in Jesus' time it was infinitely harder. For one thing, there was nothing to do for a blind man except to beg. The blind man whom we meet in the ninth chapter of John's Gospel was a beggar. What else could he be? Charity in those days was literal-minded, unimaginative. It was a religious duty to give alms, and people gave, as a matter of routine, to the beggars who crowded the Temple courts. There was no recognition of the individual and his sufferings in the transaction. The giver did not become involved at all. The possibility of healing did not exist; the very concept of rehabilitation was inconceivable. Nor was there any hope in the heart of a blind man, of any blind man. But the hardest thing for a man born blind was to know himself as an object of suspicion and reproach because of his blindness. The logic of the Pharisees and of their theology was airtight and inhuman. They interpreted congenital blindness as punishment for sin: if not the man's own sin, then surely the sin of one of his ancestors. The Pharisees remembered well the statement about God as "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children...." They conveniently forgot the sequel where God is described as "showing steadfast love to thousands ..." (Exodus 20:5-6).

A Case But the disciples were also children of their time. When they became aware of the man born blind, their reaction was predictable. "Master," one of them asked Jesus, hoping to use this interesting case to resolve a continuing theological debate, "who sinned -- this man or his parents -- that he was born blind?" (John 9:2). The question grates on our ears, of course; but remember that, in Jesus' day, one school of rabbis argued that one could sin even in the womb! Jesus, however, made short shrift of the question. "It was not that this man sinned or his parents," he said, "but that the works of God might be made manifest in him" (John 9:3). Many very religious people cannot endure the notion that God is greater than they. They must have an answer for everything in terms of their own earthbound logic. They must keep convincing themselves that, for them, the mind of God is an open book. The Pharisees were of this ilk. So were the Scholastics of the Middle Ages. So are many contemporary Fundamentalist Christians who treat the Bible like a digest of laws. But the ways of God are not necessarily logical -- by our standards. It was part of Jesus' mission to reveal God's lack of logic -- and excess of love. What could be more illogical than the Beatitudes? What could be more unexpected and offensive than the Son of God suspended on two wooden posts stained by his own blood rather than seated in splendor on a throne of gold? But Jesus did not come to explain why God behaved this way or that way. Jesus came to reveal the love of God in action, by his perfect life and willing death. The explanations he was ready to leave to the professionals.

A Person The Pharisees, then, and even the disciples, saw in the man born blind a case, a human peg on which to hang a doctrine, perhaps even a doctoral dissertation. But Jesus saw the man as a person, a suffering, defeated person who was appealing to him for help. For Jesus never saw people as cases, only as persons. Today there are doctors, not just of theology but of medicine, who forget that they are dealing with persons. The old-time family doctor did not begin to have the knowledge which even the average medical student must have nowadays in order to graduate. But the old doc did have the human touch; and, equally important, he had the time or took the time to apply it. Where many brilliant physicians today see only lungs or livers, the old doc saw persons. Social workers and members of other helping professions are daily courting the same danger. They are so highly specialized and so hamstrung by regulations that they often fail to see the human being in the file folder. Even ministers are prone to this temptation. It is difficult to keep any perspective about ministry to persons in a success-driven, efficiency-worshiping culture. A person can get lost even in a church, especially a successful, efficient church!

An Object Of God's Love Jesus looked at the man born blind and saw in him a person in need, a man in whom the love of God could be made manifest and who, in turn, could make the love of God manifest to others. These visions were both present in Jesus' mind, I am certain, but he did not make the first hinge on the second. He was going to heal this man unconditionally, even if the man never said, "Thank you," let alone became a disciple. Jesus helped and healed people without ulterior motive, to reveal God's limitless love, and from time to time he earned a bonus when someone did remember to say, "Thank you," or did join his band of disciples. With this man, Jesus was more than usually scrupulous about letting him know that there were no strings attached. He gave the man a perfect alibi. "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam," he told him (John 9:7). If he did, he could pretend that it was the water, with its alleged healing properties, that cured him. He would not have to tell anyone that Jesus even touched him. He was not running any risk at all. Jesus was giving him a foolproof chance to avoid guilt by association with him. But this man was made of solid stuff. For one thing, he was stubbornly truthful. He had only one story and he stuck to it. He knew that it was "the man called Jesus" who had healed him. He would not use the alibi Jesus had provided for him. He would not be intimidated by either third degree or taunts. Instead, he began picking up information about "the man called Jesus." By the time the Pharisees really went to work on him, he had an interpretation. "He is a prophet," (John 9:17) the man said, which was the last thing the Pharisees wanted to hear, since they were trying to prove that Jesus was both an ordinary man and a fraud.

A Witness To God's Love But the man born blind was now beginning to see all sorts of things. The opening of his physical eyes was bringing him unexpected spiritual insight. He had gotten hold of just one bit of truth, but his understanding of this bit of truth grew in the process of fighting for it! It is not necessary to know everything about Jesus. It is not even possible. The Gospel of John concludes with this lovely and completely truthful statement: "There are also other things which Jesus did; and were every one of them to be written down, the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25). Jesus is too big for any man's mind, but he fits readily into man's heart, because he can make a small, sluggish heart expand and throb with new life. The man born blind did not know much about Jesus. He learned more about him by fighting for his right to witness to what he did know. He knew that he was born blind, but that now he could see. He knew that if Jesus were not a man of God, he could not have healed him. At last, when Jesus asked him point blank, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (John 9:35) he confessed his faith, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him (John 9:38). The man born blind had come a long way. He started out with only a small fraction of the whole truth about Jesus, but that small fraction contained the essential ingredient: he knew what Jesus had done for him. Is it not true, as true as ever, that information about Jesus will take us only so far? It is helpful, indeed vital for our further growth in faith and discipleship. But it is not the main thing. The main thing, the decisive thing, is to know what Jesus has done for us. And not in the abstract, either. Nor in general, for the whole human race. Personally: for you and for me.

6. Adam Hiding1

Introductory Note

We like to feel good. We like a church that makes us feel good. We like sermons that make us feel good. Many ministers have been caricatured as "Dr. Feelgood" deservedly, because they are serving up the Good News of God's love while ignoring the bad news about ourselves, about God's knowledge of us, about God's judgment on us. This is not a "feel good" sermon. It deals with the many ways in which we try to evade responsibility for our actions or inaction. It exposes our moral nakedness in God's eyes. However, the discomfort which the sermon creates, purposefully, is mitigated and made palatable by being wrapped around the man Adam and his comically absurd attempt at hiding from God. Condemned by the "first Adam," who lives in every one of us, we are ready to hear the Good News about God's grace, revealed for our redemption in the "second Adam," our Lord Jesus Christ.

Scripture: Genesis 3:1-13, 22-24Psalm 139:1-12, 17-18, 22-24

When I was a little boy, I used to play hide-and-seek with my parents. I would hide behind a chair, sticking out all over. Then I would shut my eyes and shout, "You can't see me!" And Father and Mother would oblige by calling, "Where are you?" as if they didn't know. Adam was playing the same game with God the Father in the infancy of the human race. He had broken the only law God had imposed on him and his spouse. Now he was hiding behind some fragrant bush of Eden, with his bare bottom sticking out, pretending that God couldn't see him. And God obliged by calling, "Adam, where are you?" As if God didn't know.

Hiding Games It is easy to smile at the foolishness of Adam. But even Christians, who claim to be reborn through Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, continue to play the same games! For the little bush was not the only thing behind which Adam was trying to hide from God. As soon as God yanked him out from behind the bush, Adam found another hiding-place. "The woman," he stammered, "the woman you gave me to be with, me, she gave me of that fruit, and I ate." Thus began man's second oldest game. The first one had been hide-and-seek. This one came to be known as passing-the-shekel. Together they are called, more elegantly, rationalization. The fine art of rationalization is epitomized by the two great betrayals of Jesus: his betrayal by Judas and his betrayal by Pilate. Judas, I am sure, had a rough time trying to rationalize what he was about to do. His conscience refused to cooperate. At last it came to him: he would turn the responsibility over to the constituted authorities of his nation! Jesus had frustrated him completely. Judas did not know how to deal with One who claimed -- and promised -- a