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Center for Theology, Lenoir-Rhyne
College
The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 17, 2003
Second Lesson: Ephesians 5:15-20
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. - RSV
1. "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil." - Are the present days the more evil because of blatantly evil men and their evil deeds, as with the Husseins of Iraq, Taylor of Liberia, Hamas of Palestine, even Peterson of the Bay area or Bryant of Los Angeles? Of the quintet, the Hussein brothers stand out for their random rape and subsequent execution of women sighted on the street, and of feeding political enemies feet first into a shredding machine. Peterson is accused of murdering his wife Laci, eight months pregnant … the incident has caused a secondary stir as to the charges, vis-à-vis the otherwise sanctioned atrocity of abortion: multiple murders, counting the unborn-but-now-named child as victim. Does the status of the child as eligible for abortion only depend on the wishes, the whim, of the mother?
Or is the present the more evil because other men and women, themselves otherwise of good conscience as they reside on the Supreme Court or in the congress of Episcopal delegates, have this summer lifted to the legitimate and blessed what the Vatican has in the same summer rightly called "intrinsically disordered" and "objectively disordered." To say such is, of course, to speak of the question of homosexual relations, legitimized as to private expression by the Justices and elevated to the purple by both the delegates and the Bishops.
To say that the days are evil is no stretch. Even relativists who are wont to protest that one man's evil is another man's justice - as some do in evaluating the war in Iraq - will concede so. And in some quarters the evil has indeed become casual. Witness the column from Charlotte Observer writer Dannye Romine Powell in today's section B, dateline Durham. She writes:
"Sometimes you have to laugh - even when the subject is murder. It's Monday at the Michael Peterson trial. State's witness: A male escort turned N.C. State chemistry major. Brent Wolgamott, 28, aka 'Brad,' is a compact Mr. Clean with a blond buzz cut, charm-school manners, and a navy blazer with brass buttons. The prosecution wants to convince jurors that e-mails Peterson exchanged with Wolgamott in 2001 led to a confrontation with Peterson's wife, Kathleen. And that that confrontation might've led Peterson to murder Kathleen early on December 9, 2001."Peterson, charged with first-degree murder, says his wife fell on a back staircase. The state's gambit is plausible. But the defense has its own strategy. When David Rudolf - very GQ in a charcoal suit, lavender shirt and lavender-blue tie - finishes cross-examining Wolgamott, some Court TV viewers must be left wondering how they can possibly have a healthy marriage if their husbands are not contacting a male escort.
"'Yes ma'am, that's me.' Prosecutor Freda Black is showing Wolgamott an exhibit that includes photos of him and various clients' reviews of their experiences with him. Yes, he says, he recognizes an exchange of emails with 'mpwriter,' Peter's e-mail. Yes, Wolgamott recognizes his phone number on Peterson's phone bill. And, yes, the e-mails turned sexual.
"Yes, he sent Peterson a photo. And, yes, his fee of $150 an hour is the normal price a 'prostitute' charges. He corrects Black: 'I prefer to call it "escort."'
"Yes, he and Peterson were to hook up on Sept.5. Wolgamott, then stationed in Fayetteville with the Army, says he was to go to Peterson's house 'or another house he had.' But Wolgamott had a flight to Palm Springs the next day. He says he didn't feel like meeting Peterson. He didn't show, and he didn't call.
Were any of the clients' reviews from married men? Rudolf asks Wolgamott on cross-examination. 'Married men are the majority of men I saw,' he says. 'Wasn't me!' says Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson. Fair to say the men you see are bisexual? 'Predominantly straight with minor homosexual tendencies,' says Wolgamott. 'Most of the men have their time with me and go back to their healthy, happy wives.' Well, well, well.
"If a bias against Peterson is forming as the jury studies the e-mails, phone bills and photos, it doesn't show. They stretch their necks, adjust their glasses, scratch their ears, nonchalant as you please. But then almost everything in this trial seems to be different than it first appeared. Love. Marriage. Money. The finely feathered nuances of fidelity."
Well, well, well, indeed. From the global to the local, from the desert to the gutter, the days are evil. Or at least glutted with evil. Sometimes evil seeking endorsement as virtue. And, sometimes, getting it. Even the "nuances of fidelity" are shifting, far beyond the Durham courtroom
2. "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." David knows in the psalms that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Otherwise and additionally informed by "the Spirit," as is being widely if not universally retorted in response to any challenge from the teaching of the Scriptures, the fear of the Lord is notably absent as new teachings are trotted forward as presently the "will of the Lord." God is doing a new thing, said now-endorsed Bishop Gene Robinson, on the eve of the day when the final vote was to be cast as to his confirmation. Understanding "what the will of the Lord is" now involves the privilege of what early was known as Gnosticism - knowledge privileged to the recipient. As to salvation. Current Gnosticism arises to counter historic teaching and biblical witness. The Holy Spirit is invoked against the teaching of St. Paul, himself allegedly inspired precisely by the same Spirit. What is foolish and what is wisdom, in the matter, become subject to vote in church conventions, whether Episcopal or, in a few years, ELCA. The advocates argue that homosexuality and homosexual behavior are questions of simple justice - and injustice, when proscribed. Like slavery. Or the subjugation of women. A friend remarks that the summer of '03 is a watershed: we are witnessing the eclipse of marriage as the God-ordained normative venue for "sexual expression." Now, or soon: one choice among many. St. Paul's advice to the Ephesians stands the stronger the more acutely it is tested: "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."
3. "but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart." - St. Paul typically leaps into doxology in the presence of unfathomable mystery. Here is doxology in the face not of mystery but of evil. Melodies that come spontaneously to mind these days sound more like dirges. In a culture that has all but turned its back on God. For a church that insists that "human sexuality" is an "open question," subject to convention vote, subject to revision as to its norms, apart from the plain teaching of scripture. The content of the "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" does not know the revisionist bias. As the same St. Paul says in another place, "You did not so learn Christ." Making melody to the Lord with all our hearts is a piece of praise, the content of which is best informed by the angels at Bethlehem, or St. Paul in the first chapter of Colossians, or by Mary's words at the home of Elizabeth and Zachariah, in the hill country near Jerusalem: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my doth rejoice in God my Savior." What kind of magnification of the Lord resides in elevating a homosexual relationship to the office of bishop? Kyrie eleison.
4. "always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." - Always? Perhaps …. As in pray without ceasing and "in everything give thanks." But here also, everything. Even the foolish? Even the evil? Certainly not the latter, though if not for the evil then at least the opportunity to combat it. Or to suffer and be persecuted on account of it. Evil, like the poor, we have always with us. Sometimes in forms more virulent than others. The evil that is, or was, Saddam and his sons is so vile and so malevolent as to be revolting. Feeding live men feet-first into a shredding machine. Cutting off a prisoner's arms with a chain saw. Gassing whole villages. Raping women in front of their tied-and-bound husbands, and then executing them. Disgusting. Inhuman. Cannot be tolerated by civilized humanity. For what do we give thanks, here? For the challenge to combat this evil, in the name of justice if not freedom. And thanks for the elimination of that plague.
As to calling what is evil now good? We give thanks for faithful voices raised in defense of the faith. We give thanks for the opportunity to proclaim, and to be faithful. And, yes, even give thanks for rejection and ostracism on such account.
But primarily giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father for having sent His Son into the world to redeem us rather than to condemn us. For the promise of life and salvation. For the Gospel, and, yes - in these days especially when it is scorned and forgotten - for the Law. Look carefully how you walk. Kyrie, eleison.
JLY - 08.12.03 [for Pentecost 10, August 17, 2003]
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